《Diary of the Shadow Queen》


 Chapter 1

    MaxwellAdams slowly regains consciousness. He was laying in a very comfortable bed, which would have been nice if his arms and back were not aching horribly. Slowly he opens his eyes and sees a rare sight: a painted ceiling. He looks around the room which is clearly a girls room and one with a bit of wealth to have a pre-calamity dresser. He wonders how he got here and tries to remember what happened before he blacked out. He was escorting some refugees to a fortress city. When they were an hour away from their destination, a horde of essence beasts was roaring behind them. Himself and a few other essence cultivators stayed behind to buy some time. He felt like an idiot for volunteering for a suicide mission like that, but he couldn''t stand the thought of children being ripped apart by those things. It didn''t take long for the beasts to come into sight. The essence beasts were foaming at the mouths as soon as they saw his group. Fear gripped him as he nervously gripped his titanium blade. The others were just as bad off, but no one fled. He roared with fear and fury and charge at them, which was a signal to the others to charge with him. He was swinging his blade with wild abandon. At first it seemed like they would slaughter those monsters, but one by one his companions were picked off due to the sheer number of essence beasts. He dispaired as he saw countless teeth and claws coming at him. He felt sudden pain. Next thing he knew he awoke feeling immense pain.


    None of what happened before explains why he is in this room. He needs to find the person who saved him. He tries to get up, which aggrivates his injuries. He unconsciously lets out a groan of pain and freezes immediately after. His groan sounded distinctly feminine. He slowly brings his hands to his face disregarding the pain that causes. His facial features are clearly that of a young woman. In a panic, he grabs at his crotch, only to confirm his fears. He is now a girl. DAMN IT! HOW!? WHY?


    "Max?" a womans voice sounded from outside of the room. That voice triggers a surge of memories to painfully burn in her head. Memories of a teenage girl named Maxine Levings. The first eight years of this girl''s life were quite nice, but the following five were a waking nightmare. The first of which was of her drunken father in an enraged state as he beat her with his fists, knocking out a few of her remaining baby teeth as well as breaking her left arm. Five more years of such treatment being forcefully shoved down her throat immediately after that one. She was left shivering in terror and felt sick to her stomach after the memories stopped flooding her mind. Although it seemed like an eternity for Max, it really only lasted a few seconds. She hugged herself in an attempt to stop herself from trembling.


    Her mother, Claudia, entered the room. Her mother was walking stiffly. It seems her father hadn''t sparedhis wife from the beatings either.That man is scum. Why did I have to be reincarnated to be the daughter of such a bastard?Her mother was carrying a tray of food. "Don''t worry I have already called your school and told them you were sick," Claudia said as she set the food on the nightstand. Her mother had made excuses before along the lines that Max had a weak constitution and got sick easily to explain her frequent absences. SHE COVERS FOR THAT BASTARD?!


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    Her mother didn''t speak any further before leaving the room. Her breakfast, if it could be called as such, was plain oatmeal. She quickly devoured it before reaching for her flip phone to check the date. It is March 3rd, 2018. Roughly three months before the first essence beasts start cropping up. If, and it is a big if, she begins cultivating right now, she might get reach the second level of the copper stage before things go all to hell. It mostly depends on her current body''s talent in that regard.


    Max begins to meditate and circulate her self-taught cultivation method. Her body absorbed the energy far faster than her old one, probably because she is younger than when she started last time. It only took her half of one hour before a strand of essence appeared in her body. That strand pulsated for a moment. It triggered something in her very blood causing the way the essence was refined in her body. The essence seemed to be drawing in bothblack and white colored essence. She had heard of something like this happening in others. It was an elemental awakening. Anyone who experienced this often gained an evolving cultivation method. Elemental essence cultivators advanced only slightly faster than normal, but it''s greater ease in using elemental energies that made them far more powerful than others in the same level.


    Her essence was being cultivated by instinct rather than by her own cultivation method. She continued to cultivate for another hour. Even the best cultivation methods could only be used for at most four hours a day. The good news is that her new method also caused her to heal. Her various bruises were not hurting nearly as badly as they were before. She carefully got out of bed and headed to the bathroom to take a shower. Her parents had already left for work while she had been cultivating.


    She undresses and almost weeps when she remembers this world still had hot showers available. She enjoys a steaming hot shower. She had forgotten how good they felt. After her shower, she brushes her brown shoulder length hair. I hate this hair. When I was a man, I never had to brush it.She finally looks at herself in the mirror. She is beautiful. If it wasn''t for her immature figure, she would be a 10 out of 10 beauty.This is bad.Young women, especially the pretty ones, did not have it good when the essence beasts took over and the governemnt collapsed. They often became the playthings for the rich or powerful.She had an even greater reason to get powerful fast now.


    She changed into a clean set of clothes while trying to remind herself that she is indeed a girl and neeeds to wear a girl''s clothes now. This would defintely take some getting used to. After finishing getting dressed, she went back to her bed and cultivated for a few more hours.She thought some more on her situation. She needed to get away from her current parents. She couldn''t think of many solutions. One was to turn them in to child services, but they may just dismiss her because there is no longer any proof that they are. Another is to runaway, but then people would be on the look out for her. It makes that idea worthless. The only other way is to have her father seen beating her or have it caught on camera. It would be difficult and would also require a bit of bad luck on her father''s part as well. Now all there to do is to wait for an opportunity.

 Chapter 2

    Max had been reading her textbooks to distract herself of her issues using the bathroom earlier. Every time she thought about it she couldn''t help but shiver. That is one thing that would take some getting used to. She was mostly reading to maintain her grades. Any big changes in her grades or behavior would draw attention to herself. She did not want any unwanted attention, least of all from the government. In her previous time through, the government had put combination shock and explosive collars on the essence cultivators to control them. They did it to at least five that she knew of. Those poor souls were little more than slaves of some deranged general that viewed them as something not human and ended up getting killed only months after the essence beasts started appearing. Getting caught by that manis something she seriously wanted to avoid at least until she was confident that she could outrun those that had already been caught.


    Just as she finished a chapter as something dawned on her. Her mother had said she called Max''s school, but today is a saturday. Why did she say that? She had never heard of any school that had classes on the weekend. She searches her memories of the last few days to figure out what is going on. Max could only feel pity for the poor girl as well as rage at her father when she saw the memories of the past two days. Her father had beaten the poor girl badly, but hadn''t broken any bones. However the injuries hurt even more than normal and she had suffered in agony for 24 hours before her mind finally broke. That is what allowed Max to take over her body. This is just another reason for me to hate that bastard.She gave a small prayer for the girl to find happiness in her next life. She clearly deserved it.


    Max looked at a nearby clock and saw that it was nearly time for her mother to get home. Her father wouldn''t be home for another hour. That is if he doesn''t go drinking. If that happens, he could come home past midnight. How that man could consciously drink alcohol and know what it does to him is beyond her understanding. He could simply not care what happens.


    Max didn''t want to waste any more time with useless thoughts, so she began to examine the black and white essence that she had gathered earlier. She had never heard of essence of this color before. She couldn''t even guess as to it''s properties. She would have to experiement with it to determine what it did. She lifted up her right hand and tried to channel some of the white essence to a point over her index finger. Nothing happened. She tried channeling the black essence instead and got the same result.She growls in frustration.What is the point of having special essence, if I can''t even use it?!After a few moments of thought, she has a sudden idea. She channels both at the same time and a greyish blob, about the size of a pea, appears above her index finger. She manipulates it into various shapes.Well so far so good. But what are it''s properties?It''s behavior doesn''t align with earth, water, wind or fire. Playfully she has it emulate the behavior of a small flame. She immediately feels heat coming from it.Huh?She shifts it to something like a droplet of water and touches it with her left hand. It feels wet. She squints her eyes and makes it into a tiny blade. She uses it to cut a piece of paper.Holy crap! This stuff can behave like any of the elements.Max was terribly excited but something was still bothering her. Normal essence can behave the same way with a bit of practice. It still didn''t give her the specific characteristics of her essence. She looked at it''s color more carefully. It was almost the same shade as a shadow. She knelt down and put the small greyish blob against her shadow. She found she could actually manipulate her own shadow. She stretched it and shrank it regardless of where a light source was. She tried it with shadows of the furniture and got the same result only it was slightly more difficult.So since it can control shadows andcan mimic the behaviors of most elements. I guess I should call it shadow essence. She began to feel light-headed and withdrew her shadow essence back. She couldn''t use it for very long until she reached the copper stage.


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    When her mother got home, she tried her best to act like the girl. It was difficult since he had to behave very docile and tame. It was frustrating. Max wasn''t docile or tame at all. She had been quiet and wanted to be left alone. She gave in to her current fate, since acting out of her normal behavior would likely result in doctors poking and prodding her. That was something she did not want.


    She went to the kitchen to help her mother cook as is usual and ate her dinner before heading back to her room to study. Her father came home sometime later. Max could hear something that indicated her father felt remorse and he sounded sober. It was something that was rather surprising. He normally can''t go for more than a day without alcohol of some kind. As if apologizing can erase the damage that you have done. His apologies kept going on for some time, before Max heard his footsteps approaching her room. After he came in her room, he appeared to be extremely apologetic and immediately began apologizing for what he did. The man was practically in tears.If you were really sorry, you would stop drinking.She was tempted to yell at him, but that would serve no purpose. Not to mention it would be completely out of character. She made a show of accepting his apology before he left her withan empty promise of not to drink any alcohol again. She didn''t believe him. The longest he had ever gone without getting drunk was a week. She wondered how long he could last this time. She returned her attention to her text book to finish up the chapter she was on. She went to bed after a few hours, but had difficulty sleeping.


    The next day her father remained sober. Her mother was behaving as if he hadn''t ever gotten drunk and hit her in the first place. Max didn''t like how indifferent her mother was. After eating breakfast, she spent most of the day either studying or cultivating. She gained another strand of shadow essence. This kind of progress is miles apart from what she experienced in the past. Or would it be future now?It took her almost a week to get a single strand last time. At this pace she will be in the copper stage in eight more days. Not even elemental essence cultivators had this kind of training speed and theywere only able to gather a strand of essence every other day. She was looking forward to when the ten essence strands gather near her heart bringing her into the threshold of the copper stage. For every rank beyond the first one, the requirement to advance further would require onlyten strands to advance to the next rank. When she gathered a total of one hundred essence strands, she would advance to Bronzestage. At her current pace she should advance to bronze rank shortly after the essence beasts start cropping up. That is assuming she doesn''t encounter any bottlenecks. Fortunately there are ways of speeding up her cultivation once she hits the Bronze rank. The only problem is that it requires essence cores from eithercultivators or essence beasts to do it or special herbs.


    She was dreading tomorrow though. She hated school when she was a man and almost everyone ignored her at that time. But she is now a beauty. Regardless of whether she had a reputation of being sickly, there will likely countless young men trying to get her attention. The girl ignored their advances in the past, but that didn''t solve anything. It only urged those idiots on. Most of them thought she was being hard to get and competed for her attention, which illicited alot of jealousy from the other girls. None of the girls had resorted to bullying yet, but it was only a matter of time, if Max did nothing. She didn''t want to have to deal with that headache for the next three months while she tried to lay low. Max tried to devise a method to defuse this whole situation, but came up with nothing that didn''t involve using her essence.She lay there in bed thinking about a solution half the night before sleep claimed her.

 Chapter 3

    Max arrived at school and still had no ideas. She walked through the halls to the cafeteria to wait for classes to begin. She could feel the glares of the other girls. She tried her best to ignore them. Unfortunately, a group of girls flanking one of the prettier girls started to prowl towards her.Crap. This is something I do not need right now.


    She recognized the lead girl. It was Emily Herst and for some reason she made it her duty to chew Max out every morning for glamouring the boys with her weak and innocent act. She normally didn''t bring posse though. As expected Emily began her rant, "Good morning, tramp. Why can''t you just pick one of those guys to date and be done with it? At least, one of them would be able to stop whoever has been hitting you. It''s like you enjoy toying their feelings." Max tuned her out at that point while wondering when Emily would stop talking. Why won''t thisshe just shut up already? Wait a second. She knows? She took a few glances around looking and noticed quite a few looks of sympathy or concern directed at her, mostly from the boys. It seems they all knew she had been beaten before. Max quickly checked her memories and found several instances where other girls andmost of her suitors had tried to help her in the past year. Not giving her inheirited memories a good look over was starting to give her a headache. She made a mental note to go through them in detail after getting home. She turned her attention back to Emily. It didn''t appear as ifshe was reaching out to Max. It was obvious the girl hated Max.


    Too bad.She is smart and quite cute.An idea popped in her head as she finished that thought. She didn''t know why she hadn''t thought ofthis earlier.Oh this is too good to pass up and it will be a good way to shut her up at the same time. It was difficult to supress her urge to giggle. She would have to do this right to avoid leaving any form of misinterpretation.


    It wasless than five minutes until class would start when Max acted. Sheimmediately stood up,startling Emily in the process, and wrapped her arms around Emily''s waist and neck before kissing her. Feeling that she had to really sell this, Maxforces her tongue into the other girl''s mouth. Emily started resisting weak at first but quickly got stronger. Max wasquickly pushed away by Emily. She couldn''t help but notice how red Emily''s face was. Emily made a disgusted face, but Max couldn''t help herself as she licked her lips as if savoring the taste.If this doesn''t do the trick, I don''t know what will. Emily somehow got an even deeper red and ran away. Max hadn''t expected the poor girl to cry. Now she felt bad.


    Max tried to follow Emily to apologize, but Emily''sposseblocked her off. They were staring knives at her before chasing after Emily. Max didn''t know what else to do other than to head to class. Shegot to class as the bell rang. Unfortunately, shefound that most of her classes were extremely boring. It was difficult to appear alert and ready to learn when you already knew all the material. The only stimulation she got all day wasduring gym. She got quite the view in the locker room while everyone was getting into their gym clothes. She was having an amazing time as she gotto experience a teenage boy''s dream of being able to go in the girl''s locker room. Although she was a bitdisappointedthat the spectacle didn''t last longer, shewas aware that she hadother classes today. By the end of the school day, she was in a good mood, since she solved the problem at school. Now all she had to do was solve the problem that is her father.


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    Unfortunately, that good mood was short lived. She had waited for half of a hour in vain for her mother to come pick her up. She let out a sigh. This wasn''t the first time that her mother hadn''t picked her up. Thankfully, her home wasn''t too farof a walk. But for some reason, she felt as if someone was watching her. She looked around frequently but didn''t see anyone. She knew her survival instincts wouldn''tmislead her. It was beginning to get annoying until she saw someone a tad too slow getting back into cover. That person was way too big to be someone from her school. I don''t know who you are asshole, but I am not leading to you to where I live. She resisted the urge to break into a run and calmly walkedto a nearby gas station. She went to the back and pretended to look at the snack aisle.She had to wait for fifteen minutes before she got a good look of her stalker. She knew him from her past life. He was one of the people caught by that deranged general. Even if she hadn''t seen him before, the metalic hoop around his neck was a dead giveaway. She tried her best to act normal. He walked right past her while holding something that looked likea thick version of an IPad while appearing to be looking for something. She glanced at the screen when his back was facing her. It looked like adetector some kind. That better not be what I think it is. She quickly concealed her essence emmissions. It was a useful trick to hide from most devices used to detect culvitavors, but it was not that effective on people with a good spiritual sense. The young man looked confused as he walked back and forth in the gas station. Fuck! It is an essence radar. He walked around the store a few more times, before leaving. She would most certainly be put on the watch list now.She started cursing in her head after leaving the gas station.


    Max walked the rest of the way home without revealing her concern. By the time she finally got home, she was exhausted and collapsed into her bed. She hadn''t thought that those things were that sensitive or she would have been concealing her essence sooner. Too late to think about that now. However, those types of handheld devices had a very limited range of about five hundred feet or so. The biggest problem she will be facing is during her breakthroughs in the copper stage. She would definitely be giving offalot of essenceduring those times. Whoever was assinged to monitor would definitely have one of those radars. Things just got a lot more complicated. She would need to find a secluded place for her future breakthroughs, preferably one deep underground. That would block most of the energy she would be emitting from being detected. She would do a search for places like that tomarrow in the school library before classes start.She had the rest of the school week to find a good spot or two.


    Max pushed those thoughts out of her mind so she could cultivate. When her mother got home a couple hours later, she apologized for not showing up earlier. Apparently, she had been overloaded with work and lost track of time. She got a surprise when her father came home that night. He poured out all ofthe alcohol in the house and said he was going out to an Alcoholics Anomynous meeting. Her dad had never gone to one of those meetings before. It seemed he was making an honest attempt this time. She wondered how long he would hold up as she went back to her room. She no longer cared if he got drunk and beat her again. Even if she was, someone else would turn him in now that she was being watched. Shefinished up her daily cultivation and did a thorough sorting of her memories.

 Chapter 4

    Something had been bothering Max ever since she started looking for a place to breakthrough. It was a subtle feeling that was just out of reach. She tried to ignore it as she searched the internet at the library. Unfortunately, she could only find a cave systemaround fifty miles away. There was just no good cave systems where she lived. It wasn''t a place she could go to without drawing alot of attention to herself. It was now friday and she didn''t have any hideouts to use so far. She only had one choice left, but it could only be used once. She would have to perform her breakthroughs at a place with lots of people. It would make it alot harder for them to figure out it is her that was giving off all that essence.


    The first hour bell rang as Max got to her feet. She needed more alternatives. If only, she could make something or someone to lure her stalker and his essence radar away. She quickly got to class and tried to pay attention while thinking of a solution to her problem. She still had no answer by the time lunch came around. She was picking at her food when she saw Emily starting to approach.Here comes the show.Max turned to face her, but Emily blushed fiercely. Her expression quickly turnedfrom embaressment to confusion and finally rage before she fled. Emily has done that every day since Max had kissed her. Max found her behavior quite amusing. Oddly though, Emily only walked a few feet before stopping. She turned back around to face Max with a determined look on her face. She walked straight up to Max before speaking, "Did you know there is a strange man asking about you?"


    "Is it the heavily muscled brunette that looks like he should be on a high school football team?" Max answered.


    "So you do know him!" Emily accusation almost sounded like she was jealous. Max discounted it off hand. It was obvious to anyone that had eyes that the girl prefered men.


    "Oh, don''t get jealous," Max says teasingly before continuing, "The creepo'' has been following me around everywhere for the past few days. I have been wondering what to do about it. Any ideas?"


    "Call the cops," Emily replied simply.


    "Already have. It didn''t do any good," Max lied. Because even if she did ''call the cops,'' it would only mean a change of who was watching her. She rather know who to look out for."Anyways, what was he asking about?"


    Emily gave her a wierd look before answering, "Alot of questions about how you act at school and if you had any friends." Emily paused for a moment as if in thought. "At first I thought he was just dumb boy smitten by you, but it was his tone that made me worried. It was as if he wasn''t interested in you at all, but instead was writting a research report on you."I am not surprised by that. It makes sense that they would try to get a psych profile of me. Probably to see if I am a loner or not. It would be a sign that I am hiding something. I wonder how he reacted when he found out I kissed Emily.


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    She would have to check her room later for any surveillance devices. But first she had to discourage Emily from bothering her anymore. She knew it would piss Emily off when she asked with a mischievoussmile, "Did you tell him that I kissed you?"


    Emily''s face was crimson as she growled in indignation at Max, "Go to hell." Emily storms away from Max. Max felt bad for teasing Emily so badly, but it is better for Emily if she kept her distance. It was better for everyone to be far away from her, if things went south.


    The rest of the school day went by in what seemed like a blurr. After leaving her middle school, Max looked toward the high school down the street. She had afeeling that he wasfrom that high school. Hence she had kept an eye out for her stalker leaving since she first saw him, but had no luck thus far. It didn''t take long for her to spot him. She spotted him after watching ten minutes. He was walking by himself and didn''t even try talking to anyone.It''s not like he can afford have friends with a literal bomb around his neck. He didn''t bother getting on a bus and started to walk in her direction. Max stopped looking at him and began to walk home. Max gave up waiting for her mother after she didn''t come for three days in a row. She didn''t bother her as much that he was following her since she knew all he was doing was observing her.


    When she got home, she went to her room as she normally did and slowly looked it over. Everything was in the right place and everything that should have a light coat of dust still had it. She still wouldn''t show any signs that she was cultivating. She sat down and did what homework she had and opened up her textbook to make it appear she is studying. She began cultivating and would flip the page periodically. She switched out textbooks when she reached the end of that particular chapter. It took her a bit longer than normal to cultivate this way, but it was an excellent cover, if she there were surveilance devices in her room. Even if there weren''t, it wouldn''t hurt to get into the habit for when there are some.


    Her parents got home before she finished that session. Her father looked miserable. He had been sober for nearly a week. He didn''t look like he would last much longer without some kind of encouragement. Without any hesitation, she walked up to him and gave him a hug while saying, "Thanks for trying so hard, dad." She didn''t need him to break and start drinking again. Before she could break away, he had hugged her back. "I don''t deserve you or your mother," he spoke softly.Damn right, you don''t. They stayed like that for some time before her father finally released her. She said she had some homework left to do before returning her room. She finished her cultivation and got readyfor bed when that bothersome feeling from that morning came to the surface. The name of the one of the first cities destroyed by an essence beast horde was St. Louis and Max currently lived the western part of Wentzville. She couldn''t be much more than twenty five miles away from ground zero.

 Chapter 5

    Max was running for her life with several terrified people. The agonized screams of those that were too slow resounding behind them. Max turned her head back only to be filled with even greater terror. There were at over a dozen set of glowing red eyes behind them. FUCK! She didn''t need to see those things clearly to know what was chasing them. Three foot long rats that were known as Sadist Rats. As their name implied, they delight causing as much fear and suffering as possible to all that they feed on. Once their victim is dead though, they will ignore even the tastiest of flesh. One of her companions sawthose things and screamed. The rats let out squeels of delight as they slowly gained on them. One by one her fellows were introduced to their own personal hell. Their screams of agony slowly trailing behind her. Eventually it was just her and another girl. Without a second thought, Max tripped her to buy herself more time to get away. Max didn''t turn back to watch her fate and only closed her eyes as she sprinted ahead. She didn''t get far when she ran into something. She rebounded off of it and landed on her ass. She saw ahugebear five feet tall at the shoulder with fur blacker than night, a Terror Bear. She quickly turned around to run away before it could attack and saw the girl getting her arms and legs torn apart by the rats. The scary part was the girl wasn''t screaming. The girl slowly morphed into Emily. "Why did you leave me to die?" she said mournfully. Max couldn''t answer her as one of the rats bit her neck showing Max in blood. Max wanted to scream, but the Terror Bearstruck her it''s massive pawcausing her to explode into a mess of body parts.


    Max jerked awake while covered in sweat. She pants heavily for several second before calming down. She reminded herself that it had just been a dream. It was monday morning. She had been having that samenightmare for the past three days. She understood why Emily had appeared in the dream. It was her own subconscious giving her a guilt trip for treating the girl so badly. She didn''t exactly like her all that much, but she was the only person she has spoken more than a few words to since being reincarnated as a girl. She played with the thought of taking Emily with her whenMax hightailed it out of the city. She couldn''t think of anything that would convince the girl to come with Max, without revealing what she is.Unfortunately, every likely scenario under that pretext would almost universally resulted in Emily fleeing while under the impression that Max was an insane freak. On the other hand, if she waited for the essence beast horde to arrive as her proof, events playing out like hernightmare was a real possibility. Why am I even considering this? Am I really that lonely?


    After getting some breakfast and a shower, she was driven to school by her mother as usual. She walked to the library and pulled out a blank notebook. She hesitated for a moment before jotting down her cultivation method, illistrations included. On the extremely unlikely chance that Emily believed her, it would make teaching Emily easier. It didn''t take her long to finish it. Her cultivation method was rather simple afterall. She stuffed the notebook into her backpack before heading to class. She wished her classes would go by faster, but the more she wished it the slower they seemed to go. Her math teacher called out to her to solve a problem on the board because he thought she wasn''t paying attention. She shut him up by instantly answering the question on the board. By the time lunch came around, she couldn''t have been any more bored. After sitting down with her lunch, she wondered if Emily would come again, but it was unlikely after the teasing she gave her on Friday. She didn''t even bother looking for her. No one else was even at her table. She began eating in solitude.


    She had gotten half-way through her food when Emily sat down next to her. Max glanced at her. Why is she here? Not that I am complaining, but didn''t I chase her off. Emily looked like she wanted to say something, but was afraid of the Max reaction. "Back for more?" Max said in a half-hearted playful manner.


    "No," Emily said while looking down at her tray. She sat up straight and turned her head toward Max. "I know." Every muscle in Max''s body stiffened up in sudden fear. She knew immediately that she shouldn''t have done that. It was the same as confirming whatever conclusions Emily had made.


    "I am sorry. That was a test," Emily said apologetically. Max looked at Emily out of the coner of her eye. Emily had a pure look of sympathy on her face. Max looks back down at her tray of food.Since that cat is so clearly out of the bag, I might as well run with it.


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    "Why do you care?" Max said morosely.


    "I shouldn''t care. But... after I complained about you to my grandpa, he made me realize you might have been abused and that your antics were a way to reach out to me."


    "I wasn''t reaching out to you at all. I kissed you because I thought you were cute and it is really fun to watch yourreactionas I tease you," Max answered. Emily started to get embarressed and angry based on her expression at hearing that, but it quickly vanished as Max continued to speak. "But you are right. My dad is a bastard that beats his own daughter."


    "You need to go to the police. They can put him behind bars where he belongs," Emily pleaded.


    Max was seriously considering telling Emily why she wasn''t going to do that. "What would going to the police accomplish exactly? My mother has been covering my father''s tracks for years and she is very good at it. It would be their word against mine at this point," Max said.


    "What about all the times you came to school with bruises?" Emily suggested.


    "My mother forced me to drink something when I was nine to make my platelet count plummet before I got a blood test when the doctors were trying to explain my frequent bruises. Whatever it was couldn''t be detected by a normal blood test. They diagnosed me with a low, but not dangerously low, platelet count, which would account for my bruising. Didn''t you wonder why the school hadn''t brought that up before now?" Max refuted. Sadly, her mother had indeed done that.


    "He couldn''t have avoided breaking your bones right?" Emilywas starting to grasp at straws.


    "You are right. My left arm and a few ribs on the same side. It happened when I was ten. I believe mothertold the doctor that I fell off my bike onto some rocks aftershe and father foolishly agreed to my incessant requests for one," Max said, "That supposed bike is still in the garage. I never did get to ride it."


    "That''s horrible. How did the doctors not figure it out?" Emily asked.


    "I was only ever taken to the hospital for my arm and ribs. Dad was oddly careful not to beat me so hard I needed medical attention after that incident," Max said. Max stuffed a few pieces of her lunch into her mouth while she waited for Emily to say or ask something else.


    "I am so sorry," Emily said as she put a comforting hand on Max''s shoulder.


    "Your word of sympathy won''t change my situation or my past," Max stated.


    "My grandpa can help," Emily spoke confidently.


    "And who is your grandpa? How could some old man help me?" Max asked not believing that Emily''s grandpa could really do anything.


    "My grandpa is General Mckenzy and even if he can''t, he will know someone who can." Max felt as if she had been hit by a lightning bolt.That is the heartless bastard that is putting those damn collars on essence cultivators.There is no way that I am that unlucky. But why don''t I ever hearing about that guy having a grand daughter or any relative for that matter. Max didn''t like thinking about the answer.


    "Hey what''s wrong? You got pale all the sudden." Emily''s voice shook Max out of her own thoughts.


    Max stood up. "I''m not sure. I am going to the nurse''s office," Max said. She grabbed her back and did just that. She heard the bell ring while the nurse checked her vitals andgot a pass to return to class. Her remaining hours of class went by much faster than those this morning.


    When Max got home, she only left her room to get dinner. Otherwise she remained in a cultivation state with a textbook infront of her up until it was bed time. She was anxious about tomarrow. She would gather the last essence strand that she needed for entering the copper stage during her morning classes and form her essence core during lunch. It shouldn''t take more than thirty minutes. At that time her would-be stalker should still in the high school and Max should be well out of range of his essence radar. She just hopes nothing goes wrong tomorrow.

 Chapter 6

    Everything had been going according to Max''s plan thus far. She has gathered ten essence strands and had just sat down for lunch. She didn''t even bother with getting a tray of food. She needed every second to form her essence core. She reviewed the process in her head one last time.


    "Why don''t you have any lunch?" Emily asked as she sat down beside Max. Max didn''t have time to talk with Emily. Fortunately, she had already thought of a way to keep the conversation short or very simple.


    "I am not hungry," Max tried to sound depressed.


    "Is it because of what we talked about yesterday?" Emily asked.


    "I don''t know. I just...," Max lets out a frustrated sigh.


    "Do you want me to go?" Emily asks with concern.


    "No. I just don''t want to talk today. Okay?" Max says while trying to sound exasperated


    "Okay," Emily replies with areassuring tone.


    Finally, now back to forming my core.Max stared off into space while only keeping the minimum attention to her surroundings. She slowly began drawing all of the essence strands scattered in her body towards her heart. When all of the strands had been gathered, they left her heart and slowly revolved around each other at increasing speed forming a small black and white vortex. She forced that vortex to spin as fast as she could make it to blend the ten essence strands together making it turn to a greyish color. A round crystal slowly formed in the center of that vortex. As the crystal grew the vortex shrank until finally the crystal engulfed the vortex. However the vortex did not disappate into a mist within her core as Max had expected. It remained inside of the crystal even without her maintaining it. Well at least I don''t have to worry about reforming it when I go up to rank 2 of the copper stage.Max could immediately feel small strands of essence slowly flowing out of her core and circulating in her blood stream nourishing and strengthening her body. It was one of the benefits to having an essence core and it didn''t drain her strength either. The other benefit was spiritual sense. Although her current range of it was only about fifty feet, it was still useful.


    No matter how strong she felt at the moment, Max was forced to remind her self that she was still only a copper rank 1 cultivator and had the body of a thirteen year old girl. Her physical abilities were at most comparable to an unarmed proffessional soldier, but no more. Her essence could make up a difference against one armed opponent, but not against many. She still needed to be cautious.


    She used her spiritual sense to examine her immediate surroundings. She immediately noticed Emily was giving her an odd look. Max turns her head to face Emily while retracting her spiritual sense. Before she could ask what was wrong, a chorus of metallic shreiks shrieks filled the air. Max stood up in terror. Oh my god!IT''S TOO SOON!


    "Whatwas that?!" Emily asked with alarm as she stood up as well, but Max ignored her. She hurled her spiritual sense towards the direction of those shrieks while praying that she was wrong. Unfortunately, her fears were confirmed. She saw a manhole cover being violently hurled several feet into the air as a swarm of Sadist Rats surged out of the ground. All of them were racing towards her school.


    Max grabbed Emily''s arm before bolting straight to the stairwell that led to the second floor roof. Her chances up there were far better than hanging around in the cafeteria. She couldn''t handle any more than one or two at a time as she is now. If Max were to run out the back, those rats could easily overtake her. Going to the roof was her only chance. Even if a few did track them to the roof, Max had some means to throw them off her trail.


    Emily tried to break free of Max''s grasp up until she heard the screams. It took them ten seconds to reach the stairwell. They were both running up the stairs two steps at a time. When they reached the roof access door, both of them were panting with both fear and exhaustion. Fortunately the door was unlocked and they exited to the roof. Max spun around to get a good idea of the roof''s layout.


    Max quickly kicked off her shoes before removing her socks. Right as Max was reaching to undo her jeans did Emily exclaim, "What are you doing?!"


    "Those things hunt by smell. I need your socks and panties, NOW!" Max explained as she removed her underwear. Those pieces of clothing were in direct contact with big odor zones and would make a great fals trail. She quickly slid her jeans and shoes back on while Emily hastily removed what Max had asked her to. Max picked up the articles of clothing and created a trail leading off of the roof. She rubbed her panties along the ledge of the roof before throwing them down. "Follow me," Max said as she ran to the opposite side of the roof and hide behind a large air conditioning unit that had a large fan blowing air away from the stairwell. She positioned herself and Emily infront of that fan. I hope this works.


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    Ten minutes later half a dozen rats started ripping and tearing at the roof access door. Max could hear police sirens in the distance. The police immediately exited their vehicles and rushed into the building. Gunfire immediately followed. At the same time, the roof access door finally broke apart. Max heard their shrieks of bloodlust as the rats followed her false trail followed by four thuds. Max sent out her spiritual sense and saw that two of the rats hadn''t followed the others and were sniffing the air. Max started cursing inwardly as she slowly formed two blade-like darts at her fingertips. They had taken nearly half of her total strength to make. She heard Emily inhale sharply, but didn''t have the luxury to explain herself.


    The two sadist rats turned towards their direction and charged while making as much noise as possible. Emily was trembling in terror. Max jumped out from behind the air conditioning unit and hurled her two darts with precision. Both of the darts sank into a sadist rat''s skull killing them instantly. Max let out a sigh of relief as she turned around to look at Emily. Emily looked uncertain, but not afraid. Max needed to explain some things now. "I ...," Max''s voice trailed off as Emily''s face twisted into terror. Max spun around only to see a one of those rats coming at her in mid-air. Max blocked it''s path with her right arm. It''s claws dug deep into the flesh of her arm. She stifled the scream that wanted to escape her lips. She didn''t have enough time to use another essence dart. She grabbed one of it''s fore legs with her left hand and spun around as fast as she could. It''s claws tore at her flesh and she threw it off of the roof. She was hoping the fall would kill it.


    Max''s knees buckled and she landed on her ass. Her arm hurt immensely. She scanned herarmwith her spiritual sense. Her muscles were torn, but repairable with her essence. The biggest problem though was her bloodloss that her essence was struggling to stop. If she couldn''t stop the bleeding soon, she would pass out and die. She could already feel the effects of bloodloss.


    Emily was kneeling beside her was freaking out. "Help me apply pressure to my wounds. It will help with the bleeding," Max says with a weak voice. Emily shakily applied pressure to her wounds. Max groaned in pain as she channeled what essence she had left to aid in staunching the bleeding. It didn''t stop completely, but it slowed down greatly until it stopped completely. She felt weak, but she would live.


    Max could heard gunfire coming from below. That must be attracting the rats. She was grateful since she was in no condition to fend off any more of those things. She managed to drag herself to an air conditioning unit to lean up against while they waited. It felt like an eternity had passed before a group of police officers made it to the roof. Max had lost too much blood earlier to move very well on her own and had to lean on Emily to walk as the officers led them through the school with guns drawn. There were bodies of other students and those rats everywhere. She didn''t bother trying to count them all. A horrible realization hit her as she walked down those halls.Did I cause this? The timing of the arrival of the rats and her core forming was too damning.How could I have known? There wasn''t anyone that ever attracted essence beasts when they formed their essence core.


    Max looked toward the main entrance of the school and saw the flashing lights of emergency vehicles just outside. There were medical teams rushing survivors to various hospitals. Max looked around and it was clear that her injuries were far lighter than most of the others. There were fewer than 50 survivors from what Max could tell. She was led to an ambulance. Max and Emily had been the last ones to be taken out of the school. They wouldn''t let Emily ride in the ambulence on the way to the hospital.


    Max was given a full treatment for her arm. They stitched her arm up, took an x-ray and drew her blood. She felt it unnecessary, but let the doctors have their way. She couldn''t exactly tell them she could heal the wounds herself in less than four days. She had puked whenever she had enough time to think about what she had done.


    Max was waiting in an ER room with her right arm in a sling when her mother arrived looking panicked. The woman looked relieved when she saw Max sitting upright, if a bit pale. The doctor came in shortly after to give a report to her mother.The doctor told her mother the extent of the damage to her arm and something else as well. He told her that Max''s platelet count was normal and that it was possible that the lab messed up when they diagnosed her originally.Her father arrived looking haggard after the doctor walked out. He didn''t say a word as he rushed to her and hugged her. He was actually quite nice when he was sober.


    They were on their on the way out of the hospital when she saw Emily in the waiting area. Max tried to smile at her. A pair of police officers appeared out of nowhere. One of them spoke, "Jonathan Levings?" "Yes?" her dad said cautiously. "You are under arrest for child abuse," one of them said while reaching for his handcuffs. Her father looked stunned for a moment before his face twisted with rage while glaring at Max. He shook them off and swung his fist straight at her face. Max tried to avoid it, but was too weak from bloodloss and the depletion of her essence. Max felt the impact of his fist on her cheek as shelanded onto the ground. She was still conscious but her head was spinning. She hadn''t expected him to be that violent while sober. She felt like an idiot.


    She heard them pin her father to the ground as they put handcuffs on him. Max tried to sit up, but a nurse had stopped her. Emily and her mother were looking on with worry. A stern older man was standing beside Emily while scowling at Max''s father. She could see the his name and rank printed left side of his chest: Gen. Mckenzy.

 Chapter 7

    Fear surged through Max as she was examined by the doctors once more. She would end up with at least a black eye, but she had more concerning issues. She thought about how the general had appeared earlier. He hadn''t seemed to be aware of what she is, but he could be good at hiding his intentions. She began to get paranoid when she thought about what she did earlier.If Emily told him about what I''m able to do, I''m screwed.She thought about running, but she knew she was in no shape for it. She hated the fact her fate hanged on the word of someone else.


    Several of the nurses and technicians thought she was in shock due to how little she responded to them. She heard them gossiping aboutthe attack of some mutant rats on her school. They arn''t covering it up? Too many people must have seen it happen. Max couldn''t think of any other reason for it. She just prayed that no one would link her to the Sadist Rats appearance and that Emily wouldn''t talk.


    It was way past dinner time when she was finally free of the doctors and was allowed to go home. She ate a simple meal with her mother, whom hadn''t said a word for hours. Max was somewhat worried, but resolved that it shouldn''t be a problem. Her mother had never been violent.


    Max went to bed sometime later. She had calmed down considerably when she hadn''t woken up in an interogation room. Her day went rather simply when he mother went to work. Later that day she went to see a therapist which had been recommended by the doctor the day before. It was a chore to try and act like a traumatized teen, but she had somehow managed.


    That night, she cultivated as normal while directing some of her essence to her black eye and arm. She went to bed around 9 pm. It had felt like she just fell to sleep when she woke up with a cold splash of water to her face. Her brain felt like it was in a fog as she looked around wildly. Max''s arms and legs were manicled to a steel chair. A table was infront of her with a single overhead lamp illuminating a small circle. Someone was sitting just other side of the table. It was General McKenzy.Shit!Max was terrified and completely awake now. Her only consolation was that they waited a day to grab her.


    "Good evening, monster," he greeted, "You are quite the piece of work. I had almost thought you were the peaceful variety of your kind. Hell, I was ready to leave you be after I saw show of you being hit by your father. But that was BEFORE I got a report from one of my operatives. It states that you were eminating alot of power right before those ''things'' appeared. It is obvious that you summoned them intentionally or not, but baed on your injuries you weren''t able to control them like you wanted." Max knew there was no way he could know that unless someone was literately in the cafeteria with an essence radar in hand. Unless he had an essence cultivator that would give up one of their own. Her blood ran cold at that thought.


    "I didn''t...," Max couldn''t even speak in her defense before she was interrupted. "SILENCE! I WILL NOT HEAR YOUR LIES!" He examined with barely contained disgust Max for a moment before placing a metallic collar on the table. "Do you know what this is?"Max got a good look at the device as she started panting and trembling in fear. "You have good instincts. This device is meant to, if possible control you, or in all likelihood kill you, " he paused for a moment before continueing, "Now I will give you one chance to convince me not to put this around your throat. It better be good." She knew that she could break free by cutting her restraints with essence, but to this kind of personthat was the same as admission of guilt.


    "You are so determined that I am a monster you are after that no matter what I say you won''t believe it," Max said as helpless tears flooded down her face.


    "Indeed," General McKenzy said as he stood up and grabbed the collar. He had spread it apart as he approached her. Max struggled uselessly against her restraints. She tried to lean away from it as it slowly got closer to her neck.NOOO!!! She wanted to do something, anything, to avoid this fate. In desperation she quickly formed a essence dart in her left hand, but froze as a flash of Emily''s face giving her an accusing glare appeared in her mind. That moment of hesitation allowed for the remaining distance to be closed. The device was around her neck. However the expected click didn''t occur. Instead, Max heard a relieved sigh, but it wasn''t in the general''s voice. It was that of a young woman. The general backed up as blue particles started to breakapart off of his frame forming a mist. When the mist cleared ayoung woman with ruby red hair in her 20s holding the collar at her side. Max couldn''t help but notice she didn''t have a collar around her neck, but had an ugly dull grey bangle on her wrist. "Sorry about that, sis. It was the only way," she said as she turned to the left, "Are you satisfied now?" What?


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    "Very," the real General McKenzy said as he walked out of the shadows, "Lights." The room filled with light. Max nearly pissed herself when she saw twenty-five soldiers in full body armor. Twenty were holding assault rifles while another five had a what looked like high-powered dart rifles. All of which were aimed at her.If she had used her spiritual sense even once, she would have realized that they were there. It terrified her her how close to death she had been. She realized alittle late that her essence dart was still at her fingertips and retracted it in haste. She didn''t want to give them an excuse to shoot.


    "Can we please put away the guns and the restraints? She has already been proven innocent. Right?," the redheaded woman says.


    "Very well, Amanda," the general acquiesced, "Release Ms. Levings and return to your stations."


    "What. the. fuck," Max said while not really expecting an answer as one of the soldiers started to undo her restraints.


    Amanda was the one to explain everything to Max. They had to put her through a test. Their reasoning was that regardless of whether she was good person or a psychopath she would be aware if she caused the rat swarm. If Max was a psychopath, she would have attacked without hesitation and tried to escape. She would have been shot with tranquilizer darts before being collared. If the tranquilizers hadn''t worked, they would switch to live rounds. If Max had been a good person, she would have commited suicide or admittedto her misdeeds as soon as shehad woken up. However, Max had behaved outside of their predictions based on the evidence they had and deemed her innocent enough to go free.


    It was unfortunate that they wouldn''t just let her go. She was forced to wear a branglethat would monitor her GPS location and energy signature fluxuations. It was a required for those that they found, who were peaceful and able to control their abilities, to be within five feet of it at all times.


    Max knew that she wasn''t completely in the clear yet. The bangle served another purpose that they weren''t mentioning. If something like that happened again when her power surged, they would have to be stupid not to realize it was her.Max had voiced one complaint about the bangle though. She called it the most unattractive thing she had ever seen and that it wouldbe ill suited for a young girl, which had ellicited laughter from Amanda.


    While on the drive back home, Max had asked Amanda why they were looking for people like them in the first place. Amanda''s answer was very upsetting. A lunatic that could command fire had been killing people and was seen on camera using his powers. Shortly after that a division was made to hunt for people like that man and to monitor the ones who were peaceful. Unfortunately that villian had caught wind of it. Resulting in McKenzy''s entire family being slaughtered, except for his infant grand daughter. They found her untouched under the crisp remains of her parents. The bastard had self-destructed killing several soldiers when he had been cornered.


    As soon as Max got home, she was so sleepy that she could barely stand, but still went to go check on her mother. She was sleeping very deeply and wasunharmed aside from the small red mark on her neck. They had told her that the sleeping agent used on her would give her have a splitting headache in the morning. Max went back to her bed happy that she wasn''t going to be enslaved like she had feared. She looked at the ugly bangle on her right wrist before she fellasleep.

 Chapter 8

    Max was in a terrible mood the following morning. She had only managed a few hours of sleep and had woken up to her womanly cramps. She had known this particular problem would happen sooner or later. Infact, she had found it odd that she hadn''t experienced it sooner. She just hadn''t expected for her breasts to be that damn tender. She understood entirely why some girls tended to be irratable when they were on their period. Max took a deep calming breath in an attempt to calm down and tried ignore her mother, whom was complaining about a terrible headache, as she got ready for the day. In between complaints, her mother told her that the school board called and said that Max would be going back to school in another district come monday. That was three days away.


    It wasn''t until after her mother left that her cellphone rang. Max looked at the caller ID, but the number was set to private. Max cautiously answered the phone, "Hello?"


    "Good morning, Ms. Levings.," General McKenzy''s said.


    "What do you want?" Max said in an cold tone. Max could hear a sigh on the other end of the phone before she got a reply.


    "Amanda didn''t tell you? No matter. Be ready to go in ten minutes," General McKenzy said.


    "Why?" Max responded.


    "You need to take a trip to a facility to partake in a mandatory study of enhanced ability users," General McKenzy said, "Any other questions?" Max was a bit angry that Amanda hadn''t told her, but it wouldn''t be that big of an issue.


    There is one question Max wanted to ask though. "How''s Emily doing?" She was wondering how Emily had been holding up. Afterall it had been her first encounter with essence beasts. Max had known grown men that had gone insane after their first encounter with one.


    "She is doing better than anyone could expect," his voice had softened before returning back to it''s serious tone, "You now have nine minutes, Ms. Levings. Goodbye." Max did not like the idea of being poked and prodded while she felt this bad, but it was still better than having a exploding collar around her neck.


    She went outside at the correct time and was taken out of the city. Several dirt roads later, they finally arrived to their destination. It was an old warehouse. Or at least that is what it looked like. As soon as she was led into it, she saw that it wasfilled with medical examination equipment, a set of weights and an assortment of other tech. The waiting researchers swarmed at her as soon as they saw her.


    They beganher examination with a chest x-ray followed by a full body MRI and CT scan. They drew her blood and started waving all sorts ofsensorsaround her while she tried her best to stand still. One even unwrapped her wounded right arm to examine her injury and took some notes on how quickly it was healing. It was only after they were done with the tests that they asked her to show them her essence darts. She formed one for them to look at. They brought their collection of sensors back and she had to wait for them to finish before being asked to throw it at a ballistic gelatin block. They asked questions about what she felt and thought when she formed it. Max gave a shrug and just told them she thinks about it and it appears. They made her to throw two more essence darts, but stopped when she said shefelt dizzy. She could throw one more with essence to spare, but didn''t want to tell them that. The weaker she appeared the better it was for her. Afterwards, they had her lift various weights while jotting down notes. Finally, they were satisfied after nearlyfour hours of tests and questions. She was tired and wanted something to eat.


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    As Max was being led out of the warehouse, she got a glance at the lead researcher''s notes. She saw the words enhanced regeneration, dartmanifestation powers and energy level 12. She got curious about what else was written and used her spiritual sense to scan the man''s notes. She didn''t get to see much beforeone of the sensors in the room started going nuts. Max reflexively retracted her spiritual sense, but it was too late.


    Almost as one all of the researchers turn towards her with a twinkle in their eyes as if they found some rare toy to play with. "Fuuuuck," Max said in exasperation as sherealized what was coming. She was dragged back in for another round of tests. It had taken another hour before she was allowed to leave. She had a splitting headache and wanted to hit something. She was hunched over as she walked to the car to be taken home.


    When they were driving her back, she noticed they were not heading to her house. She asked the driver where they were going but didn''t get a response. She was getting anxious until they pulled into a restraunt parking lot. She perked up immediately at the prospect of food. As Max walked inside, she saw Amanda waving her from an isolated corner of the restraunt. Max''s escort returned to the car as Amanda greeted her, "Hey, sis. How did it go?"


    "It sucked," Max said in a tired tone.


    "Yeah. I know that feeling. I had to go through it too y''know," Amanda agreed.


    Max grunted in understanding before ordering her food. "You would think that they had plenty of time to study people with special abilities to figure out how we work," Max complained.


    "Trust me, it''s way better than it was in the past," Amanda said.


    "How could it possibly be worse?" Max inquired with mild curiosity. She didn''t believe that civilized person would do much more than what she had gone through. Max regretted asking as soon as she saw the look of discomfort on Amanda''s face.


    "They removed the jewelsfrom several people''schests," Amanda said. Max gave her a look of disbelief. Once an essence core was formed, it was a integral part of your life. Removing it was the same as the same as your heart or lungs being removed. Even if someone survived it, their body would wither away and would be bedridden for the rest of their life. "They were only trying to take away the abilities of the bad ones. No one could have known it would kill them."


    Max couldn''t bring herself to talk about that anymore and changed the subject. Max and Amanda talked while they waited for their meal. When they finished eating, Amanda told Max that she found Max''s poetry notebook and had it placed on her bed. Max was confused since she didn''t have a poetry notebook, but thanked her anyways. The ride home was uneventful as the driver wouldn''t say a word.


    Maxchecked her room after getting home. Her blood ran cold at what she saw and finally realized what Amanda had meant by poetry book. On her bed was her tattered, blood-stained notebook that she had written her cultivation method in. It had a noteinsideit which read, ''I don''t know how you wrote this and I don''t care. You are really lucky I found this and was able to cast a convincing illusion on it before the general could get a good look at it. You have to be way more careful from now on. I can''t always cover your tracks.''


    Max felt as if she dodged a bullet. Max swiflty picked up the notebook. She couldn''t take the risk that someone would find it if she hid it. It was safer for her at least for the time being to destroy it or render it unreadable. She would just have teach Emily how to cultivate in person.

 Chapter 9

    Max spent the weekend playing with her shadow essence during the times she was alone. She had gained greater proficiency in manipulating shadows to the point that she coudl create tendrils. Tendrils that could pick up and hold various objects. Another interesting application of her shadow essence occured when she clad her hand in it. Her hand had become clawed and a layer of very flexible black armor clung to her flesh like a second skin. It felt like soft leather and didn''t restrict her movement at all. She tested it with a knife from the kitchen and to her surpise she had to press quite hard to even feel the edge. If she could cover her whole body in it, that would give her quite the defense, but it wouldn''t be useable until she was almost bronze rank from the way it was draining her strength. The last thing she discovered was that she could use her shadow essence to temporarily change her eye color. She had alot of fun with it as she changed her eye color repeatedly. Too bad it wore off as soon as she retracted her essence from her eyes.


    Unfortunately,Max had over slept monday morning and had to rush to get ready for school. She got to the school only minutes before her first class. Several of the other students gave her a curious look while she rushed to the classroom. Somehow Max had gotten assigned into the same class as Emily, but they were seated on different sides of the room. Emily looked like she hadn''t slept well for days. It wasn''t until lunch that she got a chance to talk to her.


    They sat down at an empty table. The other students were keeping their distance for some reason. Max was wondering why no one was trying to approach them. Not even to try and comfort Emily, who was clearly feeling miserable. Max put her hand on Emily''s arm to try and sooth her. Emily looked from Max''s hand to her face with a small look of worry before whispering very softly, "Grandpa told me what you are."


    "Yeah, I figured he would," Max said calmly. She wanted to ask Emily, if she wanted to become stronger, but didn''t know how to go about it. She had never had an apprentice before.


    There was an akward silence between them as they ate. Emily took a glance at the monitoring bangle on Max''s left wrist. "That''s the ugliest piece of jewelry I have ever seen," Emily says with a slight trace of amusement.


    "That is what I said when your gramps told me to wear it," Max said as she smiled.


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    "Really?" Emily said with a small smirk, "That''s just like grandpa to be fashion blind."


    "Tell me about it," Max agreed before she had a sudden thought, "Hey, do you want to hang out later?"


    "Not today. But maybe tomorrow after I ask grandpa," Emily said.


    Max opened her mouth to voice her assent, but the boys must have gathered their courage as two of them had approached. As if by some earlier arrangement, one of them went to her and the other Emily. Max stood up and got infront of Emily protectively. The boys tried to appear friendly, but Max knew their real intentions. They had clearly heard about the events at her other school and assumed that they were survivors, especially with Max''s arm bandaged up and in a sling. These pieces of garbage wanted to take advantage of their fragile state of mind after they had experienced a traumatizing event. She had seen this same shit being pulled too many times before to them have their way. She immediately told them that she was a lesbian and that Emily was her lover. Emily blushed lightly, but remained silent. Since Emily wouldn''t refuted it, they had no choice but to give up. No other boys came over to bother them after that. Although a few girls did come over to make an attempt at talking to them.


    After school while Max was in the car with her mother, Max asked if she could spend time withEmily tomorrow. Her question has surprised her mother, but her eyes had quickly softened.She gave her approval, but required Max to be home before ten.


    Max went to lay down in her bed when she got home. She had been wondering what she could do with Emily tomorrow. She knew she had to bring up how to cultivate to Emily soon for her to be of any help. Perhaps she could broach the subject while they hanged out. She tried to imagine Emily''s expression when she finds out about Max''s cultivation method.


    Max sat upto remove her sling. After taking it off, she looked at her hands. These are a young girls hands.Her vision began tobecome cloudy as an overwhelming sense of loss came over her. She had been so busy with planning, cultivation and everything else that she hadn''t really let it completely sink in that she was indeed a girl now. The longer she looked at her hands the more apparent it became and the more clouded her vision became. Tears began streaming unbidden down her face as small sobs escaped her lips. She didn''t want to face this, but she could no longer lie to herself. She forced herself to accept the cruel truth. I am no longer Maxwell Adams. That man died protecting the weak. I... I am now Maxine Levings.With that thought, Maxine threw herself face first into a pillow and cried in earnest.

 Chapter 10

    Maxine felt a bit sour at her current situation. She currently being forced to be a dress up doll for Emily and Amanda. They had taken it upon themselves to do this when they had seen that she had worna dated blouseand some blue jeans. Maxine hadn''t been too happy to begin with when she found out Amanda had been assigned as their chaperone for this outting. The only good part was that she got paidfor the her ''cooperation'' on Friday last week. Something she wasn''t even aware they were going to do.


    Maxinecame out of the dressing room trying not to appear annoyed in the latest outfit they had insisted she wear. They showered her with praises on how cute she looked as she spun around slowly and posed for them. Maxine hated to admit that asmall part of her was enjoying this. Emily swiftly approached her with another outfit for her to try on and Maxine went back into the changing room wondering how many outfits she had tried on thus far. All that she knew was that it had been alot. She sighed to herself and changed into this latest outfit as she thought at how happy Emily had appeared. She came back out to show off how it looked on her. She recieved more praises before they both stated that it was Emily''s turn to try on outfits. Maxine quickly changed back into her clothes before stepping out to see Emily in her outfit. Maxine gave Emily her heartfelt praises. Emily kept going in and out of the changing room for half an hour before they left the clothing store. Maxine had somehow been talked into leaving with three new outfits and Emily had gotten a coupleherself. Afterwards they went walking around window shopping.


    It was around six when they had finally went to Emily''s house for dinner. Maxine wasn''t as tired as she imagined she would be and got quite the surprise as the door opened to a smiling General Mckenzy. He had greeted them warmly before leading them to a table for dinner. His current demeanor was completely different from hisprevious one. It had left her so stunned that she almost forgot to say your welcome when he thanked her for taking Emily out. Amanda explained that the general adopted a more serious attitude only while he was working after she saw that Maxine was confused by his behavior. Maxine had heard of such people, but never encountered someone anyone like that. They ate dinner and General McKenzy went to his study leaving the three of them to do whatever they wanted.


    After the general had shut the door to his study and they had all sat down on a couch, Amanda asked, "Emily, could you go put away your clothes while me and Maxine have a quick chat."


    "Sure," Emily complies after giving them both a curious look as she grabs her new clothes and heads to her room.


    "What''s this about?" Maxine says curiously.Amanda doesn''t respond right away, but waits for Emily to get out of ear shot. Maxine could feel a bubble-like barrier surround them. It was a sound-proof barrier.Ok, now I am worried.


    "Was that stuff in your notebook for real?" Amanda asked directly. Maxine should have known Amanda would ask that question. She debated internally if she should lie or not, but it didn''t feel right to lie to Amanda like that after she covered for Maxine.


    "It''s real. It''s the method I used to use," Maxine admitted.


    "What do you mean by used to?" Amanda asked with some confusion in her voice.


    "I started to use it, but it changed how it circulated on it''s own. So now I use the cultivation method it changed into," Maxine attempted to explain.


    "Do you know why it changed and who taught you the original method? Can I meet them?" Amanda asked in rapid succession. This is starting to feel like an interogation.


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    "I don''t know and no one taught me anything," Maxine lowers her head and stares at the ground a moment before continueing in a softer voice, "It just appeared in my headone morning after I had go through the most painful experience of my life." Maxine knew that wasn''t the whole truth, but couldn''t come out and say that she was a reincarnator from the future. However, she hadn''t lied when she said it was the most painful experience of her life.


    "I am sorry. I didn''t mean to bring up bad memories," Amanda said sympathically as she put her hand on Maxine''s shoulder, "I just wanted to knowit''s origin."


    "It''s fine. I owe you for covering for me to begin with," Maxine answered calmly.


    "I hate to ask, but why did you write it down if you already knew it?" Amanda asked before her facial expression shifted to one of understanding, "You were going to give it to Emily weren''t you?"


    "What does it matter? I have already destroyed it," Maxine said.


    "You destroyed it? Why?," Amanda asked in disbelief.


    "Same reason you kept the general from seeing it," Maxine told her.


    "I see. Just do me a favor and don''t teach it to anyone. That includes Emily," Amanda said, "If he finds out... Just don''t do it ok?"


    Maxine nodded her assent. She knew perfectly well it was a bad if she was discovered know it. If she were, it was likely she would end up in some undisclosed facility being forced to reveal everything she knew about cultivation, so that they government could have their own breed of super soldier.


    She just needed to avoidbeing seen or heard relaying her cultivation method. Otherwise they had no means of figuring out she had it. She had the perfect way to do that too. She could impart it directly into Emily''s mind using her spiritual sense. Emily would have to agree to it first though.


    Amanda''s barrier dropped as Emily came back out of her room. Emily quickly suggested they watch a movie on Netflix. They decided on a comedy. While Amanda was distracted watching the movie, Maxine used her spiritual sense to talk with Emily. "Don''t react to this voice. It''s Maxine. I am speaking to you telepathically. I wanted to ask you if you wanted powers like mine? Think your answer, don''t speak it."


    Emily froze up for a second and looked at Maxine curiously. It was only a stroke of good fortune that Amanda hadn''t noticed Emily''s behavior. Maxine heard Emily''s thoughts after a few moments, "Yes, but how is that possible?"


    "I have a special method to make powers of your own awaken, but I can''t use it on you. You have to use it yourself," Maxine responded.


    "What do I need to do?" Emily''s thoughts asked.


    "Just relax, I will do the rest. Just a heads up, youmight get dizzy while I send it to you, but don''t worry that is normal. I will start in a few moments," Maxtransmitted using her spiritual sense before adding, "Don''t tell anyone that I gave you this, not even your grandpa. I could get in alot of trouble if you do." Maxine could feel that Emily was indeed relaxed enough for her toimpart her cultivation method and her essence masking techniqueto Emily. Emily hadn''t resisted through the whole process nor had Amanda shown any sign that she was aware of Maxine''s actions.


    "This cultivation method, is it how you were able to throw those dart things?" Emily''s thoughts queried.


    "You could say that. You need to practice it every day and be sure to use that essence hiding techniqe I gave you. Just let me know when you have ten essence strands. I will help you form your core when you do,"Maxine responded and added before retracting her spiritual sense, "Now let''s enjoy this movie." She smiled on theinternally athow easy that was. There was a big problem withher plan. If Emily was discovered to be a essence cultivator, she might tell the general how she had become one, but as long as she uses Maxine''s essence hiding technique no one will know that she is one.Amanda was''t even a factor in her plans since she had already covered for Maxine once already.

 Chapter 11

    The last few days had gone smoothly as far as Maxine was concerned. Although Emily had asked her a few questions about cultivation those few days, Maxine had been thrilled when she found that Emily had managed to form an essence strand the day after she taught her. Emilys progress was as swift as her own. It was a good thing that she was a quick learner. She was in a good mood those few days. Althrough, she was still somewhat displeased she had to wear a sling even though her arm had healed. She knew it was for appearances, but it was still annoying.


    Unfortunately, today she was too worried to be overly concerned about that. It was friday and she was going to reach copper stage rank 2 soon. She was worried that during her rank up in strength she would attract more essence beasts. Hence she went to an isolated park to upgrade her strength after school had ended. She took several laps around the park and saw no one was there. She sat down on a bench and cultivated the last stretch to rank 2. She knew she had reached it when the flow of essence in her blood became twice as dense as when she had first formed her core. The denser essence slowly seeped to every fiber of her being She could mind expanding as her spiritual sense gradually increased until it had become double of what it had. She hadn''t the time to enjoy this sensation when she formed her core.


    However, Maxine didn''t become lax in this state. If anything, she became more alert and scanned her surroundings with all of her senses. She could not see or hear any essence beasts. Nor could she detect anything within the range of her spiritual sense. However that didn''t mean anything. She maintained her vigilance for nearly thirty minutes. Once it was clear nothing was going to happen, Maxine let out a breath of relief. She felt alittle dizzy maintaining such concentration for so long, but it seemed her fears had been unwarranted. In a way, it was a relief to her that she may not have attracted that swarm of Sadist rats at her school. However, Maxine still couldn''t discount the possibility that she may attract essence beasts only during a breakthrough from one stage to the next. If that was the case, she would deal with it when the problem presents itself.


    Maxine got up and wondered how far her spiritual sense could actually go and tried to scan objects at an increasingly greater distance. She first scanned trees, rocks and the occasional squirrel. The detail at least of her spiritual sense had improved. She extended it further and found the limit of how far her spiritual sense would reach. She estimated it was roughly two hundred feet. Since her spirtual strength had doubled, she concluded her original range at rank 1 had been one hundred feet.If that increase remains consistent, I will be able to sense up to one thousand feet away at bronze stage.


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    Maxine started to walk home with a spring in her step. The walk home didn''t seem as long as her walk there. By the time she made it home, it was almost time for her mother to get home. She wanted to eat something special tonight and looked through the refrigerator and cabinets for what she needed. It was a recipe from one of her former companions in her past life. That man had been on hell of a cook.


    She easily found all the ingredients she needed for it and started up the stove. Just as she finished cooking the meal, her mother came home. Her mother looked exhausted, but as she smelled the meal Maxine had made her face brightened considerably. She sat down and they talked while they ate. It became quite embaressing for her when her mother asked about Emily and how far they had gotten in their relationship. Maxine hadn''t been aware that her mother knew about her sexual orientation.


    It was a peaceful evening. One that she thoroughly enjoyed. It wasn''t until her mother recieved a phone call that it changed. It was her father''s lawyer. He was going to have trail next week, but since they caught him hitting Maxine, it was nothing more than a formality. It was clear that her father would go to prison. Her mother looked both relieved at first but quickly became depressed. Maxine had a hard time understanding her mother''s love for a man that hit her and her daughter for five years.


    When she caught herself feeling bad for her mother, she shook her head and went to her room. What the hell is wrong with me? Why should I feel sorry for that child endangering bitch. Maxine had to keep reminding herself that her mother had covered for her father''s abusive ways. If there was any justice, her mother should be right beside her father facing the court for child abuse, but part of her didn''t want to see that happen. She knew the root cause of those feelings. The original Maxine''s fragmented soul was still lingering on inside her body. It was faint but there. The poor girl had loved her parents even after everything they had done and those feelings were transfering over. Still Maxine couldn''t change her plans regardless of these feelings. It would push her abilities to the limit to just to look after and teach the inexperienced Emily, let alone having the capability to protect a non-combatant. It felt wrong, but she would have to abandon her mother in order to survive what''s coming. Not unless she could find an additional essence cultivator as an ally. Amanda might count as one, but unfortunately she didn''t know of any others that would be able and willing. Convincing Amanda to leave would be challenging to say the least. Maxine had already been wondering how to convince Emily to flee with her as it was. Maxine knew that in order to appease the soul of the original Maxine and save her mother; she would have to figure out a way to convince them both. Maybe then the original Maxine could rest in peace.

 Chapter 12

    The following days Maxine kept on discovering that she was developing more and more strange mannerisms and behaviors as she slowly absorbed the fragmented soul within her. Some of the changes were minor at first and she barely noticed. However they were becoming more and more pronounced.


    Maxineoften found herself dressing up in a cute outfit and putting on some of her mother''s cosmetics. That didn''t bother her as much as she thought it would, once she discovered that she prefered to look beautiful. However when she found herself craving things such as chocolate and other sweet things, she knew it was just the original Maxine''s sweet tooth kicking in. It became hard to resist the urge to gorge herself on those things.Her speech patterns hadn''t changed, but she assumed it was because the original Maxine hadn''t talked much in the first place. Among the numerous changes, there were two that she found great difficulty adapting to.


    The first one being a strong repulsion to the sight and smell of anything containing alcohol and anyone who drank it. She didn''t really mind this one at first, since she never really drank much in her past life to begin with. However when she had caught Amanda drinking some wine, she had stopped talking to her for a week and explained why only after Amanda''s repeated attempts to gain an explaination for her silence.


    The second one was a strong distrust of men in general that was slowly changing to outright fear. She avoided talking to them or even letting them get close to her. She knew that she may even become violent if any were to touch her. It wasn''t that surprising when she thought about it. The original Maxine had been beaten by her father for years and it would have been miraculous if she hadn''t formed some sort of adversion to men. However she needed to curb her fear before it turned into a full-blown phobia. It would make her future plans difficult since the majority of survivor groups were led by men and she might need to trade for supplies later. She needed at least to be able to talk to them. The only way she could think of was through talking to men. Male teachers seemed the safest choice in that regard, since she only needed to ask questions on the classes they taught. Her method helped some, but didn''t completely eliminated this growing fear of men.


    However, she pushed all other thoughts and wants aside when it was time for Emily''s essence core to form. Maxine decided to help Emily at the one place she thought would have the fewest essence detectors aimed at it and that was at General McKenzy''s home. It took all of her skill to monitor Emily''s essence core and keep her essence fluxuations from leaking out. Emily''s essence core had formed perfectly as far as Maxine could tell and she discovered Emilypossessed a very rare elemental attribute known as divine. Maxine could hardly contain her joy at the time. That attribute excelled at defense and healing. Sadly it''s combat ability was barely average. However, it would mean that Emily would be perfectly suited for a support role rather than a combative one. The revelation that Emily had an essence attribute meant that Emily would have awoken to her essence even without Maxine''s intervention.


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    During the days that Maxine spent with Emily and Amanda, Maxine discovered Amanda''s power was growing. She was clearly practicing Maxine''s cultivation method. While Amanda had been distracted by a piece of jewelry, Maxine had scanned her core with her spiritual sense and found out just how strong she was. She was at Copper rank 4 while Maxine was at copper rank 5 at the time. It was surprising Amanda could use do so much with so little essence. Her level of mastery using what essence she had must be superb. Amanda''s example motivated Maxine to minimize the ammount of wasted essence in her own techniques.


    It was now thursday May 17th, the last day of school. Maxine had reached Copper rank7 and Emily was at Copper rank 6. Both of them would rank up in the next five days. Maxine had some difficulty the past few weeks teaching Emily how to use her spiritual sense, but it was to be expected. It was similar to teaching the blind to paint or the deaf to write music. However, Emily eventually got it and got proficient in it''s use very quickly.


    Maxine still had a problem when it came to convincing her two friends to join her and escape the essence beast horde that will soon arrive. She had thought long and hard about that very topic. She come up with only one option that had even a tiny chance of working and that was to tell them what she knew was coming. The problem was that it could easily backfire on her, especially if she used an upcoming event as proof of her prophetic ability. After that, Amanda might go straight to the general with it and Maxine would immediately be put under heavy guard. Making it nearly impossible to leave afterwards, but she had to take that risk. Surviving with just her mother would be very difficult and she knew very well that she wouldn''t last long in that situation. It wouldn''t even matter if she was in the iron stage. All it would take is one moment of inattention from her mother while Maxine slept and they would both die.


    Maxine resolved to tell them both during their next girl''s day out, preferably while they were sitting down. She was hoping that her fears are unwarranted. However the logical part of herself was screaming at her that she is being irrational, but she didn''t care. She had to convince her friends to run with her. If nothing else, she needed to warn them of what was coming.


    What frightened her the most wasn''t the copper or even the bronze stage beasts, but it was the leader that every essence beast horde had. It was a beast that could withstandheavy weapons fire as if it were nothing more than a heavy rain and tear apart tanks as if they were made of paper. It was the same beast that gave Maxine nightmares. It was an iron stage Terror Bear.

 Chapter 13

    It was on May 21st when Maxine, Amanda and Emily returned back from their latest outing. Maxine had talked far less to her two companions than she normally did and they were looking concerned. Maxine was still trying to muster her courage to tell them of the future that is coming.


    It wasn''t until after General McKenzy had gone to his study as normal when Amanda spoke. "Max, is something bothering you?"


    "Yes, and I am afraid of what will happen when I tell you what it is," Maxine said.


    "You... you didn''t hurt anyone, did you?!" Amanda asks anxiously while Emily was equally worried, and Maxine swiftly shakes her head to indicate no. "Then what could could be then?" Maxine closed her eyes in thought before erecting a sound proof barrier around them.


    "You know when I told you that my cultivation method just popped in my head. That wasn''t the full truth," Maxine said and Amanda immediately looked over at Emily, who was within the barrier, with concern. Emily wore an expression that was a combination of confusion and worry.


    "You mean your method to cultivate tomatoes?" Amanda said in an attempt at misdirection.


    "You know very well what I mean and so does Emily. Both of you need to hear this," Maxine paused while trying to think of the best way to word this, "I have seen the future through someone else''s eyes. It will be a horrible and bloody place filled with fear and pain. The vast majority of people won''t even take it to heart when it starts. They will ignore it as a new breed of wolf starts ripping campers and hunters to pieces. They will pretend everything is under control as other new breeds of animals start feasting on small towns one by one. Only when those things start amassing at the beginning of June will they truly be afraid and by then it will be too late. All of those fools do not know what I have come to know. That those animals are like you, me and Emily. They are essence beasts and they are coming to feed. The only way I see to survive is to run and we have to do that soon. Or we won''t be able to at all." Amand and Emily had expressions of disbelief at hearing that.


    Amanda was the first to recover and said in denial, "There is no way that would happen. You must have been dreaming."


    "Thatdreamwas where my cultivation method came from and you should know how real that is," Maxine said, "If you still don''t believe me, just watch the news for the next few days. There will be some camper remains cropping up somewhere to the north of Kansas City." Amanda seemed to collapse into her chair and Emily appeared to be covinced.


    "Is there a way to stop it?" Amanda asked.


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    "Stopping it isn''t an option. Not unless you can kill something that is almost invulnerable to gunfire, can movearound at the speed of sound and can tear through tanks liketheir made of paper," Maxine said, "Compared to that thing, the other beasts are nothing." Amanda looked like she couldn''t believe it. Maxine didn''t blame her at all. She herself wouldn''t have believed a creature like that could exist either before she saw it in action.


    "I have to tell the general about this. You know that," Amanda said after sitting after sitting a few moments.


    "I do. I was hoping that ....," Maxine said as she slumped her shoulders forward in defeat, "Do what you will and see me to my cage. Just make sure both of you stay safe." Amanda had a strange sad look on her face before she nodded and walked towards the general''s study. Maxine slowly pulled her legs up and hugged them. She no longer paid any attention to her surroundings as sorrow slowly overflowed her heart as she knew what was coming. Even if she ran right at now, they would still find her and cage her before she could get far. Her onlycomfort was that she had warned them. She was vaguely aware of Emily coming over and sitting beside her while saying some meaningless words of comfort.


    It wasn''t long before General McKenzy got her attention and demanded to know exact details and dates of when the essence beasts attack humans.She told him everything she could remember. His expression soured immensely when she told him about an attack that would happen later that afternoon and where to find them. After she finished telling him every event that she could remember, He asked for a description of the Terror Bear. She understood that one. He probably wants to find it and kill it, if possible, before it can become a problem. It wouldn''t matter, though. Because even with a Terror Bear''s massive size, they are fast enough to dodge bullets. There is no way that one could be hit by a missile or bomb.


    Her interrogation continuted for several hours until the general got a phone call. She looked around and didn''t see either Emily or Amanda while he talked on the phone. General McKenzy''s face slackened and slowly looked at her with disbelief. Told you. It only took a few minutes before she found herself in a car being driven somewhere. She looked out the window for the longest time watching the scenery go by. Wondering about how her mother and friends would survive being at the forefront of her mind. Eventually the car made a short stop infront of a chain link fence with a sign demarking it as a military base. She would soon be in her cage. She extended out her spiritual sense to examine her new home while they brought her too an elevator. They went down.


    When they finally brought her to her room, she took a good look at it. It was barren aside from the cot and a storage trunk, but it was about the same size as her old room. They had probably intended to move her things down here at a later date. However, something at the edge spiritual sense''s range caught her attention. It was a room filled with a copule bronze, but mostly copper stage essence cores, and rare herbs. Most of those herbs she recognized. It was a literal treasure trove. An insane idea started to form in her head while she scanned a nearby armoury with her spiritual sense and foundthe items she was looking for. Seems like I found myself aplan B.

 Chapter 14

    Maxine carefully scanned everything within the range of her spiritual sense for the last few days. She had been trying to figure out a clear route to the essence core storage room. Whether it be through a direct route through the corridors of underground portion of this base or through it''s ventilation shaft system. Getting into that room undetected was only the first part of her plan.She already had her planned route and was only waiting for the graveyard shift to be half over and the guards to be half-asleep to enact her plan.


    After scanning both of her guards just outside of her room with her spiritual sense, Maxine slowly opened her eyes. Both of them were having difficulty staying awake. With a subtle use of her spiritual sense, she caused both of her guards to fall into a deep slumber. Maxine placed her bangle on her bed before using a small mass of her essence to mimic her essence signature and vitals. It wouldn''t last more than a few hours, but by then she would already be at her goal.


    Carefully, she got out of her bed and slowly opened the door. She scanned the corridors with her spiritual sense to make sure the area is clear of patrols before slowly making her way towards the storage room. She hadn''t wanted to traverse the corridors, but each section of this underground base had it''s own separate ventilation system. It made finding a route through the ventilation system to her goal impossible. Maxine avoided the odd patrol and any active surveillance cameras on her way to the storage room.


    Maxine stopped next to a corner office just down the hallway from the storage room. She knew that the storage room would require a keycard to enter, but the room''s ventilation system connected to the office infront of her. Unfortunately, the office was occupied by leiutenant that had fallen asleep at his desk. Maxine carefully opened the door while muffling the hinges with her essence. After entering the room and closing the door behind her, she tiptoed as silent as a cat towards a filing cabinet. The ventilation duct was just above it. When the sleeping lieutentant shifted in his sleep, Maxine froze in panic right . When it was clear the man wasn''t going to wake up, she used her essence to quietly removed the vent from the duct and climbed in. It was a tight fit leaving her only inches to spare to either side. She was for once happy that she reincarnated as a girl. If she had been a man, she would never have fit inside this duct. She quickly crawled to the storage room.


    Maxine found a contact sensor attached to the vent. Sheformed a blade of essence to cut the inside edgeof the vent to avoid tripping the sensor and removed the portion she cut out. She dropped down almost soundlessly into the room. She was grateful no one had thought to install a surveillance camera inside the room as she looked around the room.


    There wereshelves full of labeled small boxes. She walked to the door and looked around the room to see if there was anything she could use to make sure it stayed closed. There was a filing cabinet that listed all of the items in the room with their sources. She couldn''t move it without making alot of noise. She scanned the area with her spiritual sense and decided none of them were close enough to hear it. It only took her a few moments to move it infront of the door.


    Maxine turned around and let out a sigh.Now for the second part part of my plan. I know this part is on the crazy stupid side, but it shouldn''t kill me as long as I eat some Heart Protection Fruit and Regeneration Grass.Maxine walked one of the shelves and tore open two boxes containing those herbs and ate their contents before walking to the very center of the room. She began using her essence to control every shadow in there to create hundreds of tendrils. Each one of those tendrils punctured one of the many boxes and arranged them around herself to make a crystaline cocoon several layers thick with just enough room for her to breath. With a final touch, she manipulated those shadows to encase her with the essence cores leaving only a half inch thick layer of her manifested essence. She had left a fewvery small gaps on the top and around the base for air circulation. She was nearly completely drained from that expenditure, butthese preparations would leave her completely undisturbed to absorb all of the essence within the cores.


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    After hesitating for a moment, she began refining the cores and drawing all of that refined essence into herself. Sudden searing pain reached across every inch of her body causing her whole body to tremble. She knew this was only the beginning. If she faltered in the circulation of her cultivation method for even an instant, the essence she was absorbing would go out of control and would tear her apart from the inside out.The pain only got worse the longer time went on. It felt like every bone in her body was being broken over and over again. Her muscles and skin felt like they were being flayed from her body. Yet she still circulated her cultivation method as she took in more of the essence from the cores. She could no longer hold in her screams. However she couldn''t stop. Not it she wanted to protect those important to her.


    While enduring all of that monsterous pain, her essence had smashed through bronze stage some time ago and was rapidly approaching iron stage. The essence cores were dwindling swiftly and were about to be used up by the time her cultivation finally reached iron stage. Not wanting to waste the remaining cores, she absorbed the last bit of essence in them and finally relaxed her control when it was clear her cultivation was stable. In that instant, she was overwhelmed by dizziness and passed out.


    In her dreams, she heard several people calling out to her followed by alot of grinding and hammering sounds. Emily, Amanda and her mother were all pleading with her to wake up and leave her cocoon. Maxine slowly started to stir and opened her eyes. Confusion filled her eyes very quickly. Her cocoon should have dissolved as soon as she lost consciousness. To try and understand this anomoly, she carefully examined it anddiscovered that it was draining a very small stream of essence from her without her conscious effort. The ammount drained wasn''t exceeding what she was producing and could be maintained indefinitely until she decided to cut off it''s supply of essence. Once she did that, the cocoon around her would collapse. Now that that mystery is solved I need to check on to other things.


    She checked on her essence core with her spiritual sense. It''s original copper hue had darkened to an almost black metallic grey. She followed up by scanning the rest her body and immediately noticed that her clothes had been shredded. She might as well be naked with how littlewas covered.I could barely keep my essence under control earlier. It''s no wonder my clothes got shredded.However those thoughtswere shoved away when she saw her hair. Her hair had been bleached of almost all of it''s color and was now silver grey. I hope this isn''t permnament. I was rather fond of my brown hair.


    Maxine shook her head to force out all of those distracting thoughts. She had to figure out what the date was since there was no way to know how long she had been unconscious.Couldn''t have been more than a few days.She extended out her spiritual sense while searching for any active terminals or computers to find today''s date. While performing her search, worry and fear were gradually taking over as she noticed howfew soldiers were at the base.None of the tanks or armored personel carriers were at base as well. She hastened her search and found an active terminal. The date listed was June 7th.

 Chapter 15

    WHAT THE FUCK! How theHELLdid I end up sleeping for more than two weeks!? Maxine didn''t hesitate or think about the matter any longer. Sheknew that the date wasn''t wrong and saldy she was aware that she couldn''t spare the time to get a change of clothes. Swiftly she covers her body in her shadow essence forming her black essence armor over a few seconds. The inky black armor hugged her body like a second skin, but strangely let her hair hang freely somehow while protecting her scalp completely. She looked like she was wearing a full body, skin tight leather outfit.As she was in the process of forming her essence amor, a bone-white mask formed over her face. It only had a small protusion for her nose, but otherwise had no other discerning features aside from the eye holes. She wasn''t bothered that it didn''t have any holes for her to breathethrough as she found that she could breathe even though it had none.


    Maxine noticed the outer layer ofsmall reptilian scales on her essence armor andimmediatelylooked herself over. The scales were everywhere except for her hands and feet. She looked like a humanoid essence beast. Although it concerned her, she didn''t have time for anything else and readied herself for what she needed to do.


    After double checking that the items she needed were still in the armory, Maxine wasted no more time and burst out of her cocoon. Knocking over a few surprised soldiers in the process. She moved as fast as the confines of the corridors would allow as she made a break for the surface. She didn''t even bother pressing the call button for the elevator and pulled apart the elevator doors with ease. She climbed up the elevator shaft to the surface and made her way to the armory. When she finally made it there, she finally realized she had made the whole trip in less than twenty seconds.


    Maxine ripped the steel door off of it''s hinges in her haste while surprising a very stocky man that was clearly the quartermaster and ran straight to the weapon that she needed. She picked upa 20mm anti-tank rifle that was almost as long as she was tall and loaded it with depleted uranium rounds in a blur of movement.She glanced at the larger 30mm anti-tank rifle, but it would limit her agility too much for her to fight the Terror Bear. As an added measure, Maxine grabbed a satchel and put extra ammo for her rifle and a few grenades in it. She slung the rifle over her shoulder and lashed it to her back with her essence. She turned around and ran past the stunned quartermaster as she headed towards the city at an ever increasing speed. Her speed was so great that she was actually having difficulty getting any grip and used her essence to make her stick to the ground. She pushed herself to even greater speeds and heard a sound that could only be called a sonic boom as she city approached quickly. Did I just do that?It didn''t matter to Maxine, if she had or not. She had to find her mother and her friends. She needed to know they were safe before she tried to fight the Terror Bear.


    Maxine checked the anti-rifle with her spiritual sense to make sure the sonic boom hadn''t damaged it before she scanned into the distance. She ran towards where her mother worked and noted that there were very few people still in the city. The few that remained were hiding while Soldiers and police officers were gunning down groups of essence beasts that they came accross.Looks like McKenzy had called an evacuation order. Does that mean mom is safe? Maxine couldn''t take that risk. When she found the office building that her mother worked in, she ran inside and headed straight for a group of survivors. Her appearance terrified them, but she didn''t care as she asked if they had seen her mother. They didn''t answer at first, but one of them in the back had said her mother hadn''t shown up for work in several days.Did the general get my mom to safety? It would make sense if they ever hoped to keep me under control. But still, I better check my house first.


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    Maxine bolted out of the building while killing every essence beast that dared get in her path with passing strike. She only diverted her course slightly to run past Emily''s house and found it was empty before heading to her own house. No one was inside and there were no signs of blood either. Either her mother was safely with the military under heavy guard or she had gotten out of town soon enough. Maxine began to calm down at those thoughts.


    She began to hear artillery firing in the distance. She scanned into that direction with her spiritual sense, but didn''t find the cannons within her range. What she did find were groups of survivors running from essence beasts. She ran towards the closest group and saw essence beasts chasing after them. They were Copper-Fang Wolves and they were toying with the survivors like cats would with mice. Maxine''s rage ignited and she charged right into them. The force of her charge threw the broken bodies of wolves into the air. Thankfully, none of them were stronger than the peak of copper stage. She started killing them as fast as she could. Each wolf didn''t take more than a single hit to kill, so she made quick work of them. She stood there after kicking the last one violently and looked at the survivors, whom were staring at her in fear. She pointed towards the firing artillery cannons and said to go towards it for safety before sheran towards the next group. She saved three more groups before she made it to her destination. She only stopped to make sure that they headed towards the safety of the soldiers.


    Maxine ran past the artillery cannons once she arrived andstopped on a small rise infront of them to get a good look at what they were shooting at. A few miles away there is a field of potholes where a grasslands used to be and in the middle of it were a large group of essence beasts ripping and tearing at something in the center.Huh? That''s new.Maxine had never seen anything like that in the past when a horde charge at a human settlement. It quickly made sense when she saw a woman with red hair, one mile away from the essence beasts, emitting alot of essence. It was Amanda creating illusions in the minds of those simple creatures. However in the center of the swarm was a huge mound of black fur in the middle of a bloody mist. It was ripping the other essence beasts apart as if they were nothing. It was the Terror Bear and from the looks of it the essence beasts around it wouldn''t last for much longer and neither would Amanda''s essence.


    Maxine felt hostility from behind her and glanced back. She felt a fear-driven shiver run up her spine when she saw it was a group of male soldiers aiming their weapons at her. She had to remind herself that her fear of men was irrational as she noted how much fear was in their eyes.. Her current appearance was the obvious cause. Although she couldn''t help feeling embarressed under their stares. She was practically naked underneith her essence amor regardless of how she appeared to them.


    "Don''t worry about me, boys. I am here to kill that thing," Maxine said to them as she pointed at the Terror Bear and she reached back to get the anti-tank rifle ready. She didn''t give them a chance tosay anything as she ran full speed towards the Terror Bear and the quickly dwindling essence beasts around it.

 Chapter 16

    Maxine charged straight at the Terror Bear that was completely oblivious of her presence. When she was less than thirty feet away from the Terror Bear, she jumped powerfully into an arc. When she was directly over it, she took quick aim and rapidly fired her anti-tank rifle twice into it''s skull. The recoil from her gun threw her an extra foot higher into the air. She heard a beastial roarof rage only after she landed. What?! Maxine scanned the Terror bear with her spiritual sense as it turned towards her. There were two bloody holes on the top of it''s head, but the bullet''s themselves had only penetrated half-way through it''s skull.I should have known it wouldn''t be that easy.


    Maxine quickly charged at the angry beast and dodged the first swipe of it''s paws as she began to dance around it. She couldn''t make a single mistake at this range, but if she tried to fight it at a distance, it would charge at her so fast that she wouldn''t be able to avoid it''s attacks. It''s only weakness was that it couldn''t turn very quickly. She was biding her time for a good shot, since she didn''t have very many bullets for her anti-tank rifle. A shot to the body is no good. It may not penetrate deep enough to kill the damn thing.


    Maxine aimed at it''s right fore leg at the elbow and put a round into it. Causing it to stumble. She immediately brought the barrel and aimed at it''s eye and shot her rifle again. Maxine jumped back and quickly changed the clip while the beast roared at her in rage and pain.Even the interior of it''s eye socket is this tough?! This is ridiculous!Killing this beast is getting harder and harder to pull off in Maxine''s mind. Until she remembered how it had roared every time she inflicted sufficient pain on it and that she still had the grenades in her satchel.


    She was brought back to reality when the bear swiped at her with it''s claws and just barely dodged it. The wind pressure from it''s claws tore her essence armor apart and left shallow wounds on her right arm.Shit! That was close!If that had hit her, she would have probably died. She kept dancing around the beast until it stood on it''s hind legs and slammed down hard with it''s fore legs. The force of the impact knocked her off her feet. Before she could get back up, it had already turned around and was in the middle of a strike. Maxine kicked the ground hard to launch herself backwards. The ground where she had been exploded and pelted her with debris.


    Maxine rolled back and got onto her feet. She saw a crater where the bear had brought down it''s paw. It looked straight at her with it''s rage-filled eye. Maxine brought up her anti-tank rifle in an instant and shot it''s nose. It''s tender nose exploded. In that instant that it started to roar in pain, Maxine dropped her anti-tank rifle and pulled out two grenades from her satchel. After pulling out the pins from the grenades, she threw them at the Terror Bear''s open mouth. One of them deflected off the side of it''s face. The other flew perfectly between it''s open jaws and down it''s throat. She didn''t even bother with her anti-rifle and ran. She counted to three and heard a wonderful boom in the distance and a much closer thud.


    Maxine spun back around and was dismayed. The Terror Bear was still alive, but it was clearly badly injured as it vomited blood.BULLSHIT!It looked wobbly on it''s feet, but it was still standing barely twenty feet away from her. She heard the sound of the artillery firing for the first time since their battle began and created hundreds of shadow tendrils to wrap around the Terror Bear to render it immobile. She managed togetthirty feet away from the Terror Bear before the artillery barage landed. A thunderous explosion eruptedbehind her and she was thrown off her feet by the shockwave. A dust cloud quickly covered the area around her. I would really like to see you live through that, asshole. She got back on her feet and looked around.She couldn''t see through the dust cloud to see the fate of the Terror bear and used her spiritual sense to investigate. To her horror and disbelief, she saw that Terror Bear was covered in bloody wounds and was about tostrike her.She couldn''t dodge it. She immediately put up her arms defensively and formedmultiple essence barriers infront of her. All of them shattered in rapid succession before she felt the impact of it''s strike broke both of her arms. Maxine was thrown nearly three hundred feet by it''s strike before her back hit the ground and skidded another fifty feet before coming to a stop. Maxine trained her spiritual sense onto the Terror bear. Fortunately, it''s injuries were too severe for it to persue her and staggered a few stepsin retreat before it collasped. A few seconds later, another round of artillery roundslanded around the Teror Bear.Please, don''t get back up.


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    The whole fight hadn''t lasted more than twenty seconds, but to Maxine it had felt like a hours long battle. Pain hit her like a truck and she scanned herself with her spiritual sense to assess her injuries. Both of her arms have multiple fractures. She has at least five broken ribs. When that happened, she had no idea. Her back felt like someone took a belt sander to it and she has gained a collection of cuts and bruises over the majority of her body. She didn''t think she could move even if she wanted to. On a more concerning note, her essence was draining fast due to her injuries. It was making maintaining her essence armor very difficult. She really didn''t want to give the person who comes to investigate her a full view of her figure.


    She just laid there motionlessly until she heard the sounds of people running to her to her right. She turned her head and saw Amanda with a lot of soldiers right behind her. When they got closer, Amandastopped and looked at her cautiouslywhile the soldiers spead out around Maxine.She was beginning to wonder what was going on when she saw a couple medics carrying a stetcher. She opened her mouth to speak, but the pain from her broken ribs flared causing her to whimper.


    Apparently, Amanda thought it was a whimper of fear and attempted to soothe Maxine. "Don''t be afraid. We are here to help," Amanda said as the medics approached her. Maxinehissed in pain when the medics picked her up to put her into the stretcher. They grabbed ahold of the stretcher and carried her off. To where, she did not know.


    After a few minutes while enroute to their destination, Maxine couldn''t maintain her essence armor anymore and watched helplessly as small streams of smoke sprang up to reveal patches of her skin. She didn''t want to be seen naked by all of these men. Fortunately for her, it was starting on her legs and arms and it was going slowlybecause she was resisting it. Shewas carried into a tent and placed on a bed. Afterwards Amanda came overwith a blanket and covered her over. She was grateful Amanda had thought to do that.


    Amanda said a few words of comfort before going to get a doctor. Maxine released her essence armor rather than waste any more strength trying to maintain it. She closed her eyes to rest because she knew that this horde was onlyfirst of many and it was only going to get worse.

 Chapter 17

    Maxine''s injures had healed over the next few days with Emily''s help. Emily had already told General McKenzyeverything about her healing powers and that she was taught how to cultivate by Maxine. She had been put to work healing the wounded immediately after the essence beasts showed up. During those few days, Maxine discovered that all the essence cultivators that had participated in the fighting had become celebrities, especially herself. They had posted a video of her saving people and of her fighting the Terror Bear. Fortunately, Maxine couldn''t be identified because of how her essence armor covered her face completely. At best, they had her hair and eye color.Emily had gotten famous due to her healing abilities rather than her combative ones and hadn''t gone out much. Since every time she had left her house, she got swarmed by her fans.


    Maxine''s mother hadn''t left her side sinceshe saw the extent of Maxine''s injuries and insisted that Maxine not fight again. Unfortunately for her mother, that wasn''t going to happen. So far, she was the only one that could fight iron stage essence beasts and have even a chance at winning. Since her fight with the Terror Bear, she had been pondering on how to more effeciently kill any essence beast that she may encounter. She didn''t want to end up heavily injured every time she had a fight with an iron stage essence beast. If she kept that up, eventually she would die.


    The first thing that she did was suggest that the general get some tanks armed with railguns. She couldn''t imagine even a Terror Bear''s defenses withstanding a fifteen pound projectile moving at mach 4 or more. Although that would only work if they had a clean line of sight and could spot the beast from far enough away. Otherwise she would have to fight them.


    Next, She asked for some books, while they still existed, on several topics regarding the original forms of iron stage essence beasts. She began with several books on various animal types beginning with original forms of the iron stage essence beasts she remembered: Terror Bear, Rock Lion and Lightning Falcon.It was too bad she couldn''t remember any others. Even though, she was certain there were more.


    After reading up for awhile, Maxine started to feel stupid about how she went about fighting the Terror Bear earlier. It had an obvious weakness. It shared it with so many other land-based animals that predators had been exploiting for countless years. The weakness was at the base of the spine near the skull. If she had shot the Terror bear in that spot when she had been above it, she would have paralyzed it and killed the beast off at her leisure. This information solved the problem with fighting most but not all land-based essence beasts. Unfortunately it was useless against the flying variety. The Lightning Falcon was one such creature. It is only about the size of a full grown man. However, it''s size isn''t the reason that it''s a threat. It is their speed. It was also the reason why they were called Lightning Falcons, since they resemble a lightning bolt when they strike. The good news about those birds is that theyrarely nested near humans for some reason anddo not leave their territory once they establish it. Her only solution for theLightning Falcons was to avoid them at least for the time being.


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    It took Maxine five full days to completely recover, and was now at home. However her time recovering had given her plenty of time to think when she wasn''t reading. The next wave of essence beast hordes would be in autumn months and the other places attacked didn''t fare nearly as well as they had.Many fearful politicians had tried to get General McKenzy be harsher in his control of essence cultivators and demanded that he either turn them into weapons or kill them. She had appreciated how he handled handled that. He threw them out of his office and called a press conference to discuss with the public about people like her. He had kept it simple and started off with a simple explaination of what they were. He made it clear that most of the essence cultivators were not aggressive and wanted to be left alone. He finished by stating that the essence cultivators that had assisted in the rescue of civilians would remain anomynous. A few random questions were asked and answered. There was one question that caught Maxine''s attention the most: How were they going to prevent future essence beast hordes? The general offered a few options such as better military readiness and the use of high tech weaponry, but Maxine knew those wouldn''t beeffective for long. They needed a better long term solution.


    However Maxine had an idea of her own on that topic. Her idea involved finding or teaching more essence cultivators in order to either thin the beasts out before the become a problem or fight a horde when it appears. She knew the best way to do that was to start teaching others how to properly cultivate like she had with Emily and Amanda. They had alot of essence cores to fast track their cultivation too, but it might not be difficult to get started.However if she used her celebrity status, it might work. Maxine smiled to herself as she called General Mckenzy. He might be able to help arrange it.

 Chapter 18

    When Maxinecalled General McKenzy, she was told to come to the base before she could offer to teach other essence cultivators. She ran to the base and was led to his office. As Maxine walked in, she saw his furious glareand quietly shut the door behind her. Amanda was there as well and was sitting off to side looking rather weary.


    "Ms. Levings, I hope you are aware just how much of a headache these last few days have been. I have had to convince congress and the press that you and the other enhanced ability users weren''t a threat. It became especially difficult after someone posted a video of your battle with that Terror Bear, as you called it," General McKenzy calmly stated, "Doing all of that was part of my assignment. However, the damage and material losses to my base that you caused are a serious issue. An issue that I am willing to overlook as long as I get some answers from you. Is that understood?" Maxine nodded her understanding."Good. First, I assume that the research materials aided in your vast increase of power. I want to know if it is possible for anyone else to perform that feat," the general said.


    "Yes, but it''s unlikely that anyone else would have survived, if they attempted to do it to the extent that I did, and that is if they knew how to do it in the first place," Maxine answered.


    "I see," General McKenzy said, "Next, I want to know what that substance covering you, during your battle, was."


    "It is armor of sorts. It is made of the same stuff as my darts. I just covered my whole body with it," Maxine answered.


    "Unfortunate," General McKenzy said. Maxine knew he wanted to be able to produce that material for his soldiers. It would make an excellent body armor, if she could sustain it away from her body for any period of time. He knew it would just dissolve as soon as it was away from her more than a few seconds.


    Amanda spoke up rather quickly, "I have a question for you, Max. Why in god''s name did you make yourself look like a scaled monster wearing a white mask? I almost thought that stuff was your skin before it started dissolving into smoke." Maxine''s face began to burn feircely as she remembered how close she had gotten to giving those soldiers a full view of her figure. She looked at the general desperately for help to avoid answering that question, but he only lifted an eyebrow.


    "I didn''t really have a choice in how it looked. It just ended up looking like that on it''s own," Maxine answered, "Do you seriously think I wanted to look like that?"


    General McKenzy spoke before Amanda could, "No, I doubt you would. I have one last question. It is something I have suspected since my grand daughter told me about the origin of her abilities. Can normal humans become enhanced ability users?" Amanda immediately looked concerned.


    "Yes, and that is the thing I wanted to talk to you about in the first place," Maxine said.


    "Explain," he said.


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    "I know we need more people capable of fighting essence beasts and I am willing to teach them how to become like me and Amanda," she said. Only after she said it, did she only realized that she had never used the word essence to describe the beasts to the general.However he didn''t interrupt her. "If we have more people like us, we could go and hunt them instead of being on the defensive. It would help prevent more of those hordes and in turn it would result in fewer casualties."


    "Intriguing idea. However most enhanced ability users, other than yourself, are only on par with professional athletes in physical ability and their abilities give them similar firepower to that of a handgun. How could they possibly be of significant helpwhen modern weaponry is available?" General McKenzy asked.


    "Those people didn''t have any kind of training to enhance their power. If I am allowed to teach andI have access to certain resources, I can have twenty individuals capable of one tenth mystrength with their ownspecial armorinside a month," Maxine stated confidently. One tenth may not have sounded like an impressive number, but whenconsideringhow powerful Maxine is, it is a frightening ammount. However it would take alot of effort on her part to get it started. She would need to refine alot of copper essence cores for them to absorb before they formed their own cores.


    "What do you need?" General McKenzy said.


    "I need alot of essence cores, the copper colored ones, and none of my students can be older than 20. I prefer it if they were still in their mid teens, but I doubt that will happen. You see the older someone gets the harder it is for their bodies to accept anything new and that will inhibit their progress significantly," Maxine stated.


    "Excuse me, but what do you mean by essence cores?" General McKenzy said.


    "Those are the jewels that I used to boost my power. They are required to make the students as strong as I said," Maxine replied.


    "Very well," General McKenzy said, "Is there anything else that you need?" She wanted to ask for a female only class, but knew that wasn''t going to happen. She knew that General McKenzy would select people from the military and women were in the minority. So, she opted for the next best thing.


    "Can Amanda be there when I teach?" Maxine asked. She saw an understanding look appear in General McKenzy''s eyes.


    "Unless she objects, I have no problem with that," the general said as he looked to Amanda.


    "Of course I will," Amanda said as she reached over and placed her hand over Maxine''s. Maxine was grateful to Amanda. She couldn''t stand the thought of being by herself infront ofa bunch of men. She still hadn''t conquered her fear of them.


    "If there is nothing else ladies, I have alot work to do to make this happen. I will inform you when the classes will begin," General McKenzy said before showing them both to the door.


    Amanda had other tasks to do and didn''t accompany Maxine out of the base. She ran towards her house since it was faster than driving. She tried to make a proper lesson plan in her head as she ran. She would have to teach them cultivation first and basic techniques once their cores form. Teaching them to use spiritual sense would be difficult and when they reach bronze stage, she would have to teach them how to form their own essence armor. It would be challenging, but not impossible.She was just worried about howeffective of a teacher will be.


    When she got back home, she noticed how ragged around the edges her clothes were. She needed to find a sturdier material to be used for her everyday clothing if she is going to continue to running around like this.

 Chapter 19

    Because ithad reached the weekend and she hadn''t heard from the general yet, Maxine had gone into a nearby conservation area with her backpack on her back. She needed to locate some sturdier materials to make some new clothes and collect essence cores for boosting her cultivation. Most of the fibers she had found either at the base or online were too fragile to withstand her faster than sound running speeds. The ones she did find that could meet the task felt like sandpaper. Hence her search for sturdy yet soft materials. She only knew of one material that met her needs and that was the silk from a copper or bronze stage Widowmaker spider. A single strand of it''s silk that was thick as sewing thread was as strong as a half-inch thick steel cable, yet as soft asnormal silk.


    Earlier in the day, Maxine encountered a fewdozen of copper stage essence beasts and only two bronze. She had placed their essence cores into her backpack. However there hadn''t been any sign of the Widowmaker spider since her search began two hours ago. She was at least thirty miles away from where she started and was beginning to worry that she wouldn''t be able to find it. Her mind started to wander as she searched.


    Maxine had sudden concern about where General McKenzy might get the essence cores, but had dismissed that thought. She couldn''t imagine a man as competent as him would pass up a chance to use theSadist Rat corpses from her school as research materials. Even if he didn''t, he would, at the very least, have ordered them to be disected to determine the cause for their abnormal size and aggression. It would have only been a matter of time before he found their cores.


    Maxine''s attention shifted fromher own thoughtswhen she found what she had been looking for. It was bronze stage Widowmaker spider and it wasa fewmiles away from her.Maxine arrived infront ofmess of large spider webs that was at least one hundred feet across. She wondered how no one had found this yet and noticed there were quite a few wiggling cocoons hanging amonst the spiderwebs. Some were almost as big as she was. However a quick scan over them with her spiritual sense revealed that none of them contained humans.


    Maxine scanned the mess of spiderwebs for the spider and found it. It wasfourty feet infront of her. It was a mostly black spider that was only about the size of a mid-sized dog andpossessed a white pattern on the top side of it''s abdomen that was rather pleasing ot the eye. However, it had one of the most deadly venoms amonst in the bronzestage. It was so potent that it couldincapacitate iron stage essence cultivators with a single bite. The only good news was that it hunted mostly using it''s webs. So unless someone was dumb enough to get caught in it''s webs, they wouldn''t be in danger.


    Maxine picked up a stick and poked the spiderweb to get the spider''s attention. It didn''t move, but she could tell that it had started watching her.It''s smarter than normal.She smiled to herself. If it was this smart enough, she might be able to train it to weave clothes at a later date and she would only have to dye them. She tried to touch it''s mind with her spiritual sense and just as expected it lashed out with a mental attack in fear. She withstood it''s attack and made an attack of her own. It quickly became a battle of wills. Fortunately, it''s mental strength was no match for Maxine''s and quickly submitted to her.


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    While it was still in a docile state, Maxine placed a spiritual mark inside of it''s mind. It would prevent it from turning on her unless it''s mental and physical strength surpassed her own. She sent several mental images to the spider to depict what she wanted from it and promised that she would reward it with bronze stage essence core after it was done. Unfortunately, it wasn''t dextrous enough to weave clothing, so she place non-sticky thread on an one foot tall and six inch wide spool that she retrieved from her backpack. She instructed it with a series of images that she wanted it to put non-sticky silk on the spool. She watched as it fed it''s silk onto the spool.


    Sinceshe couldn''t get the spider to make her clothes, she would just make them herself. After it had finished filling the spool with it''s silk, Maxine pulled out a single bronze stage essence core and the Widowmaker spider''s eight eyes locked onto it. Maxine tossed it to her Widowmaker spider. It pounced on it and swallowed it. It made, what Maxine thought were, happy sounds.


    Maxine examinedher Widowmaker Spider more thoroughly with her spiritual sense as it digested the essence core. It was female and had seemed to have just ranked up into the bronze stage. Shestarted looking for any unique traits it might have. After her scan of the beast, she ran her hand accross the spool of silk. It felt much softer to the touch than she had expected.


    Maxine didn''t want to keep calling it ''the spider'' or ''Widowmaker.'' It sounded too harsh as a name for her pet."You need a name. I think I will call you Silky. What do you think about it?" Maxine said out loud while looking at the spider. She felt a sense of approval from it. "Alright, Silky. You be a good girl and stay here. Don''t eat any humans. I will be back later with more tasty essence cores." Maxine turned around and headed back towards her house. She wanted to take Silky with her, but she knew that her mother and everyone else would end up screaming and trying to kill Silky out of fear. She wouldn''t blame them for it either. A giant spider is straight out of a horror movie or a nightmare. Anyways it''s better for Silky to remain in a place that it can provide food for itself.


    Maxine continued her search for more essence cores and collected some more bronze and copper stage essence cores before she decided to head back. She had gained 58 copper essence cores and 5 bronze cores, minus the one she fed to Silky, from her trip. She was roughly half-wayhome when she recieved a phone call from General McKenzy. He notified her that her class would begin Monday at ten in the morning and she mentioned her arachnid pet to the general before the call ended. She didn''t want him or her future trainees to kill it. He seemed rather surprised that she was able tame it. After hanging up her cellphone, Maxine felt nervous about monday, but she is mostly ready for it.

 Chapter 20

    Maxine felt somewhat shaky as she walked towards a large military warehouse where her students had assembled. As she stood outside of it, she remembered that last night that she only had enoughsilk for a sports bra, panties and a sleeveless undershirt. All of which she was wearing underneith her normal clothes. She wanted every comfort she could get today.


    Maxine checked her cellphone and noticed that she had arrived ten minutes early. She scanned the interior of the warehouse with her spiritual sense and saw that her students were waiting. All of them, except for one, were men. Amanda was inside sitting on a chair off to the side. Beside her was a small case full of copper stage essence cores.


    Maxine took a deep breath and formed her essence armor.Itgave her a sense of security. She opened the door to the warehouse and approached her students. The moment that she appeared in their line of sight, all of their eyes locked onto her and they immediately got into formation.


    Maxine scanned each one of them with her spiritual sense and didn''tfind anydefects that would inhibit their ability to cultivate. She ordered them to spread out and be at least two feet apart. Afterthey had gotten comfortable, she tried to explain how to cultivate to them. As they attempted to cultivate, she scanned them with her spiritual sense and found that only three of them got it right away. She walked up to one of her trainees and spoke, "You can''t sense the essence in the air if you are too tense. Relax, it will come to you." She could feel sweat forming on her brow beneith her mask. She did not want to be this close to him, but it was neccesary to help him. Her words seemed to have a ripple effect as the other trainees started to one by one circulate essence through their blood.


    Once all of them had the hang of it, Maxine grabbed twenty one copper essence cores. Since her trainees couldn''t refine the cores on their own yet, she did it for them before giving each of them one. Maxine struggled to avoid skin contact. She was already having a hard time being this close to them. If any of them touched her she might impulsively hit them.


    She gave the extra one to Amanda to use before explaining how to use them, "There is essence within these jewels. I have refined them to make their essence more absorbable. All you have to do hold it while you cultivate and your bodies will do the rest."


    Maxine pulled out a bronze essence core from her hunt the other day and cultivated. It was slightly painful to absorb the essence from the bronze core, since she hadn''t completely recovered from her massive jump in cultivation to iron stage. However this task was a good method to distract herself from her students. It allowed her to recover somewhat from the stress of interacting with them.


    It took them afew hours to absorb all of the essence from the cores. Maxine scanned them and each of them had a pair of essence strands.It was good progress. She couldn''t teach them too much beyond what they had already done until they formed their cores. After that, she could teach them several attacks and how to empower certain kinds of weaponsusing their essence.


    Maxine was about todismiss them forthe day when one of them asked, "Why don''t we use more of these cores? It would make our progress alot greater wouldn''t it?"


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    She answered the question, "You could, but it would be better if you didn''t. Draw too much essence into your body before your core form and you will experience ashit ton of pain. I wouldn''t recommend it even after you form your core. Didn''t you notice that bloated feeling coming from your whole body?" The trainee that asked the question nodded his head slightly. "That is your body telling you that you have absorbed your limit of essence. There are some nasty side effects instore for you if you draw in more essence beyond that limit. I did that myself and had my hair color change. I was lucky for only that to happen. There are worse things that could have happened. Such as one of my arms or legs exploding, half my face could have melted off, my eyeballs could have exploded or any number of equally horrific things. If any of you attempt it with your level of skill, you would die a very painful death as you scream out a bloody mist for the last few miserable minutes of your lives."Some of her students had visibly paled.Maxinesaid those things to make them understandthe dangers of drawing in too much essence at a time. "Any other questions?" Maxine said and waited for a few moments before dismissing them. One of them accidentally got too close and Maxine quickly retreated from him. However to them, it would probably seem that she had just teleported. She got a few concerned looks as they hurried away.


    After they were out of sight Maxine released her essence armor and felt tension release out of her body. Her nerves had been tautfor the last three hours. It had been very difficult to retain her calm infront of those men. She popped her neck and walked up to Amanda before asking, "How did I do?"


    "You did fine. Now go home and relax. You sound stressed," Amanda told her. Maxine had her doubt of how well she did, but wasn''t in the mood to argue.


    "Alright. See you later, Amy," Maxine said as she headed for the exit.


    Maxine missed Emily and decided to drop by her house on the way back. However when she was roughly three blocks away, she saw a couple reporters camping outsideEmily''s house. She didn''t dare try to approach the house without making sure Emily was there to let her in. Maxine extended her spiritual sense and found Emily. Maxine ran to the back of Emily''s house and sent a message to her via spirital sense to let her in.


    Maxine talked to Emily and found out that the reporters had been a problem ever since Emily was seen healing people with her essence. It made going out for any reason difficult when every time she tried the press would smother her with questions. Maxine didn''t have to deal with the same problem. Because not many people knew that she was the one that fought the Terror Bear and the ones that did weren''t talking to the press.


    Maxine told Emily about Silky and why she tamed it. It was the same reason she told General McKenzy the other day. She said that she got it because of it''s paralytic venom and would make fighting iron stage essence beasts much easier by reducing their mobility, which was true. The biggest drawback though was that Maxine would have to use it on a weapon herself. She didn''t want her only source of durable fabric to be killed during a battle.


    They talked for awhile and when Maxine noticed the time she had to leave. She left through the back door and took roundabout path back home. It didn''t take her long to travel that distance. However, right as she was about to open her door, she felt as if someone was watching her intently. Maxine extended out her spiritual sense. Some of the neighbors were home, but none of them were in any position to be watching her. She expanded her search and still found nothing. Her instincts had never failed her in the pastand she began to get nervous because that person was still watching her as she entered her home. She had a hard time believing that she couldn''t find whoever it was with her spiritual sense, but it was posisble that might bea material that could hide someone from spiritual sense. She would just have to keep herguard up until whoever it was made a move.

 Chapter 21

    Maxine shivered from the memory of her nightmare as she got ready for today''s class. Her nightmare was of herstudentstransforming from her eager to learnsoldiers into violent rapists. She knew that she could beat all of them into a bloody paste in under a minute, but it had still frightened her. It made facing to her class today much more difficult than the day before. She had to keep telling herself it was an irrational fear and began dispising her father more for instilling this fear in her. She hoped that bastard was in a cell with a particularly cruel sodomite.


    Maxine took a deep breath and checked her scalp in the mirror. Her hair hadn''t shown any signs of growing back in brown since her suicidal boost in power. The hair that grew was still silver-grey. Maxine let out a sigh. It appeared the change of her hair color was permnament. It made her frustrated. Silver-grey hair was extremely rare in someone her age and would make it easier for the general populace to figure out that she was the one that fought the Terror Bear. Infact, it was a small miracle no one had figured it out yet. She doubted there was another girl with her physique and hair color in the St Louis area.


    Maxine shoved those thought out of her mind as shewent to see if her ride had arrived yet. After that feeling those eyes on her yesterday, she had called General McKenzy. He had offered that it might be a spy from another country observing her in order to assess her as a threat. Since she could protect herself quite easily, he didn''t send anyone to watch her, but insisted that she get driven to the base from now on.


    After Maxine finished breakfast she looked outside and saw a grey sedan parked infront of her house. She had an hour to get to the warehouse. She hadn''t expected her ride to arrive this early. Maxine saw no point in making someone wait on her and went outside. It was being driven by the same man that took her to the research warehouse.At least, it''s a familiar face. As she got into the back of the car, she felt those eyes on her again, but this time she felta hint ofhostility. She tried to find whoever it was with her spiritual sense, but like before she found nothing.It was unsettling.


    Maxine sat as far away from the driver as possible. She didn''t want to be any closer to him than absolutely necessary and tried to think of other things during the drive.


    When she arrived inside of the warehouse, she noticed no one else had arrived yet and wouldn''t for at least another thrity minutes. Maxine didn''t see any point in wasting time and refined some essence cores. It didn''t take her very long and as soon as she finished she decided to practice her weapon skills for a few minutes before her class could arrived. To make the essence expenditure as close to actual combat as she could, Maxine created a chinese blade in each hand with her essence and formed her essence armor. These weapons weren''t as durable as a normal steel version, but they were great for practicing. Maxine visualized an opponent wielding a sword and shield infront of her and startedshadowboxing with itat one tenth her normal speed. It was akward to swing her blades at first, but it was within expectations. The original Maxine had never done any martial arts, so it would be idiotic to expect anything different.


    Maxine slowly adjusted her fighting style to better suit her feminine form and flexibility. Once her movements became more smooth, she started incorporating a combination of kicks and punches into her fighting style as she shadowboxed. However she didn''t increase her speed. She wanted to make her movementsas smooth as possiblebefore she gradually increased her speed.


    Unfortunately, she had become so focused in her practice that she hadn''t noticed that Amanda and her students were arriving one at a time. It had taken her several minutes to notice their presence. When she noticed them, sheremembered hernightmare last night and felt fear course through her as she retreated at full speed to the far side of the warehouse. Maxine turned around and saw that none of them chased her. Amanda didn''t appear too surprised at Maxine''s speed, but her students were staring at her wide eyed.


    "When will we be able to move that fast?" one of them asked. Maxine ignored the question as she took deep breaths to calm her violently beating heart. She was grateful that none of them tried to approach her. It seemed that they had been informed of her androphobia.


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    Once she had calmed herself sufficiently, Maxine pointed at the small pile of refined essence cores and ordered them, "Well? What are you waiting for grab an essence core and start cultivating."


    Amanda approached her and asked, "Are certain that you are up for this? I could always look after them for the day."


    "I''ll be fine. Just jumpy from a nightmareis all," Maxine answered, "Grab an essence core and join us in cultivating. Can''t have you lagging behind our students." Maxine pulled out bronze essence core as she walked into position infront of her students. Amanda followed suit and took an essence core out and cultivated herself. It took Maxine far longer that it normally did to get into a cultivation state due to the fear she felt earlier.


    The following three hours were quiet and her students made good progress as an additional two essence strands formed in their bodies. Each of them now had four essence strands each. At this rate, they will start forming their cores on Friday. It shouldn''t be a problem as long as they follow her instructions. After they had all finished cultivating three hours later, Maxine dismissed her students. Maxine made certain to give them a wide berth. She could have sworn that she saw a few sympathetic looks sent her way as they left.


    Maxine released her essence armor and let out a sigh. Amanda walked over and patted Maxine''s shoulder before she too left. Maxine didn''t know if she could make it through their training at this rate. Just thinking about it made shivers of fear run up her spine.At least Amanda will be around to help make it more tolerable. I am not sure how well I would be doing if she hadn''t agreed to help me.


    Maxine had her ride take her to the conservation area. She wanted to check on Silky and get a few more bronze cores. She had tried absorbing essence from three copper essence cores at once the night before and it did nothing for her cultivation. She could only cultivate using bronze or iron essence cores and the iron essence core that she knew about was under lock and key. She doubted they would just give it to her.


    After she arrived at the conservation area, she told the man she wouldn''t be gone much longer than an hour and sped off at a normal jogging speed. It wouldn''t take her long since she knew where she needed to go. She made her way to where Silky was and noticed that there were some new cocoons hanging around. She scanned them with her spiritual sense to make sure none of them were humans. Fortunately they were mostly normal animals and a few essence beasts. Her spider ran out of her webs and greeted her like a dog would by circling while making chirping sounds. She found that behavior cute and sat down to pet her spider. Silky seemed genuinely happy to see her. Maxine was actually enjoying the slightly fuzzy feel to Silky''s chitinous body.


    After a few moments of petting, Silky ran into it''s den of spiderwebs and brought out a two foot long branch with spider silk wrapped around it. Her spider gave her a expectant look. Maxine smiled at it''s intelligence and gave it one of her last two bronze essence cores. After devouring it, Silky did a strange dance. Maxine giggled at the creature''s antics.Maxine felt alot better than she had before coming here. It was odd howSilky was able to cheer her up. Almost everyone else would have been terrified by it. She just sat there and petted on it for a short while. That simple action seemed to settle her nerves.


    Maxine checked the time and noticed she only had about fourty minutes left before she needed to be back at the car. She gave Silky one more reminder not to feed on humans and grabbed branch with silk on it before running at a slow speed through the woods to locate some bronze stage essence beasts. There were very few bronze stage essence beasts roaming around and she only managed to find three during the time she had left. She had run past or completely ignored the copper stage ones that she encountered.


    Maxine managed to make it back to the car before she said she would and got taken home. When she got home, she still felt those eyes on her, but she did her best to act nonchalant about it. She had a late lunch and felt alot better about everything. She definitely needed to visit Silky more often.She had a feeling that she wouldn''t have a nightmare tonight. She placed the silk laden branch in her room. There was alot more silk on this branch than the spool she had gotten from Silky last time. Countless shadow tendrils with either sharp or hooked ends appeared all around her and she began weaving the silk.Hmm, what should I make. Maybe I will make a copy of that outfit Emily likes.

 Chapter 22

    Maxine woke up feeling both nervous and happy. It was friday and today Maxine''s students were going to form their cores. That was only the reason why she was nervousbut the reason she was happy was because her fear of men had slightly diminished. She figured it was due to being in a room full of them for the last few days without any incidents. She was hoping it would apply to all men and not just her students.


    Maxine started to get ready while in high spirits. She grabbed the Steel Silk Vest she made last night and put it on. It provided more protection than wearing a breastplate made of titanium alloy and weighed alot less too. She had made it after discovering that Silky could produce a huge ammount of silk a day and collected three days worth of it to make this armor. However, if she had to rate it, it would be at best a high grade bronze armor. The reason she made it in the first place was that the feeling of those eyes on her had really bothered her. Whoever was watching her was getting more and more hostile. She wanted to have this extra layer of protection, just in case.


    Maxine had gathered ten more bronze coresminus what she fed to Silky and what she used during cultivation. She had dropped off all of her copper essence cores at Emily''s house on wednesday since she couldn''t use them herself. General McKenzy hadn''t been letting her use the ones from the base''s stockpile. Regardless, Emily had more than enough cores to help her reach bronze stage in half the time. Maxine would need to start hunting for more copper essence cores soon, so that Emily doesn''t run out.


    Her driver was stoic as always. He barely acknowleged that she was there as he put the car into gear.He seemed so emotionless at times thatMaxine wasn''t competely certain that he wasn''t an atomaton. It would explain why she wasn''t that afraid of him. She scanned him with her spiritual sense out of curiosity and found out that she was only partially correct. His right arm and left leg were high-tech prosthetics that responded to the electrical impulses of the nerves that normally signaled muscles to move. He even had a gun of some sort built into his prosthetic arm. She had only heard about that kind of tech in her past life years after the apocolypse happened.


    Maxine arrivedinside the military warehouse with her essence armor on as normal and looked at her students. "Today is the day that you guys will form your cores. I will give you a short explaination on what you need to do and what to expect. Is that clear?" Maxine said in a tone she adopted from General McKenzy. She felt some fear from being near them, but she was able to manage it. Her recent interactions with them had dulled it somewhat. She still hadn''t become comfortable enough to drop her essence armor though.


    "Yes, Ma''am," they said almost as one.


    "Good. Now listen up. When all of you have gathered all ten of the required essence strands, you need to bring them to a spot just to the right of your heart. After that put them into a flower formation with all their ends touching in the middle. Put that flower into the strongest spin that you can manage until it resembles a vortex. If you are doing it right, a small jewel will start to form in the middle of it until it encases that small vortex of essence. When it becomes stable, you will have formed your own essence core and you will become a rank 1 copper stage cultivator. This is one of the harder steps in cultivation. However, the method I taught you is very safe and I do not think that any of you will experience any dangers with this. However if any problems arise during the formation of your core, either myself or Amanda will come and resolve it. Now grab one of the provided essence cores and get started."


    Maxine watched them acquire the essence cores and start cultivating. Maxine extended her spiritual sense and monitored them all very carefully. Shecould tell that Amanda was doing the same. It was going quite smoothly. The first few formed their essence cores quite smoothly and Maxine had asked them to sit quietly while the rest finished.


    Unfortunately there is always one person that somehow messes up. Maxine saw the poor man''s face covered in sweat asshe detected that he wasn''t able to maintain the spin of his vortex and it was becoming unstable. Maxine walked up to him and hesitated for a moment due to fear because she needed to have physical contact with him to help him. However, she didn''t want any of her students to get hurt.She grit her teeth and grabbed his shoulder. She sent her own essence into his body and stabalizedhis vortex. She montiored it very carefully as the core started to form.IfMaxine hadn''t saved him,the backlash of his exploding essence would have killed him.After his essence core finished forming, she pulled her hand away from him. The fear from that breif contact had made her feel sick, but she was proud of herself. Three days ago she doubted she may have just let him die because of her fear.


    She walked back up infront of of her students and continued monitoring them. Fortunately, there were no more incidents.All twenty of her students formed an essence core and officially became rank 1 copper cultivators.


    Maxine was about to tell them how to refine essence cores when she felt a tapon her shoulder. She looked over and saw it was General McKenzy. It made her uncomfortable that he touched her, but not afraid. It had bothered her for some time that she barely felt any fear towards him. If anything she felt safe when she was around him. She put alot of thought into discovering the reason for it. She understood part of her was grateful that he had put her father into prison. She had frequent interactions as well that would explain why she had less fear of him than most other men. Add to that the fact that he refused to reveal her name to the press and any politicians that demanded it, and that caused Maxine to trust him not toharm her in any way. Although she was still angry at him for putting her through that test. She had almost pissed herself from fear and had been a hair''s breadth from severely injuring Amanda when shehad taken on his visage.


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    "How is their progress?" General McKenzy said.


    "They have just finished forming their cores. I can double their training speed after todayand they will reachthe goal of one tenth my strength in twenty three days," Maxine answered in a business like tone, "I will need seven hundred and twenty more copper essence cores for that to happen."


    "We have more than a sufficient supply of those. Carry on," he said before leaving.


    After the general had left the building, Maxine started explaining the refinement method of essence cores to her students and gave them a demonstration. Several of them wanted to try it on the spot, but Maxine insisted against it. When an essence core is refined, it''s energy will disperse all at once if it isn''t absorbed within a few hours and they still needed a night to allow both their bodies and cores to recover. She dismissed them for the day and told them they will start refining essence cores on their own and that she would teach them how to use their spiritual sense and a few essence based attacks tomorrow.


    Afterwards, Maxine was driven to the conservation area where she visited Silky. Silky had gotten bigger. Her spider had been only two and a half feet accross when she found her, but now she was closer to three feet across. Maxine guessed it was due to the essence cores she had been feedingSilky. It didn''t matter to her though. She had never heard of a Widowmaker Spider reaching iron stage.


    Maxine wished she could bring Silky out with her whenever she taught her students. Silky could act like her therapy pet and keep her calm. However she knew it would cause a panic if she tried. After Silky brought out a full spool of silk, Maxine fed Silky another bronze essence core and sat under a tree to pet Silky in silence. Silky seemed to enjoy the attention as much as Maxine liked to pet it.


    Maxine was brought out of her reverie when she felt the eyes again, but the feeling disappeared a moment later. She hadn''t expected to feel them here and she look around carefully. However, she didn''t see anyone. Instead of searching the area with her spiritual sense, Maxine touched Silky''s mind and requested to see if Silky could smell whoever it was. Maxine knew that spidershave a very strong sense of smell. It helps some of the more active spiders in hunting for prey.


    Silky could smell the person and lifted one of her fore legs to direct which direction that person was in. Now that Maxine had a direction tosearch in she could focus her spiritual sense into a narrow beam. It didn''t matter if they were a cultivator hiding their presence or someone wearing a high-tech getup. She would still be able to find them.


    Maxine searched for only a few moments before she found him. He was only about three hundred feet from her behind some trees and he was walking towards her at a steady pace. It startled her when she saw who it was. It was her best friend in her past life,Patrick Mason. He had fought beside her for years and disappeared only a week before she died as Maxwell Adams. She didn''t even know why he would be here, but what truly confused her was his cultivation.He was rank two bronze stage cultivator. She knew perfectly well that he hadn''t started cultivating until after everything went to hell. So why is he so strong now?Could he be a reincarnator like me?


    Maxine didn''t even have time tothink about any of this as Patrick came into sight.He still hadraven black hair, steel blue eyes and a square jaw. Although he didn''t havea full beard that hehad in the her past life, there was no doubt that it was him. He looked every bit of the fifteen year old muscle bound jock from her memories. It''s definitely his body, but does he have the same mind? I have to find out.There was only one way for her to be sure. She would have to fight him. Aperson''s fighting style was better than a fingerprint. No matter how hard someone tries they can''t hide their own ingrained movements. If his fighting style isn''t the same, it just means that someone else had been reincarnated in Patrick''s body instead of their own.


    However, there was another reason she wanted to fight him. He had made her angry by stalking her for the past five days. During those days, she had become anxious whenever she was outside because of that feeling of being watched and now he followed her to the one place she felt safe. Maxine almost couldn''t resist the urge to pummel him.


    He was already less than fifty feet from Maxine when Silky sensed her anger and started hissing at him. Maxine quicklyformed her essence armor and manifested her blades.


    "Easy now. Ididn''t mean to scare you," Patrick said in a soothing tone as he stopped approaching, "I just want to talk."


    "Silky, go hide in your webs," Maxine said whilekeeping her eyes onPatrick. Silky stoped herhissing and scurried into her spiderwebs. Maxine got into a fighting stance and told him, "You lost your right totalk things out five days ago when you started following me. Now you have to earn that privledge. Prepare to defend yourself."

 Chapter 23

    Maxine stared at Patrick patiently waiting for him to prepare for a moment before he spoke, "Fine, have it your way." Crystaline platemail formed rapidly on Patricks body and a short sword and shield made of the same material formed in his hands. His armor exposed little more than his eyes. It was exactly as she remembered it. However, Maxine felt a pang of jealousy at seeing such beautiful essence armor. However she didn''t let it distract her.


    Maxine charged at him using twenty percent of her normal strength just so she would be faster and stronger than him, but not by too huge of a margin. Otherwise, it would be a one-sided beatdown rather than a test.


    Maxine hadn''t realized how much bigger he was than her until she was almost close enough to attack. Patrick was almost a full head taller than her. However it didn''t matter. She had to do this even if she felt alittle intimidated. She stabbed at him with her right blade. He deflected it by using his shield and spun around in the same movement to club her with the hilt of his sword. Maxine dodged away and hacked with both weapons at his now exposed right side. Patrick completed his spin with a powerful slash knocking both of her weapons back. Even though she was faster, he still had the advantage when defending.


    Maxine retreated momentarily and smiled beneith her mask.He moves and reacts the same, but that was only the opening set.Maxine unleashed a flurry of stabs and slashes in rapid succession. Patrick used a combination of parries and blocks to stop her assault. Maxine kicked at his knee only to miss when he took a step back. However she stumbled because of her missed attack and it left her open. He stabbed at her chest and she twisted her whole body to avoid it. Maxine unleashed horizontal slash as she retreated. He didn''t follow after her.He always was the defensive fighter.


    Maxine rushed at him once again and they exchanged attacks. It kept going as she did most of the attacking while he defended flawlessly. Maxine felt like laughing with joy the longer they exchanged moves because it felt like their one of their old sparing matches. However, she failed to notice the gradually increasing rage in Patrick''s gaze until it was too late.


    Patrick unleashed a thrust of his sword far faster than she thought possible of him. It was coming at her nearly half her normal speed and it was aimed straight at her heart. She tried dodging to the right as she twisted her body sideways, but it still hit her. It punctured through Steel Silk Vest and her essence armor, but it had lost most of the force behind it and only left a shallow cut on her left breast. The pain from the wound and the fact that he had just tried to kill her filled her with rage. She had been vaguely aware that he had yelled at her about copying Maxwell''s moves to mock him as she retaliated.


    Maxine lashed out at full strength with both of her blades. Patrick barely managed to block with his shield. However when her weapons collided with it, the shield shattered like glass diffusing alot of the power behind her strike. However his arm still broke from the force of the impact as he was hurled through the air and slammed violently into a tree. The rest of his essence armor fractured and fell off of him in chunks as his body had slid down the tree. Patrick looked up at herwhile in a daze and started coughing. After his coughing fit, blood started to leak out from the corner of his mouth.


    The sight of his blood brought Maxine back to her sense, but she was still angry due to the injury she suffered. However, what had just happened didn''t make any sense to Maxine. The Patrick she knew would never attack a woman with intent to kill, even if sed woman came at him with a knife.What is going on? What happened to him to make him like that?


    Maxine scanned him with her spiritual sense to see how badly she had hurt him. He had some minor internal bleedingand his left arm was broken. It wasn''t as bad as she thought and with some rest he should heal within a week. Maxine walked over to him and dissolved her blades. She picked him up while he was still in a dazed state and threw him over her shoulder. She found it odd that she wasn''t repulsed or afraid of physical contact with him as she stuck him up against Silky''s webs."Silky, bind his arms and legs to your webs." Maxine didn''t want Patrick to attack her when he came back to his sense.


    Maxine backed up to let Silky work. While Silky worked, Maxine thought about what to do with him. He could have very easily told someone where he went and his parents would gather a search party to look for him. It wouldn''t take them very long to find this place and him. That would lead to some very trouble some questions from General McKenzy. She couldn''t keep him here for very long. At most she could keep him here for a few hours. Hence she had to resolve whatever problem he had with her today.


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    Silky moved quite quickly and had him bound to her webs in just a few minutes. Patrick seemed to started to regain his senses sometime while Silky worked. He had become lucid by the time Silky had finished and realized he was tied up. Maxine got closer to him to speak, but he spoke first. "So are you going to torture me again? Or do you have something else in mind, you crazy bitch?" Patrick growled at her.


    "What?" Maxine was dumbfounded at his accusation and retreated a step.


    "Don''t play innocent with me! I know your true nature. Or do you really think I am that stupid?" Patrick yelled at her before turning his head away distainfully, "I know you are a reincarnator. How else would you be so powerful?"


    "I didn''t tie you up totorture you. It was to keep you from trying to hurt me, asshole. Although you are right about me being a reincarnator," Maxine yelled back as she was still angry with him. Patrick turned his head slightly to her. His eyes narrowed as heglared her venomously.


    "Well excuse me for wanting alittle payback! The last time you tied me up, you tortured me for days. Then you cut off my arms and legs while laughing at me. After that you had somehow gotten essence beasts kill my best friend while forcing me to watch and paraded his severed head around me until his face started to rot off. Why the FUCK shouldIbelievea single word you say?" Patrick hissed.Wait?! What?!"Although I have to admit I had my doubts that it was actually you after your battle with that Terror Bear, but there is no mistaking that vile essence armor." His hostility and his attempt to kill her actually made sense now. If someone had done that to her, she would want to kill that person as well. Although, Maxine didn''t understand how that was possible for an androphobic girl, like the previous Maxine, to do such a thing.


    Maxine needed to tell Patrick that she wasn''t the one that did those things to him. In fact from what she understood, she was also a victim of that broken girl''s madness as well. Maxine dissolved her essence armor and grabbed Patrick''s jaw to force him to look her in the eye. "That wasn''t me that did those things to you. I don''t know what I could possibly do or say to convince you otherwise. So please tell me what it will take," Maxinewas half begging him. He just gave her a distainful glare as an answer.


    Maxine began to get depressedand she nearly collasped to her knees. It was clear as day that his hatred would prevent him from believing a single thing she said. She would need to do something drastic to get through to him. An idea started to form in her head. She knew things about him that very few others did.I might be able to reveal who I am by what I know, but that would mean admitting to him that I used to be Maxwell Adams.The thought of doing that alone made her feel embarressed. However it was the only option she had at the moment. Otherwise she would either have to take him to the general to be collared so that she wouldn''t have to be worried of a sneak attack while she slept. Or kill him to resolve the threat altogether. Patrick was her friend and she couldn''t do either of those things to him.


    Maxine started speaking after a moment of thought, "This isn''t the body I used to have before I reincarnated and I will prove it to you the only way I know how. By speaking of events from your past that only few know about. Alright?" Maxine looked at him hopefully.


    "Go ahead with your lies. You couldn''t possibly know anything that isn''t common knowledge. Anyways I am not exactly in a position to argue now am I?" Patrick glowered at her.


    "I guess not. I will start off with an event when you were eight. You fell out of a tree and torn your pants and underwear so badly that they couldn''t cover your ass anymore. You had to walk bare assed all the way home and made your best friend promise not to tell anyone. Two years ago you had your first kiss in the month of March from a girl by the name of Meagan Medley. The interesting part is she was the one that kissed you, not the other way around. I believe you made a comment afterwards that her lips tasted of strawberries." Maxine looked up at him and saw he wore a mask of confusion and disbelief. She continued, "There is a young man by the name of Mike that had a perpetually red nose. He laughed incessantly at his own butt jokes. You called him ''Chuckles, the Ass Clown.'' February twenty third of this year, your father bought you a hunting rifle for your birthday. It was a Remmington bolt action rifle. However you disappointed him with how pitiful your aim was and it never improved no matter how much you practiced. However your best friend Max tried it and proved that he was a deadeye."


    "How the hell do you know all of that?" He demanded.


    "I know that because ...," Maxine hesitated. However she knew there was no point in stopping now that she had started. Maxinegathered her courage andcontinued, "Because I used to be Maxwell Adams, your best friend. However when I reincarnated, my soul merged with the soul of a broken and abused little girl, and I became Maxine Levings." It felt liberating to say it out loud, but at the same time scary. She had always been afraid to reveal herself.Maxine looked at Patrick hopefully. However she was still worried that he would still hate and fear her. She remained silent while waiting for his response.

 Chapter 24

    "No... You''re lying. There is no way you could be Max!" Patrick roared at Maxine as he feelbly struggled against Silky''s web. However, she could tell that he was half convinced already and only needed another small push to convince him.


    "I know it''s hard to believe, but it is me," Maxine told him, "If you are still not convinced, there are some other things I could use to convince you such as that incident where I had to cover for you and Meagan while the two of your were making out in my room when her father showed up looking for her. I told him you two went to the movies." From his expression, she knew he was convinced.


    "But... buthow can you be in two bodies at the same time," he asked.


    "It''s not that I am in two bodies. Myself and Maxwell are two completely different individuals. I thought I made that clear when I said that my soul merged with this body''s original owner. Although when I think about it, I would rather avoid meeting my former self.It would be too awkward for bothhim and me," Maxine said honestly. In truth she would probably have a hard time processing what she was seeing, if she were to meet Maxwell.


    "Yeah you did mention that and I can understand not wanting to meet the other you. Uh... could you cut me down now?" Patrick asked while showing a hopefulsmile.


    "As long as you don''t try and hack one of my tits off again," Maxine teased him while unconsciously folding her arms under her breasts. She winced at the sudden pain from the wound on her left breast. She realized too late that doing that would aggrivate her wound.


    "No, I won''t. Sorry about that by the way. I honestly thought you were the bitch that did those things to me," Patrick stated as he looked down in shame. She didn''t blame him in the least for his earlier suspicions.


    "Technically at least part of me is that girl, so don''t feel too bad about it. I would have done exactly what you did under the same circumstances minus the stalking," Maxine said as she made an essence blade and cut Patrick down, "How''s your arm?" Patrick winced in pain as soon as his left arm fell to his side. She felt somewhat regretful that she had done that, but he had tried to kill her just a few minutes ago.


    "Hurts like an arm should when it''s broken. Did you have to break it?" Patrick said in a frustrated manner.


    "You did just try to stab me through the heart. Your lucky that I only broke your arm," Maxine answered. If she hadn''t regained her senses earlier, she may have killed him and she knew it.


    "Fair enough," Patrick said, "You wouldn''t have any Regeneration Fruit on you by any chance?"


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    "Sorry, I don''t," Maxine answered, Maxine knew that Emily could heal his arm some. However it would be bring unwanted attention to Patrick and herself. Because if Maxine brought Patrick there, Emily would very likely tell General McKenzy and Patrick probably doesn''t know that the general isn''t as evil as they had thought. Not to mention that it would be awkward once he found out that Emily was General McKenzy''s grand daughter. She really would rather avoid that kind of headache.


    "There goes that idea," Patrick paused for a moment, "By the way, do I still call you Max or what?"


    "Just call me Maxine for now to avoid confusion," Maxine said, "Anyways you best go get that arm tended to. Do you need any help getting out of here?" Maxine felt concerned about him, but knew that he had to have driven here. There was no way he could have run it without being seen at his level of cultivation. She had assumed that he had convinced someone to drive him. He lived almost 100 miles away.


    "I should be fine. I don''t have far to go. Although I would prefer it if you followed me out of here. Might make it easier explaining about how I broke my arm," Patrick said. Maxine understood why he wanted her to follow him. If he said he got hurt protecting her from a pervert or an animal, it would make sense how he got injured especially when someone noticed she was injured too, even if it is only a single shallow wound.


    "Alright, but I need to call the soldier driving me around later to let him know where to pick me up," Maxine said as she picked up a spool of Sikly''s silk and stuffed it into her backpack. Maxine looked over at Silky hiding in her webs and said, "I will be back tomorrow, Silky."


    Maxine followed Patrick and only now thought to look at her wound. She scanned it with her spiritual sense and found that if it had gone just an inch lower it would have hit her nipple. If her clothes had shifted too much, she would have ended up giving Patrick a view. Maxine immediately covered herself up with her rightarm and felt immensely embarressed.


    It took them about fifteen minutes to reach the place where Patrick''s ride was. Maxine saw that it was Patrick''s cousin, Carl Manning. She didn''t know too much about the man other than he was a skirt chaser. However when they came into sight, Carl ran out of his car towards them. Maxine''s fear of men was triggered as he approached and she hid behind Patrick. He gave her a strange look, but otherwise said nothing.


    Patrick started to explain that Maxine had been attacked by a strange cat with a blade on the end of it''s tail and had gotten his arm broken after it body slammed him. He had somehow managed to chase it off and they had come back to seek help. Maxine thought hislie was a decent one. There was indeed a copper stage beast like that. It was called the Blade-Tail Cat. It was about the size of a large wolf. Although rare, it did roam in this area.


    While Patrick was being led to his ride to go to the hospital, Maxine pulled out her phone and called her driver while trying to keep her wound covered. Carl had asked her if she needed a ride, but she told him she had already called for a ride home. It didn''t take her ride long to arrive, but Patrick had already been driven off to the hospital by that time. Her driver glanced at the blood on her shirt as she tried to keep herself covered, but otherwise did nothing as she got into the car. As Maxine leaned back into the seat, she hadn''t realized how much she had missed Patrick until she got to see him again. However, she remembered that extremely fast strike Patrick had performed earlier. That had to have been a special attack of his. Although she didn''t recall that he had a move like that. She resolved to make a few of her own later.

 Chapter 25

    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.

 Chapter 26

    After Maxine had finished teaching her class and picking up more silk up fromSilky, she swiftly made her way to where she saw that essence beast while scanning the area with her spiritual sense. She found it''s tracks, but not the beast itself. It would take her awhile. Fortunately, she had told her driver she could take alot longer than normal, so she had plenty of time to track the beast down.


    Maxine followed the day old tracks as fast as she could manage while looking for that essence beast with her spiritual sense. She crossed the same river several times and found that the trail had backtracked just as many times.This thing is way too smart to be justan ordinary essence beast. It might be a rare variant.Maxine found what appeared to be it''s den. It was asmall cave hidden behinda massive rock. Maxine looked for the freshest tracks and followed them. It didn''t take her long to find the essence beast.It was actually waiting for her as if it knew that she was following it. It wasn''t about the same size as a mountain lion. It''s fur was black as midnight and had golden eyes speckled with green. However she didn''t sense any fear or hostility from it.


    She only got to look at it for a moment before it started running. It wasn''t running away from Maxine, since it wasn''t moving at full speed. It almost seemed as if it was trying to show her how it moved. Maxine wasn''t going to miss even the smallest detail. She used both her eyes and her spiritual sense to monitor it''s every movement no matter how subtle or seemingly meaningless. She quickly noticed that it was twitching various muscles throughout it''s body.Could that be the secret to it''s speed?However there was more. Every step seemed to reinforce andenhancede the grip of every following step. Watching it move was like art in progress. As she kept watching it, she came to realize that trying to convert all of those things into her own technique would take her more than just a few hours to figure out. It might take her weeks or even months. However she had the time to do it before the next essence beast horde.


    After dedicating all ofthatto her memory, Maxine rushed ahead of the strange essence beast and placeda couple bronze essence cores on the ground infront of it. She wanted to show her gratitude to it for allowing her to observe it''s movements. It stopped and looked at the essence cores before snatching them up and heading back to it''s cave. Maxine bowed down to it in respect before checking the time.It had almost been two hours since her hunt for the essence beast began. She determined it would be better to had back than to let her driver wait any longer.


    Maxinequickly reached the car and got in as soon as she got there. She apologized to the driver and started to think about why the essence beast hadn''t been afraid of her. Essence beasts always tried to run away from her before as if they knew that she was out of their league. She couldn''t figure out why that particular beast didn''t. Every time she remembered it''s fearless gaze, it felt like something was trying to surface in the back of her mind. It was almost like she had met someone or something that had eyes similar to that essence beast, but she just couldn''t remember. She didn''t try to force the memory to the surface.


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    Maxine became alert when she noticed that they were not heading to her house. They were going towards the military base. She asked her driver why they were going there, but he just remained silent. Maxine tried to think of every possibility as to why they would be going there. Unfortunately her own paranioa kept her from thinking of any good scenarios.


    After getting to the base, Maxine was led to General McKenzy''s office. She began to worrysince the general never worked this late on a sunday.Her brow became covered in sweat as she thought they might be onto Patrick and wanted her to subdue him. Maxine was hoping that she was wrong as she walked into the generals office.


    "Good afternoon, Ms. Levings. Take a seat," General McKenzy said and Maxine sat down into the chair infront of his desk, "I apologize for bringing you here, but I have some concerns about a certain young man that ''saved'' you yesterday." Maxine''s original concern appeared to be only half right. General McKenzy knew about Patrick, but she wanted to know how much he actually knew.Maxine found herself wishing the generalwasn''t ascompetent as he was.


    "I couldn''t exaclty show off my powers infront of him. Wouldn''t that have wasted your effort to keep my identity secret?" Maxine said while trying to maintain the facade that Patrick had made.


    "Indeed. HoweverSergeant Randallhad gotten some impressive readings fromthat young man as he drove past him. It makes his heroic story quite difficult to believe," General McKenzy saidandhe gave her adisappointedlook as he continued, "I don''t care what actually happened in those woods. All that Ineed to know is if he is a threat or not. Is that understood?" Maxine suspected that the general knew more than he let on.


    "Yes, and he isn''t a threat," Maxine said. At least not anymore.


    "How certain are you of that?" General McKenzy asked.


    "Very. I just can''t see him hurting anyone without them trying to hurt him first," Maxine said. He seemed to study Maxine''s face for some time. She knew that her statement would be worthless if she didn''t add something and quickly said, "He was in some of my visions of the futureand he always tried to help people when things got really bad."


    "Fine. I will have Amanda bring him in after the end of your class tomorrow," General McKenzy said, "You may go."


    "Umm.. could I go with her?" Maxine asked hopefully, "It might makehim more cooperativeif he saw a familiar face." General McKenzy seemed to be slightly surprised at that request. Maxine was only concerned that Patrick didn''t get blindsided. She wanted to convince him that General McKenzy wasn''t an evil man before he got too excited.


    "Very well," the general said,"Now get going. Your motherwillundoubtedly worryif I keep you any longer." Maxine didn''t waste any time and got out of his office. On the way home, she began to get worried about tomorrow and had wished once more that General McKenzy had been just alittle less competent at his job. Hopefully there wouldn''t be any more surprises,and only at that moment did she realize that there was a high possibility her former self, Maxwell, might be hanging out with Patrick tomorrow.

 Chapter 27

    Maxine was smiling in the backseat as she reminisced about last night while Amanda drove her car. She hadn''t experienced any pain while cultivating with a bronze essence core. The pain she had experienced while cultivating before was from over straining her body. No matter how fast she healed certain injuries always tooksome time to heal from. Now that she didn''t feel pain, it was a sign that her injuries from absorbing too much essence at once had healed. It had put her in a good mood, but she was alittle annoyed that she hadn''t been able to visit Silky earlier.


    Maxine''s class on the other hand had made vast improvements from before with their aim and essence control. She was going to teach them the variations of essence darts after they finished mastering her previous lessons. However she was dreading teaching them how to use their spiritual sense. It was one of the harder things to even figure out how to use.


    However Maxine didn''t forget what she needed to do. She had been searching for Patrick with her spiritual sense as Amanda got closer to their destination. They had already been on the road for more than an hour and she should soon be able to contact Patrick. It didn''t take long before she found him at the very limit of her spiritual sense''s range.He in his room watching a movie on his computer and thankfully Maxwell wasn''t there. His left arm was wrapped up in a caste and in a sling. Maxine noticed his mother doing chores around the house as well.


    "Patrick, I need to talk to you right now," Maxine sent to him through her spiritual sense.


    "Huh? Maxine? Why are younear here?" Patrick replied.


    "I don''t have much time to talk. I just need you to listen and not interrupt me. Ok?" Maxine told him.


    "I don''t like the sounds of that, but alright," Patrick responded.


    "General McKenzy is on to you and I need ...," Maxine sent but was interrupted by Patrick. "WHAT?! I need to get the hell outta here. Thanks for the heads up." She sensed him getting up to head for his mother. It was obvious he was going to tell her that he had to leave.


    "I TOLD YOU NOT TO INTERRUPT, DUMBASS!" Maxine roared through her spiritual sense, and Patrickreeled for a moment. Maxine realized she may have sent the message alittle tooforcefully and stunned him. She felt alittle bad for doing that, but she didn''t have the time to be nice. "As I was trying to say, he isn''t going to putone of thoseexploding collars around your neck. If he was, you would have just woken up with one on you."


    "Then why did you tell me that he was on to me?" Patrick sent.


    "I told you that so you wouldn''t do something stupid," Maxine replied, "I was about to tell you that the most that he do is require you to wear an ugly grey bangle to keep track of you and maybe be poked at by some scientists."


    "How the hell do you know that?" Patrick sent using his spiritual sense.


    "Because I got found out already. That''s how," Maxine answered, "The only difference is that you don''t have to go through a god damn test to prove that you are not crazy or violent." Maxine felt it was unfair that General McKenzy wasn''t going to test him when he had tested her, but came to a sudden realization almost an instant later.Oh shit! He is being tested. Me and Amanda are the test. If he attacks and/or runs, he fails and the clever bastardcounted on the fact that I would want to go with Amanda.Maxine would have felt enraged at being tricked like that, but she had her own agenda that the general was ignorant of. The best part was that Maxine didn''t even have to tell Patrick about the test. Her current actions didn''t need to be changed for him to pass it anyways.


    "What kind of test did he put you through?" Patrick asked as he moved back to his room.Maxine thought for a moment before relaying what had happened in as much detail as she could.


    "Damn that sounds rough. At least you passed though," Patrick sent to her.


    "There is that," Maxine replied and noticed that Amanda and herself were less than five minutes away from him, "Looks like we''re almost there. See you in a few." Maxine retracted her spiritual sense and she saw Patrick''s house on the left side of the street in the distance. When they got there, Amanda parked accross the street from it.


    Maxine and Amanda walked up to Patrick''s front door and Amanda knocked on the door a couple times. It took a few moments for Patrick''s mother to open the door.


    "Good evening, Mrs. Mason. I am Amanda Mueler and this is Maxine Levings. We am here to talk to you about your son and his gift," Amanda said, "May we come in?" Maxine wanted to say hello, but Amanda had made it clear earlier that she would be the one doing most of the talking. Maxine settled with smiling and waving at her when her name was mentioned.


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    Patrick''s mother tensed for only an instant at the word ''gift.'' She apparently knew about his identity as an essence cultivator or at the very least the owner of a strange power. Maxine was impressed that she noticed that. Her own mother wasn''t nearly as perceptive, but Maxine hadn''t made it easy for her since she acted only alittle different around her than the other Maxine did. HoweverMrs. Masonseyes locked onto Maxine''s hair and she looked thoughtful for a moment.Did she recognize me just from my hair?


    "Yes, please come in," Mrs. Mason answered as she let them in. Maxine had been worried that Patrick''s mother would have noticedMaxine''sage, but apparently she was too concerned about Patrickto notice.


    "Thank you," Amanda said as she came in. They were lead to the living room and Maxine took a seat on a chair as Amanda and Mrs. Mason took a seat on the couch. Maxine felt Patrick''s spiritual sense as he watched them.


    "What isthe name of thedivision of the goverment that you work for called and what does it do?" Mrs. Mason asked.


    "I work for TheEvovled-Human Observation and Study, or EHOS if you prefer. We are tasked with the observation, study and in rare cases confinement of enhanced ability users like your son," Amanda answered.


    "What sort of gift do you think my son has?" Mrs. Mason asked. Maxine didn''t blame her for playing stupid, but infront of her and Amanda''s perception it was useless.


    "He is stronger, faster and muchmore durable than ordinary people for starters. As for the rest I do not know, but my superiors are quite eager to find out more about his abilities. He is the among strongest ones that we have encounteredthus far," Amanda answered.


    "How do you know that hecan do whatyou say that he can?" Mrs. Mason asked.


    "You see special people like your son give off a unique energy and we have devices that can detect and measure that energy," Amanda answered, "Your son just happened to getclose enough to one of the operatives that was carrying one. I have one of them on me if you want to see it." Amanda pulled out a small tablet that showed three distinct dots close together and one of them was moving. It was Patrick and he was coming to them. Apparently he had heard enough. However Amanda seemed unaware as she continued, "I know you are worried, but I assure you that the division that I work for only wants to observe your son to ensure he doesn''t partake in any criminal activity."


    Mrs. Mason seemed overwhelmed before Patrick came into the room. Patrick spoke before his mother could, "Observe me how exactly?" Maxine knew he was just trying to relieve the pressure on his mother by asking the question himself.


    "With this," Amanda said as she pulled out a much more masuline looking bangle than her own, "It can monitor your GPS location at all times as well as monitor your power and vitals." Patrick looked at it with scrutiny after he took it from Amanda. He seemed to be waiting for his mother to talk.


    "You just wanthim to wear that thing and nothing else?" Mrs. Mason said hopefully.


    "Not exactly. There are some scientists that may want to examine your son, but don''t worry. It won''t be anything invasive like surgery. They will just do a few tests on him and that shouldn''t take more than a couple hours. Everything beyond what I have mentioned is entirely voluntary," Amanda answered. Mrs. Mason looked very hopeful, but her expression soured after a moment.


    "Are you saying that you would have made do those things even if I said no?" Mrs. Mason asked incredulously.


    Amanda looked down as she answered, "I wouldn''t, but yes he would have to. There are many that considerenhanced ability users as not human. Wearing these things and letting them study us is a concession that we must make to live with normal people." Amanda lifted up her left arm to show a bangle wrapped around her wrist. Mrs. Mason looked towards Maxine and her eyes locked onto an identical bangle on Maxine''s left wrist.


    Mrs. Mason deflated as Amanda gave her ansympathetic smile. Patrick put the bangle on as if to say he agreed with those terms. Maxine felt tension leaving her body that she wasn''t even aware existed.


    Amanda and Mrs. Mason talked for a few more minutes on some of the finer details before Amanda and Maxine left. Maxine was grateful things went so smoothly and even asked Amanda if it was always that easy. It wasn''t. Some people reacted less than pleasantly to news of that nature.


    Maxine insisted they go and visit Silky on the way back. After nearly an hour and a half of driving, they arrived. Maxine led Amanda to where Silky''s nest was. On the way there, Maxine warned Amanda not to get too close when they arrived. Maxine didn''t want Amanda to startle her pet. However when they got there, Maxine became worried. Silky hadn''t come out to greet her. Maxine knew she was alive and in her nest because the spiritual mark on Silky''s mind was intact.Maxine used her spiritual sense to investigate and found a full spool of silk just beyond the first layer of spider webs. However when she found Silky, she couldn''t believe her eyes. Silky was in the midst of a metamorphosis. Her fangs had disappeared and what replaced them looked like stumps of some kind. Her eight eyes had shrunk and moved to the face portion of a largegrowth that vaguely resembled the upper body of a childcoming out of the top of her thorax. Is Silky turning into an arachne?All of the arachne that Maxine had ever heard about in her past life were iron stage. Although they were powerful, their upper bodies were just as fragile as a humans and were no match for some of the stronger essence beasts like the Terror Bear outside of their webs.


    There was nothing she could do now in any case and crawled into Silky''s nest to retreive the spool of silk while being mindful not to damage or get caught in it. Maxine left a bronze core where the spool had been sitting and crawled back out. She tried to explain to Amanda what was going on with Silky, but it''s not very easy to explain how and why essence beasts evolve as fast as they do.


    They left since there was nothing else that they could do for Silky. There were few essence beasts courageous enough to attack her nest and the ones that were would get caught in her layers of spiderwebs encasing her nest. Maxine guessed that Silky would finish with her metamorphosis either tomorrow or the day after at the rate she was going. Maxine couldhardly wait to see Silky as an arachne.

 Chapter 28

    Maxine was wondering why Silky had undergone that metamorphosis so soon. The earliest cases of beastkin appearing in her past life were pets that had become essence beasts and the first one to appear wouldn''t be around for another year. Even then that only took on a partial human form. It was anomalous that Silky had become an arachne. Maxine didn''t like anomalies. Maxine had been thinking about ot the whole way home. It wasn''t until after she gotten home and eaten dinner that Maxine had come to a realization. Feeding Silky bronze essence cores could have accelerated her change into an arachne. Afterall someone''s dog or cat wouldn''t get such a luxury.


    Now that Maxine had solved that mystery, she went to her room to cultivate. However she wasn''t going to increasing her cultivation. She was going to stabilize the vortex within her core. It had become unstable since she had jumped from the copper stage to the iron stage. Since it had been like that, it had caused her pain whenever she tried to cultivate or repair her essence core. If she didn''t correct the instability of her core and continued to increase her cultivation, eventuallythe vortex within her core would unravel itself and cause tremendous strain on her essence core. That would cause the preassure within her core to build rapidly until it exploded and probably tear her in half in the process.


    Maxine pulled out a single bronze essence core to assist her in stabilizing her essence core. She didn''t need to use it to do that, but itwas easier as well as faster when she did.


    Maxine closed her eyes and entered a cultivation state.The essence from the essence core in her hands flowed towards her core andassisted her in shiftingthe essence even out the vortex within her essence core. It was a slow and delicate process. Since she had done this every night since her battle with the Terror Bear, she wasn''t that far off from fully stabilizing her core as far as she could tell. She only had to do this a few more nights before she would be able to cultivate normally. However she didn''t want to go through this problem again and made a plan not to boost hercultivation rate with essence cores for at least six months. It would give her plenty of time to find and fix any other problems with her body or her essence core. She had known it had been risky when she boosted her cultivation in the first place like that and wanted to be prepared for any other unknown side-effects. She was only grateful that the problems she encountered thus far had been easy to solve.


    After the energy within the bronze essence core had been exhuasted, Maxine opened her eyes and looked at the vaporizing essence core in her hands. That happened to every essence core once it''s essence had been depleted. She simply dropped it and it disintegrated completely with afaint poof sound.


    Maxine went to her closet and picked up the unfinished Steel Silk Vest that she had been working on for Emily. She had made it so that it would stretch some to accomodate any future growth. However it wouldn''t fit on someone significantly larger than her. Maxine walked over to her backpack and pulled out the spool of Silky''s silk. She manifested dozens of shadow tendrils to finish up the vest. She used a method of similar to knitting to tie in the fresh silk and completed the vest after almost an hour of work.


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    Maxine smiled at the finished Steel Silk Vest. Unfortunately Maxine regretted that this vest was all that she could make. She would need essence-infused ores to make herself some decent weapons and those were often hidden deep underground or in a cave occupied by a powerful essence beast. She recalled a few such ores had been present in that storage room that she had raided at the base, but their quantity, not to mention quality, had been insufficient for her purposes. She also doubted that General McKenzy would part with such materials in any case. However the strange essence beast, that she had called the Shadow Cat, had a cave lair. However because it was a copper stage essence beast, there was a very small chance that it would actually havesome essence infused ores. Still any chance for a decent blade was better than nothing. She decided to check it out as soon as she finished checking on Silky tomorrow.


    Maxine let out a sigh and she looked at the time. It wasn''t evennine o''clock. She rarely had any free time to play with her shadow essence and decided to do it now. She knew that she could make tendrils out of shadows, but wondered what else she could make. Maxine used her shadow essence to create a miniature wolf. It was only a few inches long. She had it run around her room and come back. It didn''t even have to remain in contact with any shadows to continue existing. However it didn''t drain her essence when it was in contact with a shadow. She found this little discovery interesting and noted it in her head. Maxine banished her little wolf back into the shadows.


    Maxine got an interesting idea after thinking about how she made her little wolf and smiled at it. She used her shadow essence to create a double of herself. To make it perfect down to every single cell would drain her essence far too muchso she only worried about the external shell. She made it look like her down the small impefections of her skin. As a final touch, she made it give off the same essence fluctuations as she did. Unfortunately it had roughly one tenth her strength. The biggest draw back of it was that she couldn''t control more than one of these things at a time in combat.She could use it as a distraction in the middle of a fight to perform a sneak attack or as a stand in if she became badly injured again. She feltsilly that she couldn''t think of any name for it other thanShadow Clone.


    Maxine dissolved it and recreated hershadow clone numerous times to see how quickly she could make it. She kept doing this until she ran almost out of strength. She had wanted to be able to create one in an instant, but the best that she do was form it in under a tenth of a second. For normal people that was an instant, but to an iron stage essence cultivator or beast that was far too slow. It would be obvious that it was fake. She needed it to be able to form it in almost an instant for her to be useable in combat. She would need alot more practice to make it work.


    Maxine was exhausted and turned off the lights before laying in her bed. She didn''t really need that much sleep since she became an iron stage essence cultivator, but she had formed a habit of getting a certain ammount of sleep every day. She didn''t want to change it as long as it wasn''t needed. She closed her eyes and a strange thought popped in her head.Why hasn''t the military created any countermeasures for essence beasts and cultivators yet? She considered that it may be possible that they already had some in the works, but were not combat ready. She intended tocheck into it at another date and promptly fell asleep.

 Chapter 29

    Maxine was rather peeved as she walked towards Silky''s nest. It wasn''t her class that had done that. Her students had actually made good progress and Maxine was going to teach them the variatons of the essence dart tomorrow. What had annoyed her was how the general had responded to her offer of help. She even remembered his exact words.


    "No, Ms. Levings. You are too valuable of an asset to risk in the testing of those devices," he had said. It wasn''t the fact that he had said no that angered her or even that he thought she wanted to be a test subject for those things. It was the fact that he had called her an ''asset.'' It was like he thought she was some sort of object rather than a person. If he had said he couldn''t risk hurting her, she would have been okay with it, but he hadn''t. She had really wanted to kick him at the time, but that wouldn''t have solved anything. If anything it would have gotten her into trouble.


    As Maxine arrived at Silky''s nest, she tried toshove those things on her mindby checking on Silky with her spiritual sense. Silky''s upper body had almost completely formed. From the waist up, She looked like an adorable eight or nine year old girl with straight raven black hair that only couple inches long. Some of her eyes had vanished, but she still had two sets of them. The second set of eyes were on her forehead and were smaller and closer together than her normal eyes. Maxine looked at the two stumps sticking out of Silky''s thorax. They had become similarly shaped to her other legs, but were thicker and shorter. However they weren''t secreting venom, so Maxine had a hard time figuring out the purpose of those extra limbs. It wasn''t until she noticed pale flesh forming between those two llmbs that it hit her. They were used for pulling someone''s crotch in closer.


    Maxine''s face reddened as she remembered the rumors of arachne breeding practices.An arachne would wrap up any male cultivator that she favored in silk and would rape them. However it was something that they had been forced to do.They were all female and most men were terrified of them for the simple fact that their lower half was that of a spider. Add on to themyth that certain spiders were known to cannibalize their mates and no man wanted to be anywhere near an arachne. That only made it harder for them to find a mate and had to resort to such methods to procreate.Maxine wondered if there was a way to fix that problem now that Silky was the first arachne to appear in this timeline.


    Maxine took note that it shouldn''t take Silky more than a couple more hours to finish her metamorphosis and hurried off in the direction of the Shadow Cat''s lair. She wasn''t very hopeful of finding any ores that would be useful to her, but it was worth a short look nonetheless. It didn''t take her too long to reach the cave and the Shadow Cat was lounging on the large boulder hiding it''s cave. It just watched her as she approached at a jog.


    Maxine walked towards the cave while keeping her spiritual sense locked onto the Shadow Cat. She was worried that it may attack her as soon as she enters it''s home. However it didn''t. In fact she could have sworn it smiled at her.


    The cave was alot deeper than she thought. It went at least one hundred feet into the earth before splitting off into half a dozen different paths. She used her spiritual sense to search through each of those branching paths and discovered Twilight Iron ores littered throughout it. Some of the chunks of ore were no bigger than a golfball, but there was more than enough to make a pair of blades.


    Maxine quickly went to work mining the Twilight Iron with a pickaxe made of shadow essence and stuffed the ores into her backpack. Maxine avoided the mining around the area that looked like the place where the Shadow Cat slept. She didn''t want to upset the Shadow Cat anymore than necessary because it was already being good natured towards her. After she had filled her backpack, she went back towards the entrance of the cave and saw the Shadow Cat standing in the middle of it. Maxine fished out four bronze essence cores and placed them on the ground. It was payment for allowing her to mine the ores and damaging it''s home. It trotted over and picked up the essence cores before heading deeper into the cave.


    Maxine headed back to Silky''s nest. When she had gotten back, Silky hadn''t woken up yet and Maxine decided to practice her movement technique that she named Phantasmal Steps of the Shadow Cat while she waited. Although she had only converted a small ammount of the Shadow Cat''s movements into those for humans, Maxine did notice a small increase in her own speed and agility. A small increase in speed would mean the difference between a direct hit and a glancing blow. She had plenty of time to practice these movments as she told Lt. Randall, her driver, that she would be in these woods for at least two hours. She wasn''t certain how long she practiced her recently developed movments before she heard a strange noise coming from Silky''s nest.Maxine turnedaround to face the noiseand there stood Silky. Her face was blank as she stared at Maxine.


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    Silky suddenly ran at her and burried her face into Maxine''s stomach as she hugged her around the waist. Even her short forelimbs wrapped around Maxine''s legs. Maxine wondered where Silky learned the action of hugging from, but didn''t put much thought into it as she gently hugged Silky back.


    Maxine heard a little girl''s voice trying to speak a few times, but didn''t interupt Silky''s first attempt at speaking. Finally Silky spouted out, "Mama." Maxine was stunned at what she heard.What?! I forced you to serve me and be my pet. How the fuck did I become your mother? And how did you learn to speak?


    Maxine quickly touched Silky''s mind with her spiritual sense to ask Silky those questions herself. However the little arachne didn''t even resist her at all and she got to peer at the few memories that she had. Silky''s mind was almost like a clean slate aside and almost innocent in a sense. Maxine rewarding Silky with essence cores for producing silk as well as the affection Maxine had showed her were prevalent in Silky''s mind. Somehow Silky had interpreted Maxine''s actionsas things a mother would do and had adopted Maxine as her mother because of it. Maxine wasn''t exactly thrilled about the idea of being the adoptive mother of a fledgeling arachne, but who else did Silky have?


    There were other memories, but those were mostly of things that she should avoid. Maxine hadn''t realized that spiders only remembereda few things. Maxine still hadn''t figured out where Silky learned how to speak and the meaning of a hug from.


    None of that changed the fact that Silky now had a new range of emotions to deal with and still had the killer instinct of a spider. Maxine needed to teach Silky to be a good girl or things could become bad forboth of them in the future. Unfortunately she didn''t think she could manage that if Silky remained in the forest, but first she needed to get the little arachne covered up to maintian her modesty.


    Maxine was still being hugged tightly by Silky when she said very gently, "Silky, can you let go of me now? I have something for you." Silky backed away and retracted her little forelimbsto cover her crotch. Maxine dumped her backpack and grabbed the spare shirt she had put in it earlier. She wished she had thought to take it out before she put those Twilight Iron ores into her backpack, but she had been too excited at her find to think about it. It was covered in rock dust, but it would have to do.


    Maxine tried to shake out the rock dust and turned to Silky while holding the shirt.She slowly put the shirt on Silky and told Silky to grab it and pull it down intoplace with herforelimbs. Although it was too big for her, it at least covered Silky sufficiently. Silky reacheddown and touched the fabric of the shirt with her hands. Silky flashed a smile at Maxine and started to run around playfully.Seems she likes it. I need to show her howto make her own clothes.


    While Silky played around in her new form, Maxine tried thinking of ways to remove everyones fear of her. Silky was definitely cute if someone ignored the fact that her lower body was that of a spider. There was no real way to do anything other than to have her become a celebrity and got to have cameras shoved in her face. Although with that plan, all it would take is someone being just alittle too aggressive for all that work to go down the drain as Silky defended herself with brutal efficiency.


    At the thought of violence, Maxine started to get an idea. "Silky, come here," Maxine said and Silky came over with a curious expression on her face, "Do you remember when I told you not to hurt humans like me? Nod your head up and down if you do." Silky nodded her head slowly. "I want you to keep doing that along with something else. I want you to save any humans from essence beasts, but only from ones that you know you can beat. Do you know what essence beasts are?" Maxine asked. Surprisingly Silky nodded her head again."Good! You are such a smart girl. Do you think you can do that?" Maxine said. Silky nodded enthusiastically."Now there is a reason behind me asking you to do this," Maxine said and Silky seemed to pay closer attention to her, "Humans are scared of you because you are different and more than alittle scary. When you save them from essence beasts, they will be grateful and tell others about how you saved them. Eventually no one will be afraid of you anymore and they will want to give you big hugs like you just gave me." Maxine had tried to keep it simple since Silky''s mind was still quite young. Fortunately Silky seemed to understand. She was amazed how quickly this young arachne learned new concepts.


    Maxine smiled at Silky and was about to tell her that she was going to leave for the day when she felt the familiar tug of the spiritual mark that she left on Silky''s mind. Maxine came to a sudden realization.Silky hadn''t suddenly learned anything. She had been remotely learning things from Maxine herself via the spiritual mark. However if she was smart enough to use it that way, Silky could easily use that same link to hurt Maxine. Maxine was suddenly very grateful that Silky had seen her as her mother.


    Maxine told Silky that she would be back tomorrow with some books to help her learn to make clothes. Silky was reluctant to be parted from Maxine, but still complied with Maxine''s wishes. Maxine felt bad for leaving Silky there, but if she brought her home, Maxine''s mother would probably freak out and she wasn''t certain how soldiers would react to Silky either.


    Maxine needed to make sure tomorrow that Amanda kept quiet about Silky''s evolution. Fortunately she had only told Amanda that Silky was undergoing an evolution, but never specified into what.

 Chapter 30

    Maxine formed her essence armor as she arrived roughly fifteen minutes early to her class. She had arrived early to look for Amanda.She looked around and spotted Amanda was sitting in a corner waiting for class to start. Fortunately her students hadn''t arived yet so Maxine could talk to her without any worry of being heard. Maxine was worried that Amanda had told Gen. McKenzy about Silky evolving. Maxine didn''t know if he would try to capture Silky to study her if he discovered Silky was an arachne. Maxine could only imagine how badly that would go. Afterall if Silky thought her life were in danger, she would eliminate those sent to capture her with lethal force regardless of what Maxine had told her to do.


    Maxine walked up to Amanda and said, "Hey Amanda. Did you tell anyone about Silky''s evolution?" Maxine had wanted to call Amanda last night about it, but thought better of it. Maxine''s phone could easily be bugged. It wouldn''t surprise her if the general thought it had been a necessary measure.


    "Yes, I told General McKenzy about thatyesterday morning. He was actually quite interested about the whole thing," Amanda answered and alarm flashed across her face, "Is something wrong with Silky?"


    "No, nothing is wrong with her. She finished her evolutionyesterday and looks rather adorable," Maxine answered honestly.


    "Oh thank goodness. I thought something had happened to your pet," Amanda said as her face brightened up, "So what kind of spider did she turn into?" Maxine really didn''t want to answer that.


    "Before I answer that, could you tell me exactly what you told the general about Silky?" Maxine asked. It was something that Maxine needed to know. Depending on how much Amanda had told him, Maxine may have to go talk with himabout Silky earlier than she would like.


    "I didn''t tell him anything other than what you told me. Why do you ask?" Amanda said. Maxine hesitated and decided to tell Amanda since it would get out eventually anyways.


    "Because Silky became an arachne and I don''t want her to be poked at by any scientists wanting to know how she ticks," Maxine answered. Amanda''s eyes widened for a moment and her expression immediately became thoughtful as she pulled out her smart phone. Maxine didn''t want to interrupt Amanda and simply looked over her shoulder at the screen.


    "Is this Silky?" Amanda said as Maxine saw a blurry picture of Silky throwing a Copper Fang Wolf at a tree in the middle of the night. Amanda dragged her finger across the screen to reveal anothercrystal clear picture of Silky hugging a young woman that she had just saved.


    Maxine was startled for a moment before she remembered most people carried smart phones.Those things all but disappeared at the time of her death in the previous timeline. Those that kept them did it only for sentimental reasons. Maxine herself only carried a flip phone due to it''s superior durability and because her mother wouldn''t buy her anything nicer.


    "Yes, it is," Maxine answered mechanically. Maxine felt a headache coming on. She had forgotten to factor in social media when she gave Silky those instructions. She had thought it would take weeks, not less than a day, for word to get around that an arachne was wandering around helping people. Maxine felt a shiver run up her spine as she remembered he own identity might be at risk due to groups of people looking for her in concert over the internet. In fact it was a miracle her identity hadn''t been discovered yet.


    Amanda seemed to noticed Maxine''s fear."Don''t worry. The general won''t do a damn thing to her even if he wanted to. She saved at least five people last night and since she is obviously a child I doubt anyone would hut her. Because if she got hurt during an attempt to capture her, the resulting political and public backlash would be brutal to the responsible party," Amanda said. Maxine calmed down somewhat as she heard that.


    Maxine said a quick thank you to Amanda as her class arrived and told Amanda that she would talk to the general later about Silky. She knew he would want Silky to come in and be examined by the same scientists that had examined Maxine. She thought she may as well bring it up with him while she was at the base. Instead of the general calling her into his office to talk about it at another date.


    Maxine''s students performed very well during their class. All of them had managed to hit their assigned targets with near perfect accuracy using essence darts. However Maxine was still disappointed that none of them had shown any signs of an elemental awakening. It would seem that her students would be limited to the use of essence darts for ranged attacks. Unfortunately it was not meant to be. IfMaxine had to describe the difference between a normal essence cultivator and an elemental one, it would be like the difference between a warrior and a mage.


    After the class ended, Maxine went to the general''s office and told him about Silky''s evolution into an arachne. Fortunately General McKenzy was reasonable and guaranteed that Silky would only get a blood test and a few scans done on her to figure out her internal structure. They would do their best not to hurt Silky. Maxine was told that Silky''s examination would be in a few days from now. It was on the same day Patrick was also going to be looked over.With that headache out of the way, Maxine left the general''s office and asked SergeantRandallto take her to her house to grab a few books before heading over to where Silky was.


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    After Maxine arrived at the usual spot that her driverdropped her off at, she noticed that there were more people around than normal. She told her driver that she would be back in roughly three and a half hours as she got out of the car. Two young men were watching her rather intently as she walked into the woods. She got a suspicious feeling and tooka roundabout path to Silky''s nest in case someone was following her. They hadn''t followed her and dismissed her suspicion as paranioa.


    Before she could even announce her presence, Silky had already sprinted out of her nest and was barreling at Maxine. "Mama!" Silky yelled as she hug tackled Maxine. Maxine was nearly knockedoff her feet by Silky, but she wasn''t angry at Silky. The little arachne was just excited to see her.


    Maxine chuckled lightly as she hugged Silky back. Silky looked up from within Maxine''s embrace with a big smile on her face."Mama, I saved people like you told me to and one lady even let me hug her. She gave me something really tasty. She called it chocolate," Silky announced, "Did I do good?" Maxine was immensely amazed at how fast Silky could learn. Yesterday she could only say one word and now she could form complete sentences. Although Maxine wasn''t happy that Silky had discovered chocolate.


    "Yes, you did," Maxine said while looking at the tattered state of the shirt that she had lent Silky, "Now let go of me so I can help you make a new dress." Maxine had searched the internet for styles of clothing that might workon an arachne. Unfortunately she hadn''t found anything acceptible and made her own design.She decided make a specialized skirt for Silky''s dress to allow her to use her forelimbs while wearing it. However the best material for the job was Silky''s own silkand Maxineintended to take her time knitting it for Silky''s benefit. With the learning speed Silky had already demonstrated, it shouldn''t take long for her to understand how to do it herself and she could make her own clothes in the future.


    Silky let Maxine go and backed up with an excited look on her face. Maxine knew that arachne had an almost compulsive desire to make clothing for themselves and it was no surprise to her that Silky was excited to learn. "Silky, I need some of your silk to make your dress. Can you give me a thin strand like you made for me before?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, mama," Silky said as she turned around and started to make silk with her spinnerets. Maxine grabbed the thin strand of silk protuding fromSilky''s spinneret and pulled it slowly towards herself, but didn''t start right away. She walked over to the left side of Silky so that she could watch her work.


    "Pay attention, Silky. This will be hard to learn if you don''t," Maxine said as she felt Silky''s gaze lock onto her hands. Maxine manifested a pair of very fine knitting needles and began to work on making Silky a dress. Maxine occassionally looked up to make sure Silky was still paying attention. However that was a needless concern. Silky''s attention hadn''t wavered even once the whole time. Although Maxine was taking her time, she was still working very quickly by a normal person''s standards. It took her nearly three hours to make the dress for Silky. Maxine put down the needles and held up the finished dress for Silky to look at. It was a simple sleaveless dress that was light gray. It had two small openings in the skirt to accomdate her forelimbs to pass through it. "What do you think?" Maxine asked Silky.


    "I like it, mama," Silky answered with a smile. Maxine could see that Silky had enjoyed watching her work.


    "Good. Come here so I can put it on you," Maxine said as Silky got closer to her. Maxine swiftly switched the shirt that was on Silky with the dress that she had made. Maxine had to help Silky get her forelimbs through the small gaps she had made in the skirt. It looked lovely on her. "Do you think you could make your own dresses after watching me do it?" Maxine asked Silky.


    "I think so, but I rather wear the dress mama made me," Silky answered adorably.Maxine thought that was extremely sweet of Silky to say. Maxine knew that she needed to leave soon to hunt for a few more bronze essence cores. She had run out of them last night and needed to reward Silky for doing what Maxine had asked. She only had roughly twenty minutes before she had to be back to where her driver had dropped her off at.


    "I know, but I may not have the time to make you more. So you need to make a dress or two yourself," Maxine said to Silky, "Now I need to go hunt for some essence cores. Go back into your webs until I get back."


    After making sure Silky had gotten into her nest, Maxine ran into the woods and used her spiritual sense to scan for any bronze stage essence beasts. There was only a few and they were quite some distance away. She wondered why there were so few essence beasts nearby, but shoved it out of her mind as she sped towards them. She killed and harvasted four bronze essence cores from those essence beasts before heading back. Maxine gave Silky one of them and told her to keep being good.


    Maxine quickly ran back to where her driver was waiting and noticed those two young men were still there. They were still watching her every move. It made her skin crawl. She quickly got into the car and thought about the Twilight Iron ores she had found yesterday. She had already tried forging them into a set of blades last night to no effect. No matter how hot of a flame she generated using her shadow essence it wouldn''t melt it. It wouldn''t even become the slightest bit malleable no matter what she had done. It was frustrating. She would just mess with it some more tonight.

 Chapter 31

    Maxine stared at the pile of Twilight Iron ores on her bed. She had been staring at them like this for the past hour trying to figure out a way to forge them into a pair of blades. She had already tried using extreme heat and had already tried hammeringit at the same time. However she made no progress.


    Maxine once again used her spiritual sense to scan the Twilight Iron ores to see if she missed some important detail. Like before, they held tiny traces of white and black colored essence flowing around within it. The only thing she hadn''t tried yet is to put her own essence into it.Well I have tried everything else I could think of.


    Maxine let out a sigh in exasperation as she injected a small stream of her shadow essence into one of the ores. Surprisingly it merged with the essence within the ore and she felt that she could manipulate the essence within the ore. As she shifted the essence around inside of the Twilight Iron ore, the ore itself started to change shape.Maxine was so surprised that she nearly stopped injecting the ore with essence. She quickly started to inject her essence into half of the remaining ores and tried to make them form into one big chunk of Twilight Iron. It took a bit of experimentation, but she fused them all into one piece. However there were still impurities in the big chunk of Twilight Iron.


    After using her essence to levitate the Twilight Iron into the air infront of her, Maxinefound the impurities within the Twilight Iron chunk and separated the impurities from it as on small piece. Maxine scanned it over several times to make sure she had gotten all the impurities out of it.


    Once she was satisfied that all of the impurities had been removed, Maxine changed the shape of the Twilight Iron into a single chinese-style blade with a razor sharp edge. Just making that one weapon had drained most of her essence, but it was worth it for a decent weapon. Maxine grasped it''s hilt as she retracted the essence keeping it aloft in the air. It weighed at least fifty pounds, but to her it weighed hardly anything at all.


    Maxine smiled to herself as she examined her work. Her weapon had the correct proportions and shape. Even it''s balance was nearly perfect. After she was done looking over her own handiwork, she set the blade down on her dresser and put the rest of the Twilight Iron into her closet. However she didn''t have enough essence left to forge a second one.


    Maxine scanned the area around her house on a whim and noticed that those same two young men from earlier were watching her house. They were both in the back of a van that wasabouttwo hundred feet away.Maxine had been hoping that those two had just been staring at her because of how beautiful she was, but it seems that she was wrong. However since she hadn''t detected hostility from them, shethought theymight just besome fans that figured out her identity and wanted to meet her. Regardless she didn''t like being followed. She was reluctant to call General McKenzy over somethingof that nature since she didn''t consider them a threat.Maybe I should just go over and have them take a selfie with me. I may notlike it, but it would make them go away if they really are just fanboys.However Maxine couldn''t discount the possibility that they werefollowing her aroundfor other reasons.


    When they had started talking, Maxine decided to listen in on their conversation to figure out one way or another. Unfortunately she couldn''t understand a word of it since they were speaking in russian and from the tone of thier voices, she could tell they were far too serious to be fanboys.Well, shit.That puts a big hole inthetheory that they''refanboys.However Maxine wasn''toverly concerned about it. It would only take a single phone call to General McKenzy to get rid of them. Even if they were dumb enough to try anything, Maxine would deal with them herself. Although she didn''t like killing humans that didn''t mean she wouldn''t if they became a threat to Maxine or anyone she cared about.


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    Maxine picked up her phone and checked those two men again with her spiritual sense before she called General McKenzy. She explained her concerns to him over the phone about those two men. However the general already knew about them and didn''t want to make a move on them just yet. Apparently he wanted to know if there were anymore of themin the area and wanted take them all out in one fell swoop. Maxine didn''t like it the idea of being used as bait, but understood why it was necessary.However Maxine still didn''t like it.


    While on the phone, Maxine found out from General McKenzy that there were other ''seers'' in the world, but other countries'' level of success at defending against the beast hordes was not as good as here in the US. Most countries were searching for essence cultivators wherever they could to fight the essence beast hordes. However she had to be extra cautious. Maxine might be able to fend off any abductors, but her mother was an easy target.


    Maxine let out a sigh and put her phone away after finishing her call. Maxine wasn''t going to wait for very long for the general to find the rest of them. If he took too long, she would find out who the rest of their compatriots were one way or another. However she didn''t imagine that the general would make herput up with those men watching her formore than a week.


    Maxine once again checked on them with her spiritual sense and saw that they hadn''t moved from their spot. She wanted to know where they were at all times. It would prevent any surprises that way. She smiled to herself as she walked towards the backdoor to her house.I will just put a spiritual mark on both of them. That way I can keep track of them. Unless they have a cultivator with them, those two shouldn''t be any the wiser that it''s there.


    After walking into her backyard, Maxine quickly ran into the night and tried to circle around those two young men. It was necessary to get within fifty feet of those two to place a spiritual mark on their bodies. Fortunately it wouldn''t be too challenging to get that close considering that those two were focused on her house rather than their surroundings.


    While hiding behind some bushes, Maxine placed a spiritual mark on both men and stealthily circled back around to her house. It had been far easier than she had thought to do that. Those two had been far too focused on watching her house. Out of curiosity she scanned them for any weapons and found some very strange looking handguns. They looked like a normal glock, but were bigger. She scanned their internal structure to see what caliber of bullet they used and saw something interesting. The internal structure of the pistol was completely different. There were electronic components inside and it had an impressive power source in it as well. It was a small handheld plasma gun.


    Maxine gulped since those kind of weapons were a serious threat to her. The plasma projectiles travelled much faster than every other kind of projectile aside from a railgun round and the rounds could punch through steel like butter.It was hot enough that it would burn right through her skin and cause some lasting injuries. If they got off a lucky shot and hit her in the neck, it could possibly kill her and that was just the pistol version. The rifle version had alot more penetratingpower and could kill her quite easily from a body shot. The only good news was that their lethal range for cultivators was only three hundred feet, soher biggest concern from those weapons was a sneak attack.At least I found out where those things came from. I knew quite a few cultivators that died by sneak attacks from plasma rifles.


    However Maxine had a very strong impulse to kill them right then and there due to the threat that those two represented. All it would take is to unleash a single Crescent Moon Blitz into the front seat of the car and it would be over. However if she did that, Maxine would have to worry about the rest of their group performing a sneak attack on her with those plasma guns later. General McKenzy''s idea sounded alot more reasonablenow that she knew they had plasma gunsand decided to wait for now.

 Chapter 32

    It was friday the 29th and Maxine had been watched almost constantly for the pastfew days by those two men. It grated on her nerves and she had to force herself to remain calm. However she did find out that they had five other members in their group when she followed them to their base the other day. All of them were men, but three of them carried more authority than the other four. Those three were rank 9 bronze stage essence cultivators and they had obviously been trained for combat by how they moved. She wouldn''t be able to fight them and defend her mother at the same time if it came down to it. In fact, she would be on the loosing end of that fight if they fought her when she didn''t have her newly forged blades.


    The remaining two men were watching her mother. The fact that two of them were watching her mother made Maxine even more nervous. Those four that weren''t essence cultivators were observing Maxine and her mother to figure out their routine. Their activities and the fact that they brought such strong cultivators strongly suggested they were going to try and abduct her mother in order to control Maxine or to lure her into a trap to kill her. However after considering the weaponry and essence cultivators presence, she figured they were preparing for both scenarios. She called General McKenzy and informed him about the force that the russians had brought. However she didn''t want to be caught flat-footed and tried to figure out a way to carry her newly forged Twilight Iron Blades around with her.While experimenting, she found out that as long as she fed a steady stream of her shadow essence into her blades that she could store them in her shadow.She felt better after solving that particular issue and sought distraction.


    When Emily broke through the the bronze stage, Maxine had gotten a good distraction by teaching both Emily and Amanda how to form essence armor. The two of them had caught on how to form their essence armor far more quickly than Maxine had anticipated. Maxine was caught off guard by the appearance of their essence armor.


    Amanda''s essence armor looked like a cross between leather and platemail and almost looked like it was carved out of blue-green opal. Emily''s essence armor formed into the shape of flowing white robes with gold ornaments. With the addition of a slight white glow, she looked the very picture of a goddess of healing. Maxinefelt alittle depressed sinceher own essence armor looked so ugly in comparison. She knew that most essence armors were rather dull looking and some even looked worse than her own. However she couldn''t understand how she ended up with friends that had such beautiful essence armor. It was almost as if some cosmic being had arranged all of this to mock her.


    However Maxine pushed those thoughts out of her mind as she walked towards Silky''s nest. Today was the day that Silky would be examined by those scientists. She had heard from Amanda that they had called in a skilled entomologist to assist them in understanding Silky''s anatomy. Maxine had already told Silky about this event in advance so she wouldn''t be too nervous about those scientists poking at her.


    As always Silky noticed Maxine before she could announce herself. "Mama, I''m ready to go," Silky said as she came out of her nest. Silky was wearing a dress that she had made herself. It was in the same style of the dress that Maxine had made for her, and was almost as good as that one as well. However it was miles apart from Silky''s first attempt. Her first attempt had been misshapen and had the gaps for her forelimbs in the wrong place.


    "Good. Now follow me, Silky," Maxine said as she walked to a secluded spot where a van was waiting. This was being done to avoid anyone from spotting Silky and figuring out she lived in this area.


    It didn''t take them long before they arrived to the van with tinted windows. Maxine opened the back of the van and got into it herself before beckoning Silky to enter. Silky awkwardly got into the van. It was her first time getting into a vehicle of any kind. A short ride later, they arrived at the same warehouse as when Maxine had to go through when Maxine had been examined by the scientists. As they got out of the van, Maxine could hear an older woman yelling from inside the warehouse, "I don''t care why you brought me here. You bastards took me away from a three foot long scorpion. Do you have any earthly idea what that would mean for my carreer? At this rate, that bastard Henderson will get all the credit for discovering it because of your bullshit."


    Maxine smiled to herself knowingly while they walked towards the entrance to the warehouse. Silky seemed to be nervous and the yelling wasn''t helping. When the large double doors opened. Maxine got to see the back of the woman that had yelled earlier. She was a short, skinny older woman and appeared to be of hispanic descent. She was currently facing the head researcher who had a slowly forming smirk on his face as soon as he laid eyes on Silky.


    "What''s so damn funny?!" the woman roared.


    However instead of answering her, the head researcher pointed at Silky and said, "Carla, I suggest you look behind you before you continue expressing your displeasure."


    From Carla''s body language, she appeared to be quite angry as she turned around. However when she saw Silky, her expression immediately shifted from shock. Maxine wasn''t surprised by Carla''s reaction. Silky was an even more impossible existence when compared to that scorpion.


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    "My god," Carla said as she slowly approached, "I thought that those pictures werea hoax." Silky seemed to curious as she stared at Carla.


    Maxine wasn''t too concerned as Carla started to walk around Silky. Silky turned her upper body around to keep an eye onCarla, but otherwise did nothing to impede the woman. "Incredible" was all she said after she finished walking around Silky. However when she reached towards Silky''s skirt, Maxine grabbed Carla''s wrist while glaring at her.


    "Are you intending to expose Silky to all of those men," Maxine said softly while nudging her head in the direction of the other scientists, but it was clear that Maxine was angry. It took Carla a moment to realize her error.


    "Do you mean to tell me thatit has human genitalia?" Carla asked with a suprised expression.


    "Yes,she does and if you want to look you have to do it behind closed doors," Maxine asserted. She had a hard enough time teaching Silky the importance of modesty without someone flipping her skirt infront of a bunch of men. It was one of the few concepts that Silky just didn''t seem to get.


    "Oh, I am sorry. Iwas so excited that I forgot about they were there," Carla apologized. Maxine didn''t believe her, but she still let her go. Carla had already refered to Silky as an it. It was obvious that Carla didn''t view Silky as a person.


    "Just be sure you don''t do it again," Maxine said angrily. Carla didn''t appear to have heard her as she started meassuring Silky''s legs and other arachnid body parts. Silky was struggling not to giggle while the woman worked.


    "Mama, she is tickling me," Silky complained while restraining her laughter as Carla moved.


    "Try to put up with it, Silky," Maxine said calmly, "Remember they may give you some chocolate if you are especially good."


    "Okay, Mama," Silky replied happily while trying to hold still.Silky really did enjoy eating chocolate candies. Maxine was even amazed she prefered it over essence cores as a reward.That had surpised Maxine after she went through the trouble of harvasting six more essence cores the other day.


    After Carla was done with her measurements, Silky had tobe subjected to almost every imaging test known to man. She wasn''t a fan of needles either and had to be reassured by Maxine in order to even allow the scientists to draw some blood from her. Carla did get to examine Silky completely like shewanted and she asked Silky a few questions about her eating habits.Silky was curious about everything herself and kept asking the scientists what everything in the room was during her many tests.


    Patrick had arrived sometime while Silky was getting a full-body MRI. Maxine hadn''t been aware that they madea model machines big enough to accomodate Silky. Silky did not like being in it as it made her feel dizzy and nervously called for Maxine. Patrick teasedMaxineabout being a teenage mother when he heard Silky callher mama. She felt like hitting him for that, but he wasn''t wrong in a sense.


    Maxine tried to soothe Silky so that she would stay still. Otherwise this would take longer. Fortunately that was the last one they decided to run on her. Silky was already quite tired from all the excitement. After Silky got out of the MRI, she got a small chocolate bar from one of the scientists. Silky grabbed it and savored every bite of it.


    However Maxine saw that after Silky finished her chocolate bar, she started staring at Patrick. A few moments later, Silky walked up to Patrick, whom was sitting patiently while the scientists were waving a collection of devices around him, and she looked at him curiously. It seemed to make Patrick uncomfortable.


    "Are you going to become my daddy?" Silky asked innocently. Maxine''s face turned beat red from embarressment. Patrick on the other hand looked dumbfounded by that question. Maxine didn''t even know where that question came from. She had only said a few things about him and didn''t think she said anything that would put that idea in Silky''s head.


    "No, he won''t," Maxine asserted as she grabbed Silky''s hand and led her away. Silky looked disappointed, but Maxine wasn''t attracted to men. Even if she were, she wouldn''t persue Patrick of all people. Maxine already had Emily in any case. Although Maxine had to admit, she hadn''t even attempted to kiss Emily since Maxine gave her that tongue kiss.


    It was about an hour until dinner time when Maxine checked the clock and Maxine knew Silky wanted to see her mother. However she didn''t dare do that. Those men were watching her house. Maxine would take her mother up to visit Silky another day when they weren''t being followed around.


    After dropping off Silky at her nest, she noticed those two men were no longer waiting for her where Sergeant Randall was supposed to pick her up. In fact, they were quite some distance away, but still within the city limits. She immediately panicked and ran home at top speed without telling her driver.


    Her mother''s car wasn''t home and she diverted to where her mother worked. It only took her a few minutes to reach the parking lot where her mother parked her car while she was at work. However her mother wasn''t at work and there was a large crowd surrounding several dead men as well as her mother''s car. Most of them were from the protection detail assigned to her mother. Her mind flooded with worry and fear for her mother.She should have known something like this could have happened.Maxinecould only think of one reason why they would abduct her mother so soon. It had to have been one of the general''s men got discovered while investigating those men spying on Maxine and her mother.


    Maxine just now realized that her cell phone had been ringing for quite some time. She pulled it out and saw that it was General McKenzy. He was trying to calm her down and tell her not to do anything rash. Her driver must have seen her speeding off into the distance and called the general. However Maxine barely heard the general. He had already failed to protect her mother after she had informed him about the bronze stage essence cultivators and she wasn''t going to give him the chance to perform a rescue that may end up killing her mother.


    Maxine locked onto the spiritual marks she left on those two men. A murderous ragequickly replaced her fear as she formed her essence amor and retrieved her blades from her shadow. She didn''t care if anyone saw her or that she was probably going to run straight into a trap as she started running towards the spiritual marks that she had left on those men.

 Chapter 33

    Maxine sped towards the location of those men that had taken her mother. Even though she was filled with rage, she didn''t loose her wits entirely and scanned the place where her mother was being held in advance to get a lay of the land.She found themin an abandoned house at the edge of town. Her mother was tied to a chair and was surrounded by all seven of the men that she found earlier. However one of them seemed aware of her spying on them with her spiritual sense and showed a smile as he said something to his compatriots in russian. No doubt it was to tell them that she was coming. They began pulling out their high tech weapons and started to position themselves around her mother.


    Maxine stopped when she was about one hundred feet from the house and used her spiritual sense to talk to the one that detected her. Told him to release her mother or she would kill them all using her spiritual sense. Her message seemed to spook him for a moment. Apparently he had never communicated via spiritual sense before.


    After he recovered from his initial surprise, heanswered her. He didn''t believe she would attack them while they had her mother and even tried to offer, what he thought, were rather nice benefits for defecting to Russia.However she understood that hewas indirectly threatening to kill her mother. The four normal men were already positioned strategically around her mother and were watching all of the windows and doors.


    Maxine rushed towards the house without any more delays. She locked on to each of the seven men with her spiritual sense as she formed fourteen essence darts in the air around her. She fired two essence darts at each of the men while aiming for their vitals.


    The expressions of the three russian bronze stage essence cultivators switched to panic instantly as they dodged for their lives. The four normal men were not nearly fast enough to dodge and got hit in both the head and heart by Maxine''s essence darts. Fortunately one of the cultivators had been hit in the left shoulder with her essence dart. Maxine smiled as she had made the essence darts that went for the cultivators in a different way. They were of the exploding variety. When it detonated, it took a big chunk out of the man''s chest as well as detaching his arm from his body. It would be a feat of willpower if the man could still fight in that condition.


    Before any of them could recover, Maxine smashed through a wall and into the house. She quicklyfinished off already wounded manby cutting his neck open. She didn''t want to have to deal with a half-dead man pulling off a sneak attack in the middle of the fight. The other two were already had their plasma guns out and Maxine couldn''t dodge at this range. Howeverat this range she didn''t need to be to worried about that as she slashed outwith her left bladeto cut the barrels of the weapons in half. She only half succeeded with that attack as one of them managed to dodge away.


    Maxine pressed her advantage and unleashed a flurry of stabs and slashes at the both of them. She didn''t want them to have an opportunity to fight back. Because if they did, she may not be able to win especially with how well they were able to dodge her attacks.


    Maxine created a shadow clone during her assault and had it carry her mother out of here. She couldn''t take the risk of her getting hurt in the melee. Her mother only had a red mark on her neck and unconscious as her shadow clone collected her. Maxine had it run out of the hole that Maxine had made coming in with her mother in it''s arms. She had directed it to run away towards the center of the city. Fortunately she had figured out how to make it have a semblance of intelligence the past few days and it could follow simple commands.


    Now that her mother was out of the building, she focused on killing both of them. However no matter what she did they always managed to avoid her attacks at the last instant. If this kept up, the bastard that had a working plasma gun may find an opportunity to shoot her with it. She forced an opening by unleashing a Crescent Moon Blitz at point blank at the both of them. Their eyes widened and the man that had sensed her spiritual sense before lept infront of his armed comerade and took the blast. Maxine was momentarily blinded by the bloody spray and barely noticed the last of her opponents fleeing through the front door. She chased after him, but her blood ran cold when she noticed that he was running after her much slower shadow clone.


    Although Maxine was faster than her opponent, she still couldn''t catch up to him before he got into firing range of her shadow clone that was holding her mother. She saw him take aim while running and she began to dispair. Her clone will disappear as soon as it recieves a certain ammount of damage and it was running over eighty miles per hour. Her mother would be lucky to only loose a limb and be horribly disfigured.


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    Her opponent fired his plasma gun and the round seemed to move in slow motion as it sailed towards the head of her shadow clone. NO!!!Maxine tried to take control of it to dodge, but it was just too slow. The plasma round made a direct hit and her shadow clone burst into a cloud of quickly disappearing grey mist. By some cruel twist of fate, her mother had regained consciousness just moments before and Maxine had gotten to hear her mother scream when she hit the ground. Maxine ignoredthe bastard that shot her shadow clone and returned her blades to her shadow as she swiftly rushed towards her mother before any more damage could be done. Unfortunately her mother had bounced off of the ground and it had put her into a violent spin. The second time she hit the ground her speed had almost halved and Maxine was close enough to hear bones breaking over her mother''s screams. Maxine managed to scoop her mother up before she could suffer any more injuries and quickly came to a stop.


    Maxine quickly used her spiritual sense to scan her mother''s injuries and was horrified by what she found. Both of her arms were broken, she had alot of internal bleeding andseveral of herorgans had been damaged. If nothing were done, her mother would die very soon and she couldn''t move her for fear of making her wounds worse. Maxine held her mother while she cried helplessly. It took a few minutes before she heard the sound of an ambulance.


    However even in this agrieved state, Maxine still had her spiritual sense locked on to the last russian, whom was fleeing for his life. If he hadn''t, she would have killed him by now.


    Maxine waited for the ambulance to arrive and for the EMTs to take her mother towards the nearest hospital. However she wasn''t going to follow it. There wasn''t anything she could do other than worry for her mother at the hospital anyways.


    Maxine''s rage reignited as she hid her essence fluctuations and charged towards the survivor that fled at full speed. He had foolishly stopped to hide in a large cave in the middle of the woods. It took her almost ten minutes to reach his hiding spot. When she did, Maxine crept silently towards him, but she didn''t go inside of the cave. She used her shadow essence to create dozens of tendrils inside of it to quickly restrain him. She hadn''t used this move earlier because her tendrils were slower than the men were. However inside the confines of a narrow cave, it didn''t matter if he was faster if the tendrils appeared all around him.


    Only when he couldn''t move, didMaxine come inside of the cave. She walked straight up to him and started beating him viciously. She was venting out her rage as well as dulling his mind for what she intended next. After his face became a swollen mess blood, she slapped her hand on top of his head and stabbed into his mind with her spiritual sense to rip his very soul to asunder as she pillaged his mind for memories. She was searching for the one that gave him his orders. She wanted to know who she should kill if her mother died.


    Maxine found severalmemories on whathe had done the past few weeks. Apparently they were sent here to get not just to get her to come to their country, but to kidnap Emily as well. However Emily had almost a dozen of collared cultivators in her vicinity at all times based on this man''s memories.The general knew that they were here, but he didn''t kill or capture them.Why?!?Maxine delved deeper into this man''s memories as she searched for answers, but he didn''t have the answers that she sought. She only managed to find the one that gave them this assingment. They knew him as colonel Adreevich.Unfortunately he was still in russia and out of her reach for now. Maxine released the poor man and saw that he was bleeding out of every orafice on his head. The man was dead in every sense of the word.


    Maxine didn''t dally any longer and rushed towards the hospital that the EMTs had told her where they were taking her mother. She only retracted her essence armor just before entering it and sat down in the hospital waiting room after telling them who she was. She was worried for her mother and the adrenaline that had helped keepher concern for her mother out of her mind earlier was gone now. However that worry was at the forefront of her mind and as the time passed by, it only made her feel worse. While she waited, she thought about some things. She went over her recently acquired memories from that man and became more certain that the general wouldn''t have put that kind of protective detail on Emily unless he knew something was coming. He wasn''t the kind of man to waste resources like that. What she really wanted to know is why he hadn''t even assinged a single cultivator to monitor her mother.


    Amanda had arrived and was walking towards Maxine.Why isn''t Emily with her?Emily was the one person that could heal her mother enough that she wouldn''t die. However she knew that the general wouldn''t risk the kidnapping of his only family member doing that when he thought that those men were still about. Although Maxine understood it, she still hated him for it.


    When Amanda got close enough, Maxine stood up and recieved a hug from her. Maxine dug her face into Amanda''s shoulder and started crying in an attempt to let out all of the fear out of her system. They stood there for several minutes before Maxine stopped crying. Amanda said a few words of comfort and sat down with Maxine. However that did little to soothe Maxine''s worried heart and she could only wait as the surgeons tried to save her mother''s life.

 Chapter 34

    Maxine waited with Amanda for what seemed like an eternity when one of the doctors finally came out to reveal her mother''s condition. They had stopped her internal bleeding and managed to put her shattered bones back together using a series of pins. However her mother had recieved a severe concussion and that had caused brain damage. They wouldn''t know the full extent of it until she woke up. Unfortunately they didn''t know for certain when her mother would regain consciousness.


    Maxine felt a combination of releif and despair at that news. Her mother was going to live, but could end up being an idiot from her injuries. Maxine hoped that wasn''t the case as she embraced Amanda and started crying again. Amanda brushed Maxine''s hair with her hands soothingly while Maxine cried.


    However as Maxine''s sobs lost their intensity, her rage at General McKenzy started to intensify. He could have prevented all of this from even happening and made it so Emily couldn''t even come to heal her mother. She wanted to kill him, but she didn''t dare. It would make Emily cry and Maxine didn''t want to hurt her like that.


    Maxine pushed herself away from Amanda after she finished crying and came to a decision. She would finish teaching those soldiers, but after that she would no longer volunteer to help that bastard. Nor would she talk to him unless she had to.However Maxine would still talk to Emily and Amanda regardless of how much she hated the general.


    Amanda offered to let Maxine stay with her for the night, but Maxine declined. She lied when she told Amanda that she wanted to sleep in her own bed. What she really was going to do tonight was to devise a means to protect her mother even if she wasn''t present. There was only a few ways that Maxine could think of. The first one that came to mind was to create a semi-permnament golem made of her shadow essence to protect her mother. It could hide in her shadow until it was needed. However the biggest problem with that was figuring out how to supply it with the necessary essence to maintain it''s existence.


    After Maxine got home, she quickly ran into her room and formed a small wolf using her shadow essence. She left it in a shadow, but as soon as she stopped feeding it essence it faded out of existence. She tried filling it with a chunk of her essence, but that only slowed down the rate that it disappeared. Maxine needed a container for essence and remembered the twelve copper essence cores she had yet to give to Emily. She pulled one out and used her shadow essence to create a Copper Fang Wolf around one of the esssence cores. This time it''s body only fluctuated for a few moments before dispersing.


    Maxine knew she was on the right track and tried various different ways to manifest the wolf. However in the end, she was forced to recreate the wolf down to each of it''s cells before it became stable enough to stay in existence for an hour. She was frustrated that it wouldn''t last longer and thought she was missing some important detail to complete it. Unfortunately her repeated attempts at forminga stable wolf constucthad drained all but one of her essence cores.


    Maxine got an idea and injected her shadow essence into the copper essence core in her hand. Her shadow essence devoured the essence that was already inside of the core. After that, she quickly formed the wolf around the core. When the wolf finished forming, it no longer looked like what sheoriginally wanted to create. It''s coloring was completely different. Instead of the copper and grey colored fur, it was now the samesilver-greyas her hair and it possessed golden eyes.The simple change of coloring made it appear more noble. Maxine reached out and touched it. It felt real enough to her.


    Maxine couldn''t help but marvel at her own work as she scanned it''s body with her spiritual sense. Because she had made it so perfectly, it was now able to draw in more essence than it used and could maintian itself indefinitely. In fact, she thought it might actually rank up it''s essence core. Something she wasn''t even sure was possible.


    However Maxine needed to test if it could follow simple orders and ordered it verbally to enter her shadow. It stared at her for a moment before it transformed into a greyish mass that lept into her shadow. She quickly recalled it back out. It simply stood there motionless after reappearing. She didn''t know what to call it since it didn''t have a consciousness of it''s own. She just went with calling it a Shadow Wolf since it was made from her shadow essence.


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    Maxine looked at the time and it was only a few hours from dawn. She decided to lay down and ordered her new golem to guard her. She figured that if it was still stable by morning then she would make more using the bronze essence cores to protect her mother. Unfortunately she didn''t have enough bronze essence cores to make enough of these Shadow Wolves.


    When Maxine woke up and saw that it was almost eight in the morning, she checked on the wolf golem and saw that it was still there. She quickly ordered it back into her shadow and swiftly got ready for the day. She wasn''t going to even bother with teaching those soldiers today.Maxine was goingto check on her mother beforehunting for some more bronze essence cores. She didn''t think the general would hold it against her for taking a day off because of her mother.


    Maxine checked on her mother at the hospital after finishing breakfast. Her mother hadn''t woken up yet. Maxine checked her over with her spiritual sense while she was there and found that the damage to her brain wasn''t that bad. She may not remember anything from the last few days, but otherwise she would mostly recover.


    Maxine made her way to Silky''s nest after she was done at the hospital. When she arrived, she told Silky about what happened. Silky''s normally black eyes immediately turned crimson as she screamed in rage. She looked completely ferocious. Maxine had never seen such a reaction out of the normally very adorable Silky. She only calmed down after Maxine explained that all of the people responsible had already been taken care of and that Maxine''s mother would most likely recover.


    After promising Silky that Maxine would bring her mother when she recovered, Maxine began hunting bronze stage essence beasts. She hunted for three hours and managed to collect seven bronze stage essence cores. She had been having a harder time finding bronze stage essence beasts the past few times that she had hunted in the area around Silky''s nest. Maxine knew those things bred faster than rabbits after all. Only after thinking about it did she realize the reason for it. Her constant hunting of the area must have been their equivalent of establishing a territory and the essence beasts were respecting her territory. Maxine understood she will need to change the area that she hunted for essence cores in.


    Maxine returned to Silky''s nest and checked the time. She still had an hour before lunch and made two more Shadow Wolves. She didn''t make more because it would drain too much of her essence and she needed to test their capability at fighting on their own.


    Maxine had them hide in her shadow and found a large group of twenty Copper Fang Wolves. She unleashed her twoShadow Wolveson them.Maxine immediately noticed that her Shadow Wolves moved awkwardly and paid no heed to any attacks directed at them as they tore into the Copper Fang Wolves.When they had finished killing their opponents, her two Shadow Wolves returned and sat down infront of her. Both of them had sustained some damage. However their wounds were regenerating at almost a visible rate.When Maxine scanned them with her spiritual sense, she found that the essence being drawn in that wasn''t being used to maintain their existence was being directed to repair their wounds automatically.Maxine found this extremely fascinating, but didn''t have the time to study them further. She quickly recalled her Shadow Wolves back to her shadow and harvasted the copper essence cores from the wolves. She immediately headed back towards the hospital where her mother was.


    As soon as she got there, Maxine found that her mother had woken up from one of the nurses, but was in alot of pain. She quickly went towards the room that her mother was in and practicallyjumped with joy when she saw her mother''s eyes open for herself. Maxine resisted the urge to hug her mother and went over to her side. Maxine covertly ordered her Shadow Wolves to enter her mother''s shadow and to protect her if they detected killing intent directed at her.


    Maxine talked to her mother to find out what she remembered about the whole thing. Her mother remembered only that she was kidnapped and nothing else, which was for the best Maxine supposed. It would be better if her mother didn''t remember such a horrible event. Maxine stayed for a few hours before heading home. She had to prepare some more Shadow Wolves and fashion some armor in order to protect her mother as well as finish teaching those soldiers over the next couple weeks while her mother healed.


    Her mother wanted Maxine to turn on the TV and started going through the channels. However when she found the news channel, she froze. They were showing Maxine with her essence armor on as she retreived her Twighlight Iron Blades out of her shadow before running off into the distance.If someone saw that much, they may have seen my face too. Shesuspected that her life was about to get alot more troublesome.

 Chapter 35

    Maxine was proven correct in her assumption. Someone had gotten a good look at her face and somehow they had a video of her holding her mother''s broken form in her arms. Maxine knew that General McKenzy couldn''t avoid her identity from getting out even if he wanted to with how easily information was spread via the internet.


    Maxine had a large group of reporters on her front lawn the very next morning. She was very tempted to paint the general as a total asshole on national television, but that would most likelyforce him to resign his post. Since she didn''t want to deal with someone that could possibly be worse than him, she kept her mouth shut about the whole thing. However another general by the name of Matthew Jonesdid that anyways. He was almost skeletal in appearance and had an air of superiority about him. Maxine didn''t like him even before he started speaking.


    General Jones had stated at a news conference that General McKenzy knew about the men that hurt her mother in advance and did nothing to stop it from happening. He went further by stating that General McKenzy wouldn''t even allow Emily to heal Maxine''s mother as a punishment because Maxine went against his orders.Maxine knew what was coming at this point. General Jones had demanded that General McKenzy resign his post. General McKenzy had no way to defend himself from what Maxine could tell and part of her was happy that someone was bashing him so publicly. However there was something in General Jones'' eyes that bothered her. She couldn''t quite figure out what it was either, but it didn''t bother her enough to speak up in the defense of General McKenzy.


    Fortunately Maxine was distracted from all of those things while she taught the soldiers the variations of the essence darts. Shedemonstrated the two variations that she knew: the exploding and splinter essence darts. The splinter essence dart was more or less the equivalent of a shotgun blast and the exploding essence dart name explained what it did quite nicely. Howevera lunatic among those soldiers had somehow combined the two. When it hit the target, it had gone off like a fragmentation grenade shredding everything around it. If Maxine hadn''t used her essence to block off the destruction it caused, several of the soldiers training under her would have been seriously injured. She yelled at that particular soldier for being so reckless by testingitso close to his fellow soldiers, but shortly after praised him for his ingenuity.


    Other than teaching the soldiers, Maxine had worked on making more Shadow Wolves to protect her mother. She had made a total of ten bronze stage Shadow Wolves to protect her mother. and made another ten bronze and twenty copper stage ones to assist her in hunting. She figured that she should have her own personal army just in case. Afterall nothing says leave me alone better than a small army of snapping jaws.


    At one point, Maxine hadrememberedabout theplasma gun that was in the cave by the dead russian and went to retrieve it. She scanned it thoroughly with her spiritual sense to better understand it''s internal structure. Unfortunately she didn''t understand it at all and stashed it away in her shadow. She wanted to make one of her own on the off chance she would need it. So she had searched both the internet and the local library on everytopic that might be invovled in making a plasma gun. Maxine had spent her remaining free time that she had tending to her mother at the hospital.


    Aweek after her mother regained consciousness, Emily had dropped by the hospital to bothspeed up her mother''s recovery and talk to Maxine. She had wanted to ask Maxine to do something to help General Mckenzy so he wouldn''t be reassigned. If he was, it was very likely they would have to move away. Maxine wanted to oblige Emily, but she wasn''t certain what she could do without making things worse. She said as much to Emily.


    Emily looked downtrodden as she started to use her divine attribute to heal Maxine''s mother. Unfortunately it did little to help her mother since the best time to heal her had already passed. Emily healing her mother didn''t help much with General McKenzy''s situation either since it just made him look like he was trying to appease the public rather than taking the initiative to do it. Even though he had defended himself masterfully to the public, Maxine knew that it was only a matter of time before he was forcibly reassignedas more andmore people started to demand action from the government.


    Emily bid them farewell after nearly expending all of her essence in healing Maxine''s mother. However after Emily left, Maxine''s mother released a sigh shortly after. Maxine looked at her mother curiously. "Mom, what''s wrong?" Maxine asked.


    "I was hoping for grandchildren, but after seeing how you were looking at your friend Emily, I don''t think that I will," her mother paused before she continued, "I guess it''s no surprise after the hell your father and I put you through." Maxine hadn''t been aware that she was looking at Emily in any speical way.


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    "Mom, I...," Maxine tried to speak but stopped when her mother raised her hand to silence her.


    "I don''t need an explaination, Maxine," her mother said calmly, "I know you want to punish both me and your father, but please have ababy in the future. You don''t know what joys thatone can bring you and remember nowadays you don''t exactly need a man in your life to have one."Maxine immediatley became uncomfortable at the mere thought of having a baby.However she couldn''t bring herself to tell her mother that it probably wouldn''t happen.Although, if Patrick were to be the father... GOD DAMN IT!


    Maxine didn''t like the fact that part of her was attracted to Patrick, but she didn''t have much choice in the matter. She knew that Patrick was loyal and wouldn''t hurt her intentionally. Those two things appealed to her on a logical and emotional level. She was afraid that if his girlfriend, Meagan, wasn''t in the equation that she might actually be tempted to persue him.


    "Okay, mom. I will think about it," Maxine said softly while those thoughts ran throughher head..


    "Now, tell me about Emily," Maxine''s mother asked. Maxine was only too happy to comply since it was a good way to distract herself and told her how theybecame friends much to Maxine''s embaressment. There were times that she couldn''t believe that she had initiated such a passionate kiss with Emily and alittle sad that they hadn''t shared another one since. Maxine went overseveral other activities that they did such as shopping and watching movies at Emily''s house. Her mother listened attentively through the whold thing. It took hera couple hours to go over it all.


    A short while after she was done telling her mother about Emily, a nurse came in and told them that visitor hours were almost over. Maxine told her mother goodbye and left. However she didn''t go home right away since those reporters and her fans were camping outside of her house. Instead she went to visit Silky.


    Silky as always gave her a hug tackle as soon as Maxine arrived at her nest. Silky always wanted a progress report on Maxine''s mother as soon as she arrived. Silky had been anxious because Maxine''s mother healed so slowly compared to herself. Maxine hadn''t realized just how important family was to her little arachne until Silky had shown such concern over the wellbeing of Maxine and her mother.


    After she was done telling Silky about her mother''s condition, Maxine played a word game with Silky. It invovled avoiding the use of either the no or yes sounds in aconversation. If you said either of which, you lost. Silky wonas much as she lost since they started playing that game a few days ago.It took almost a quarter of an hour before Maxine announced that it was a draw. Silky had been getting better at this game ever since she taught it to her.


    Maxine told Silky to go back into her nest while Maxine hunted. Maxine hadn''t used her Shadow Wolves to hunt many copper stage essence beasts and she primarily hunted for bronze stage essence beasts to increase the strength of her army. Whenever she found a group of five or more bronze stage essence beasts, she simply unleashed her Shadow Wolves and watched the show. There was something satisfying about watching essence beasts tear each other to pieces. Shenoticed during her earlier hunts that no matter how damaged one of her Shadow Wolves became it would always repair itself given enough time. It was like they had no weak points aside from the essence cores inside of them. Maxine had wondered why they were far more durable than her shadow clone, but figured it might have something to do with the fact that they had essence cores whereas her shadow clone did not.


    Maxine collected twenty copper and tree bronze essence cores in less than an hour of hunting and four times that duringthe past few hunting trips. She remarked mentally that she had made remarkable progress ever since she started using the Shadow Wolves to track and fight essence beasts. However all of her bronze essence cores had been used to make her stronger Shadow Wolves. She decided to make the rest of them usingaround copper essence cores. She wasn''t certain how many Shadow Wolves she could keep inside of her shadow and wanted tofind out herlimit.


    Maxine ran back towards Silky''s nest and started making more Shadow Wolves using the copper essence cores while Silky watched her. She had gotten better at it and couldn''t too many a day with her current proficiency. Hence she only made as many as ten copper or five bronze Shadow Wolves at a time. It didn''t take her very long. Maxine checked the time and it was around nine in the evening.


    Maxine reached for her cell phone and looked at it for a few minutes while debating whether or not she should call Patrick. She wasn''t even sure he would still be awake at this time, but she missed talking to her old friend. However she was nervous about calling him. She didn''t completely understand why she felt that way considering how long she had known him.


    Maxines stomach started to growl and distracted her from her current thoughts. She put her cell phone away and ran back towards her house. She figured that the reporters and her fans had gone home to sleep by now. She remembered that the soldiers she was teaching would breakthrough into the bronze stage within the next few days and she wanted to teach them how to form their own essence armor afterwards. She was looking forward to it since it would mean the end of her obligation to the military. She for the breifest of moments wondered if General McKenzy would still be in charge when their training was completed.

 Chapter 36

    Today was tuesday July 10th and Maxine was looking forward to the soldiers finally entering bronze stage. She still kept her essence armor on whenever she taught them. She didn''t feel safe for some reason without it. The soldiers were just as excited about today as well since she had informed them their training would end today.


    However Maxine''s good mood was dampened somewhat since General McKenzy decided to retire rather than be forcibly reassigned yesterday. He was almost eighty years old afterall.


    General Jones had yet to introduce himself to Maxine. She had hoped that he was too busy getting up to date on everything to bother with her. However regardless of that, he would eventually ask to see her. She wasn''t looking forward to that encounter.


    Maxine''s attention was drawn away from her inner thoughts when Amanda walked in. She looked furious. Maxine had never seen her this angry before and it upset her greately. However she didn''t have to wonder long as she started to walk towards Maxine.


    "General Jones wants to see you after you are done here," Amanda said as soon as she got closer.


    "Alright," Maxine said, "I take it he did something to piss you off?"


    "Yeah,the prick treated me like I wasn''t even human," Amanda growled in obvious anger.Maxinehad never heardAmanda to use such vulgar language before and realized just how angry she was.


    Maxine let out a sigh. She already knew about people that thought cultivators were not human. However she never thought such a person would be put in charge of keeping track of them. She wondered if anyone even bothered to check to make sure that he wasn''t prejudiced in the first place. However Maxine didn''t care too much about it as long as he didn''t threaten anyone Maxine cared about.


    "I wish General McKenzy was still around. He was a dick and he could have fucked that asshole over," Maxine said jokingly to lighten the mood and Amanda immediately started laughing uproarously. When Amanda had finished laughing, Maxine said, "Now let''s get started. I don''twant to be here any longer than I need to be."


    "Alright," Amanda said.


    The soldiers quickly grabbed the essence cores that were provided and begin to cultivate. It took an hour and a half before all of them had entered the bronze stage. Maxine carefully described how to form essence armor. She didn''t expect many of them to get it right away. It required a person to spread essence all over their body instead of one spot. Like she had expected, only a couple of them were able to do it. Maxine went to them individually and walked them through it. After they had all formed their essence armor, Maxine got a good look at all of them. The style of the essence armor varied amongst them, but the color remained the same dull grey. It was the color essence naturally took when it didn''t have an attribute. Maxine gave them all a nod of approval before dismissing them for the last time.


    Maxine didn''t waste any time as she left the warehouse and went straight towards the office that used to be occupied by General McKenzy. She made her way there and saw that the officers along the way looked far more grumpy than normal. General Jones didn''t appear to get along very well with others.


    After Maxine walked into the office, General Jones gave her a disgusted look. "Get seated," he said coldly.


    "I prefer to stand," Maxine said just as coldly back.


    "Suit yourself," General Jones said as he put away a file into one of his desk drawers, "If it were up to me you would have an explosive collar around your neckto keep you in line. However since it isn''t, I will rescind all of those priviledges that my predecessor allowed you. You will no longer be allowed to roam the base without an escort of some kind. I also do not have the same level of tolerance for your insubordination that General McKenzy hadand you WILL obey every order I give you if you know what''s good for you. Is that understood?" Maxine didn''t like this man to begin with. Now he wastreating her like one of his disobedient soldiers.Is he trying to piss me off?


    "Go to hell. I am an underage civilian and you have no right to order me to do anything," Maxine answered venomously.


    "You are absolutely correct. I can''t order you to do anything. However what I can do is make life for your mother quite difficult by filing child endangerment charges against her. I am not exactly sure why General McKenzy didn''t do it himself, but he conveniently left me all of the evidence I need to put your mother behind bars," General Jones said with a smile, "If you don''t want that to happen, you will do what I say, freak." Even though Maxine was still angry at her mother for covering for her father''s abuses, she was still family and when he had threatened her mother, it had pushed beyond what she would tolerate from anyone or anything.


    "Go for itand see what happens," Maxine said coldly.


    "What?" General Jones said with a surprised expression on his face. Apparently her answer had gone against his expectations.


    "I said go for it and see what happens," Maxine repeated herself as she expanded her shadow to cover the wall behind her. She allowed the angry golden eyes of her Shadow Wolves to appear within it. Howeverthat only seemed to angerGeneral Jones instead of scaring him like she had thought it would.


    "I will not be fooled by your illusions, freak," General Jones said angrily, "Knock it off if you don''t want your mother to go to prison." Maxine felt insulted that he hadn''t even taken the time to look through her file properly. She knew General McKenzy would have left some kind of record ofthe abilities that she has revealed thus far.


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    "Do not mistake me for Amanda. I have the power of manifestation and those beasts behind me are my creations," Maxine stated as her Shadow Wolves stepped out of her expanded shadow, "I am not some weak little girl that you canintimidate to do what you want and the next time you threaten my mother, I will kill you. That is not a threat. It is a fact. If you doubt I have the conviction to go through with that, just look at what I did to those russians. Now unless you have something to talk about that doesn''t invovle pissing me off, I will be leavingand if you know what''s good for you, you will leave me and anyone related to me alone." General Jones grit his teeth as he glared at Maxine with obvious rage. After she returned her Shadow Wolves to her shadow,Maxine left his office. She knew he might try to retaliate against her later. Fortunately he didn''t seem to be as intelligent or thorough as General Mckenzy andthat made him appear as less of a threat than he could be.


    After leaving the base, Maxine went straight to the hospital to see her mother. However she noticed something odd when she got there. For some reason, the spiritual mark she had left on Silky''s mind was inside of her mother''s hospital room. She was confused and quickly made her way up there. It became more apparent that Silky was there when she heard the nurses talking about her little arachne as she walked passed them. When she opened the door to her mother''s room, she saw Silky standing beside her mother''s bed and looking at her mother''s arms that were encased in plaster.How the hell did Silky know where mom was being treated?She didn''t remember telling Silky where her mother was. However, her question answered itself when she saw Amanda seated in a chair at the far side of the room.


    "Grandma, does it hurt alot?" Silkyasked.


    "Not right now, but the doctors have got me on some strong painkillers," Maxine''s mother said as she glanced at Maxine walking into the room. Maxine was surprised that her mother was letting Silky call her grandma. However Maxine didn''t want to interrupt them and walked over to Amanda.


    "Care to explain why you brought Silky up here?" Maxine asked her.


    "I didn''t. I was on my way to visit your mother when found Silky about two miles away from here. She was asking everyone in her path where her grandma was being treated," Amanda said with a fox-like grin on her face, "She somehow realized I was your friend and asked me to bring herto see her grandma." Maxine knew exactly how Silky knew that. She still possessed the sense of smell that a spider does and must have picked up Amanda''s scent off of Maxine''s clothes at one time or another.


    "Maxine," her mother said to get Maxine''s attention and gestured towards Silky, "When I asked for grandchildren, this isn''t what I had in mind, butSilky is a treasure regardless. I am surprised you hadn''t introduced me to her sooner" Her mother was smiling and Silky started to show a big smile across her face sinc she got called a treasure.


    "I was going to after you got out of here, but it seems Silky beat me to it," Maxine said as she looked at Silky, "You should have told me you wanted to see your grandma that badly."


    "I am sorry, mama, but I really wanted to see grandma," Silky said while tears threatened to flow in all four of her eyes, "Are you mad at me?"


    "No, I am not mad at you. I know how worried you were for her," Maxine answered Silky as she ruffled her hair, "But next time tell me when you do something like this. If I had gone to your nest before here and couldn''t find you, it would have scared me to death." Silky lowered her head as if Maxine had been yelling at her instead of gently scolding her. Maxine was happy that it was that simple to tell Silky that she had done something wrong without having to be mean about it.


    Maxine turned back towards her mother and saw an apprieciative smile on her face. "What?" Maxine asked.


    "Nothing, nothing at all," Maxine''s mother said.


    "Um, okay," Maxine said whilefeeling a bit confused, "Did the doctor''s say when you will be getting out of here?"


    "Anothermonth or so. They want me to be able to use my hands before they let me out of here," her mother answered which elicited ahappy cheer from Silky. However Maxine wasn''t happy to hear that at all. She had expected her mother to recover much sooner than that especiallyafter Emily had come by help speed up the process.


    The four of them talked for awhile longer before Maxine noticed that a small group of people had started togather outside of her mother''s hospital room. They were undoubtedly trying to get a good look at Silky. Maxine decided that it was time to take Silky back to hernest before the small crowd outside of the room got any bigger and said goodbye to her mother as she led Silky out.


    Silky had insisted on holding her hand on the way out of the hospital and they were greeted by a mob of reporters when they exited the building. She knew that reporters would appear her as soon as she got out of the hospital with Silky and did her best to put up with it.What''s alittle more popularity going to hurt now everyone knows who I am? Anyways the more popular I am the harder it will be for General Jones to mess with me.Silky was almost as popular as Maxine herself and the little arachne seemed to enjoy all of the attention as she was all smiles. She did her best to avoid answering any questions directed at her.


    However Maxine came to a realization as she finally freed herself and Silky from the reporters. It was that she couldn''t take Silky back to her nest. If the anyone found out that she was letting Silky stay out in the woods by herself, it would make her look terribly bad. She hated having to think about things like this. She had prefered it when everything was simple. However she wouldn''t have to worry about it for too long. The next beast essence horde was alittle more than a month away. Unfortunately it would be alot bigger and more widespread than the last one and it would form far closer to Patrick than herself. Just thinking about that particular essence beast horde brought back some horrible memories. In the previous timeline, she had been forced to watch both of her parents being torn limb from limb by essence beasts during it.Fortunately she had the power to stop it from happening this time and if Patrick had trained her former self,Maxwell could as well.


    Maxine was gladthat she had told General McKenzy about it before he was replaced and if General Jones had any sense, he would have the soldiers she trained to start training others themselves to prepare for it. Unfortunately, the essence beast hordes would appear every three to four months for the next two years and each subsequent horde would be bigger than the last. After that, the hordes would appear less frequently,and their overall numbers would become more consistent. However in the old timeline, any semblance of government had been ground into dust by the end of those two years and only a few dozen fortified cities remained. Hopefully they would do better this time. Maxine wasn''t going to take that chance. She was going to do her best toincrease everyone''scombative strength and the number of abilities they could use before the next essence beast horde arrives.

 Chapter 37

    Maxine woke up while feeling a weight on her whole body. She opened her eyes and saw Silky laying down on top of her. Silky''s head was resting on her breasts. Maxine thought Silky looked adorable while she slept, but wondered why she wasn''t sleeping on the blow up matress that Maxine had put on the floor. However Maxine had toremind herself that this is the first time Silky had actually slept in the same place as herself and probably wanted to cuddle.


    "Silky," Maxine said softly while stroking Silky''s head, "It''s time to get up." Silky stirred at Maxine''s touch and revealed a big smile once she was awake.


    "Good morning, mama," Silky said cheerfully.


    "Good morning, Silky," Maxine said happily, "Could you get off me? I need to make breakfast." At the thought of breakfast, Maxine wondered how much Silky could actually eat. Maxine guess that Silky could easily eat the same portion as alarge man could just based on her size.


    "Okay, mama," Silky said as she got off Maxine and onto the floor, "What are we going to eat?" It was a legitimate question. However Maxine was going to make something with lots of protein since spiders normally ate meat.


    "Bacon and scambled eggs," Maxine said as she got up and quickly got a fresh change of clothes on. Silky followed her towards the kitchen with a curious look on her face.


    Maxine cooked breakfast while Silky watched her with rapt attention. Maxine was making enough for three people and served Silky her breakfast as soon as she got it ready.


    Maxine watched Silky as she played with her food before tentativelytaking a bite out ofa piece of bacon. Her face lit up as if she had tasted something amazing and quickly started stuffing the bacon into her mouth greedily. Maxine almost started laughing at that.


    "Silky, slow down and enjoy it. No one is going to take it from you," Maxine said with a smile. Silky had already devoured all but one piece of bacon before Maxine said that. Silky slowed down considerably and ate it one bite at a time with a big smile on her face. Silky took her time eating the eggs as well. However when she finished, Silky asked more. Maxine was surprised, but still cooked another helping for Silky.


    While Silky ate, Maxine wondered how to keep tabs on General Jones. She had forgotten to put one of her Shadow Wolves into his shadow yesterday because she had been too angry to think straight and she doubted that he would let her get close enough to do that after threatening him yesterday.


    Maxine noticed a raven resting on a telephone line outside of her house and got a devilish idea. She quickly scanned the raven with her spiritual sense as thoroughly as she could. She wanted to make a batch of ravens in the same manner that she had made the Shadow Wolves. However she couldn''tcreate one right away as Silky had just finished her food and announced that she was finally full. Maxine quickly cleaned up after the both of them and checked outside for any reporters.There were a few outside.


    Maxine quickly formed a shadow clone and had it exit out of the front door while Silky and herself exited out of the backdoor. Maxine had to go slow enough for Silky to follow and tried her best to avoid people while they headed to Silky''s nest.They managed to avoid being spotted by anyone along the way. Maxine didn''t want anyone to find out what she was doing.


    As soon as they arrived, Silky ran towards her nest. Maxine noticed a few animals were stuck in Silky''s webs and decided to leave Silky alone while she got to it. While Silky took care of them, Maxine pulled out thirty copper essence cores.Maxine tried to recreate a larger version of the raven that she had scanned with her spiritual sense earlier. Once she was satisfied with it''s shape, Maxine created one using one of the essence cores.


    Maxine tried to make it talk using her voice. Unfortunately it''s vocal cords needed some work and had to adjust them to make them sound more like herself. After she did that, she ordered it to fly in a circle above her head. It flapped it''s wings a few times before it took flight. She was pleased that it had retained the capacity for flight and swiftly madeanother twenty nine ravens with the remaining copper essence cores. She gave themfour orders once she had made thirty of them. They were to follow General Jones, for some of them to hide in his shadow, to say ''I am watching you''usingMaxine''svoice once every minute whenever he was alone, and to peck him in tender areas multiple times whenever he tries to do something harmful to cultivators. These ravens allowed her to listen in to all of his conversations and she could order them to peck him to death should he ever take things too far. The best part was that no one would believeGeneral Jones if he said that some birds under Maxine''s control were stalking him. Even if someone was suspicious of her, there was no evidence that it was actually her doing it.


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    Maxine decided to have one of her ravens to relaya few rules after a couple days that General Jones has to follow if he wants her stop tormenting him. Otherwise if her ravens continued with her orders, he might go insane and that would just result in someone new appearing again. Even if he doesn''t want to agree to her rules, she would continue to torment him with the ravens until he gave in. With that plan in place, she released her ravens totorment General Jones.


    After sending those ravens off, Maxine looked at Silky as she started coming back from tending to her nest. She wondered if Silky could use essence in the same way as cultivators and called her over to find out. The first thing Maxine teaching Silky was to make an essence dart. Silky figured it out very quickly. However what formed above her hand wasn''t exactly an essence dart. It had the right shape of an essence dart, but it looked and smelled like it was made of crystalized spider venom.Maxine assumed it would be the same kind of paralytic venom Silky had when she was still a Widowmaker Spider. It would be great means of restraining essence beasts in the future.


    Next Maxine taught Silky to form essence armor. Silky had formed it on the first try. Silky''s essence armor resembled platemailand it even covered the spider portion of her body.Her essence amor looked like it was made offinely wrought silver. However unlike everyone else she had encountered, Silkyhad an open face helmet instead of one that covered everything but the eyes. Oddly enough, Maxine didn''t think it was a weakness in the essence armor as she couldsense protective essence covering Silky''s face.Maxine noticed tiny studs all over Silky''s essence armor that smelled vaguely of poison. Maxine didn''t have to worry about Silky loosing to essence beasts since they would get poisoned regardless of whether they attack or get attacked.


    Maxine was happy that Silky could use essence like that, but it appeared that Silky was just happyto get attention. After encouraging Silky to find other ways to use her essence, Maxine pulled out her phone to call Emily. Out of everyone that she knew, Emily knew the leastabout how to use her essence.


    However before she could even dail the number, Emily called her. Maxine quickly answered the phone, but heard General McKenzy''s voice, "Hello, Maxine. You havn''t made it easy to get in contact with you." Maxine was tempted to end the call right there since she was still angry at him, but she was also curious as to why he would call her.


    "Hello, general," Maxine answered coldly.


    "You don''t need to call me that anymore. I retired. Call me, Howard," General McKenzy said.


    "Fine, Howard. What do you want?" Maxine replied.


    "I wanted to apologize for what happened to your mother. It was a mistake to useher as bait for those peopleand to assign only five cultivators to your mother''s protection detail. Had I only realized how much of a threat those men were, I would have never risked your mother in that fashion," General McKenzy said, "I am aware that this is selfish to ask, but can you forgive mefor my failure?" Maxine hadn''t known about the five cultivators that had been protecting her mother. She had only seen the ten bodyguards laying dead on the ground.


    Maxinealmost saidno reflexively, but it would negatively effect her relationship with Emily. "I don''t know if I can, but I will try," Maxine answered honestly.


    "Thank you. It is more than I deserve," General McKenzy said, "I will put Emily on now. She has been wanting to talk to you."


    When the phone was handed to Emily, they talked about everything that had happened the past few days, but Maxine left out her confrontation with General Jones. It was only after they had run out of topics to talk about did Maxine ask Emily if she wanted to learn a few more abilities using her essence. Emily agreed readily and asked when they could meet up. Maxine offered to teach her tomorrow at Maxine''s house since she couldn''t get Silky to Emily''s house without her being seen. Emily agreed to meet her tomorrow around lunchtime.


    After the call ended, Maxine called Amanda to see if she wanted to learn anything new, but she was too busy to do any kind of training for now. She was writing a petition to the government to setup a police force consisting of cultivators. Her reasoning was that it was far easier for cultivators to keep their own in check than it would be for even the military. It made perfect sense to Maxine and didn''t want to bother Amanda any more than necessary. However Maxine did ask Amanda to let her know when she was free before ending the call.


    Maxine had one last person that she needed to contact, but he was someone whom she had confusing feelings for. However Patrick had the same knowledge that she did and he didn''t need any help improving his abilities. However she wanted to know who, besides Maxwell, he had taught how to cultivate. She needed to know everything in order to setup a proper formation and battle plan for the next essence beast horde. Even though it made her feel uncomfortable, Maxine dialed Patrick''s phone number and waited for him to answer.

 Chapter 38

    "Hello," Patrick said over the phone, "Who is this?"


    "It''s Maxine," Maxine said, "Can we meet in person? I have something I need to ask you." Maxine didn''t want to ask him who he has trained over the phone. It was possible that someone was listening in on her conversations electronically and didn''t want give out the names of those people to anyone that might be listening.


    "Yeah," Patrick answered, "It has to be in the next half hour or I won''t be able to do it. Meagan wants to go out to eat lunch and go shopping with me." Maxine wasn''t surprised that he was taking Meagan out on a date. Him and Meagan had gotten married in the previous timeline.


    "How about we meet up at that old house that you and Maxwell used to sneak into as kids in about fifteen minutes?" Maxine said. She could get there in that ammount of time, but she had to run at top speed.


    "Sure, see you there. Bye," Patrick answered.


    "Bye, Patrick," Maxine said as she ended the call.


    Maxine formed her essence armor and took the battery out of her phone and tossed it into her shadow. It was a safety measure to ensure that no one could remotely turn on her phone and listen in on her and Patrick.Maxine told Silky to hide out in her nest while she was gone and ran as fast as she could towards their meeting place. However it took herjust under ten minutes to get there since she took the direct route rather than using the roads. It was an abandoned mansion on the edge of town.


    While Maxine waited, she made certain her clothes weren''t damaged too much from her run there. She didn''t want Patrick to see anything he shouldn''t. She impulsively adjusted her bra to make her bust look more substantial and let out a sigh immediately after. Maxine wanted to get these feelings for Patrick out of her system, but she didn''t know how without things getting wierd. However she wasn''t worried that he would be attracted to her since Patrick already had Meagan.


    When he arrived, Maxine greeted him, "Hey Patrick."


    "Hey Maxine," Patrick greeted back, "Now what did you want to ask me that you couldn''t over the phone?"


    "I was wondering who you had taught how to cultivate, besides Maxwell, and their level of strength," Maxine said.


    "Meagan, and Jack," Patrick answered, "Those two are about one rank below me in strength and Maxwell is almost even with me in strength." Jack had been one of their companions in the previous timeline. He was ugly as a mule, but an excellent fighter. However Meagan hadn''t been a cultivator in the previous timeline and Maxine wondered how good she was atcombat.


    "Good," Maxine said, "Has Meagan decided on a weapon yet?" Maxine knew that her former self, Maxwell, would choose dual blades and Jack was quite fearsome with his spear. It would be strange, but not impossible for them to pick something different.


    "A bow actually, but I havn''t been able to find any materials to make her a decent one," Patrick answered.A bow? I forgotMeagan was into archery.


    "I will take care of that. There are alot of essence beasts where I go to hunt and I should be able to make her a bronze ranked bow quite easily," Maxine told him. She would have to hunt several bronze stage essence beasts for their bones and sinew to make one.


    "Thanks," Patrick said, "By the way, I was wondering something. How did you pull those swords out of your shadow?" Maxine was confused by his question for a moment before she realized that he had seen her on the news.


    "My shadow works likeone of those rarebags of holding. However I have to encase them in my essence and maintain a steady stream of it to ensure that they stay in my shadow," Maxine answered, "It''s too bad that this ability is uniqueto me though."


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    "Well that''s too bad," Patrick said, "I wonder where does that stuff goes when you put it in your shadow?" Maxine thought Patrick brought up a good point.


    "I don''t know. I never bothered to check," Maxine said, "But I have a safe way to find out." Maxine summoned one of her Shadow Wolves out of her shadow.


    "What the hell is that?!" Patrick saidwhile a look of terror appeared on his faceas he took a step back. Maxine was confused by his reaction until she remembered that essence beasts that killed her before were the same color as her Shadow Wolf.He must have seen them before they attacked me when I was still Maxwell.


    "It''s my Shadow Wolf. I made a few of these guys to protect my mother and to help me gather essence cores," Maxine answered, "Now be quiet. I am trying to adjust it so I can see through it''s eyes." Maxine used her spiritual sense to connect to the Shadow Wolf so that she could see through it''s eyes and sat down on the ground. Maxine closed her eyes and sent her Shadow Wolf back into her shadow. What she saw was surprising.


    It was the interior of a cave and not a big one at that. Her Shadow Wolves took up most of the space inside of it. Maxine moved her Shadow Wolf towards the exit and had it look outside. The whole landscape was in shades of grey, but not because of a lack of vegetation. If anything, the area aroundthe cave was thriving with life as she viewed a large forest.


    Maxine tried probing the area with her spiritual sense, but when she did, she didn''t care as much as to what was in the forest. That was because of the type of essence in the air. It was all shadow essence and it was several times thicker than the essence currently around her actual body. She couldn''t even imagine how much faster she could cultivate should she go there.


    However Maxine didn''t retract her essence and extended it as far as she could. She found a small medieval village and the all of the people within it had dark grey skin. There were twisted versions of domesticated animals withinthat village. However whether it was man or beast they all had glowing golden eyes just like her Shadow Wolves. It would have been creepy if she hadn''t found this place within her shadow.


    Maxine ordered her Shadow Wolf to go back to the rest of the wolves and rest as she retracted her will from the Shadow Wolf. Maxine didn''t open her eyes yet and scanned her surroundings with her spiritual senes. Patrick had found a spot to sit down at. She was alittle disappointed that he wasn''t trying to check her out, but at the same time happy that he wasn''t interested. If anything, he appeared cautious.


    "So, what''s it look like in there?" Patrick asked before Maxine could open her eyes.


    "The place inside of my shadow looks alot like Earth. Although, everything is in shades of grey and there are no signs of modern technology. There are strange creatures in there as well," Maxine answered.


    "Wierd," Patrick said as he looked his cell phone, "Well I need to head out or Meagan will give me an earful. She wants to enjoy the luxuries while they still exist."


    "Alright, have fun," Maxine said.


    "I will," Patrick answered, "Bye."


    "Bye," Maxine said softly as he left. She felt alittle sad after he left her sight. She had wanted to hang out with him and Meagan like they used to in the other timeline, but knew that it wouldn''t be the same.


    Maxine felt a desire to see her former family while she was in town. She didn''t check on them before when she was in the area because Amanda was with her. However now she had no such constraint as she stood up and made her way towards the house that she grew up in her past life. She knew they weren''t blood related anymore, but the desire to see them still remained.


    When she was half a mileaway from her old house, Maxine stopped and sent her spiritual sense into the distance to check on her family. She found that both of thecars where in the driveway.Her parents must have come home early for lunch and Maxine scanned the interior of the house. Her sister Alice, both of her parents and Maxwell were eating at the table. Her parents had been rather strict that they do that. Maxine couldn''t help it as as a fond smile spread across her lips when warm and happy memories of her family came to the surface of her mind.


    Maxwell appeared to sense herwhen he extended his own spiritual sense. Maxine retracted her spiritual sense to prevent him from discovering who she was. It was difficult enough to keep herself from going to that house without himinsisting that she reveal herself. It would be difficult to explain why she was watching them. It wasn''t like she could go up toher family and say that she was the reincarnation of their son from the future. They would think she was insane if she did that. Anyways, it was safer for them if she kept her distance as she didn''t want to reveal Maxwell to General Jones. In fact she was taking a big enough risk by even coming this close and didn''t dare linger any longer.Even though she was reluctant to leave, Maxine turned around and ran back towards Silky''s nest. She would check on them using other means in the future.However for now, Maxine needed to get Silky some lunch and go hunting for materials to make Meagan a bow. Since tomorrow she is going to try helping Emily make a few of her own techniques.

 Announcement

    I have calmed down and decided to keep writing this story. However when I tried to write the next chapter I got a serious case of writer''s block. Couldn''t even write a single sentence. Well don''t be too worried. I might just get a sudden inspiration and pump out a chapter later on today.


    I did noticed a few people mentioning that they thought the MC was middle or even late aged when he had died. Not sure why you guys thought that since I never mentioned his age. So I will clear this up right now. He was in his mid 20s when he perished to the essence beasts. In the current timeline, Maxwell is inbetween 15 & 16. I was planning on putting a specific year to reflect the MC''s age in the synopsis when i finally figure out how to rewrite it.


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 Chapter 39

    While Maxine was waiting for Emily to arrive,Maxine tried to remember everything she knew about the divine attribute based skills.Whatshe did know was what she learned by observing a poor maimed, amnesiac girl that had it in the previous timeline.Everyone called her Jane because she couldn''t remember anything about herself. Maxine''s group of essence cultivators had found her whimpering in some debrisafter two groups of essence cultivatorsfought over some resources.Maxine could still remember the extent of that girl''s wounds. Her face had been shredded, her left arm had been ripped off at the shoulder and it looked like she had been savagely beaten. Maxine had been the only one thattried to save her life. Everyone else thought the girl would die from her wounds regardless of what kind of aid was given. It caused her to get rather close to the girl andMaxine had been the one to discover Jane''s healing powers because of it. However she died nearly a year later during a skirmish against raiders while they were escorting a caravan. It wasn''t until after Jane''s death thatMaxine had realized that she had loved Jane and wept as she buried her.Maxine shook herself lightly to bring herself away from those painful memories when she heard a knock on the front door.


    When Maxine opened the door, she saw that it was Emily and introduced her to Silky. Silky seemed to like Emily right away as she gave Emily a big hug. The three of them headed to the couch. Maxine gave Silky a few of her old toys to play with while Emily and herself walked to the more open space of the TV room.


    "Alright what would you like to try first? Barrier or support skills?" Maxine asked. She prefered that Emily learned barrier skills first, but it all depended on Emily.


    "I want to learn barrier skills first," Emily answered, "I can''t heal anyone if I can''t protect myself." Maxine approved of her choice in that matter. It was always a good idea to focus on defense before learning support skills. She would be too fragile otherwise.


    "Alright. I know three kinds of barriers. They are the revolving, rumble and revolving rumble barrier," Maxine said, "Now the revolving and rumble barriers are relatively easy to learn. It''s when you combine them into the revolving rumble barrier that it gets realy hard. For the revolving barrier, you only have to extend out your essence into a bubble around yourself and spinning it on an axis. This spinning motion redirects the force of the attack and minimizes the damage to it. It might appear weakest on the top, but if you are constantly shifting the axis around that weakness disappears. I will demonstrate it, but it requires alot of concentration on my part since I normally don''t use barriers like this." Maxine closed her eyes in concentration as she formed a barrier around her whole body in a perfect sphere and began to put it into a rapid spin. She immediately began shifting the axis of the spin in random directions. It had been far easier to do that than she remembered, butthe last time she did that was in the previous timeline. When Maxine opened her eyes, she saw that Emily was watching her with intense focus.


    "That''s amazing. I don''t know if I could ever do that, but I will try," Emily said excitedly as she stood up trying to recreate the barrier Maxine had just demonstrated. However she could only manage to make the barrier spin on a fixed axis rather than a moving one. Emily looked increasingly frustrated as she tried to shift her barrier''s axis while maintaining the spin.


    "Don''t try more than you can handle. Just getting it spinning is enough for now. There are not many essence beasts that attack from above or below," Maxine consoled Emily, "How about I go over the rumble barrier?"


    "Alright," Emily said.


    "The rumble barrier is more or less a vibrating barrier. You need to constantly make the barrier bigger and then smaller in rapid succession. It repeatedly hits anything that approaches you that way and disperses the force ofan attack. If you are doing it right, it should create an optical illusion that looks like constantly repeating waves that are eminating from theinside edgetowards an outside edge of the barrier." Maxine demonstrated the barrier to Emily.


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    "Why does it make a sound similar to the rumble of thunder?" Emily asked.


    "Not sure myself, but it''s why it got the name of rumble barrier," Maxine answered, "Try to make one yourself."


    "Okay," Emily said. Emily tried to make a rumble barrier, but she couldn''t contract and expand the barrier fast enough for it to create an optical illusion or generate a rumbling sound.


    "Well it''s not perfect, but it is good enough for now. Keep practicing," Maxine told Emily after awhile of watching her. Emily''s first efforts to use those barriers reminded her of how Jane had worked on creating them.


    "Alright," Emily said, "You said something aboutsupport skills. What do those look like?" Emily''s question.


    "Oh, those are detoxifying and low level healing, but I can''t show you how to do it. I can only describe what to do," Maxine answered and made certain that Emily was paying attention before continueing, "Detoxifying requires that you to find what doesn''t belong in the human body and removing it however you can. As for your healing skills, I have noticed that you are usingthem inefficiently. You cover far too much area with your divine essence and need to try tofocus it into narrower beams. You conserve more essence that way by healing only what needs it."


    However before Emily could ask or even respond that she understood, a rumbling sound followed by Silkyvoice softly asked, "Mama, am I doingthis right?"Maxine knew that Silky would have listened in and watched. She didn''t even need to look to know what Silky was doing, butdid so anyways. Silky had created a revolving rumble barrier. It wasn''tthat much of asurprise that Silky could do that on her first attempt considering her intelligence, but Maxine wishedSilky hadn''t done it infront of Emily. It would effect Emily''s confidence.


    "Yes, but I wasn''t teaching you, silly," Maxine answered.


    "I am sorry, mama," Silky said as she looked at the ground and retracted the barrier.


    "I thought you were amazing, Silky," Emily commented which seemed to cheer up Silky.


    "I thought so too that''s why I am not angry with you, Silky," Maxine said, "So, next time try not to disrupt any lessons that I am teaching. It''s not fair to the person learning."


    "Okay, mama," Silky said softly.


    "Good," Maxine said, "Now let''s watch a movie. How does that sound you two?" Both of them promptly agreed. Maxine picked out a child friendly movie and sat down to watch it with them.


    Afterthe three of them got comfortable, Maxine noticed that in this lightEmily seemed to have the exact shade of hair color that Jane had. That prompted her to compare them against each other. Emily''s bust was smaller and she was alittle shorter. However the time she found Jane was roughly one year from now and Emily could easily gain that extra height and curves in that time.On closer inspection, she noticed that their eye colors were the same. Even the small imperfection in the left eye was the same. However that didn''t mean they were the same person. They could just be very similar or even be related somehow. However Maxine had never heard of another person with the divine attribute in this part of the USA.


    However when she thought about it,Maxine realized that the time that General McKenzy went on a warpath against cultivators was literately days after they had found Jane.How could I have forgotten that?It appeared that Jane and Emily were the same person based on what she knew.Or I want them to be the same person because of how much I like Emily. I need something more concrete.Maxine knew a way to be certain. Although Jane''s face had been horribly scarred, she did possess a uniquebirthmark on her left shoulder blade that Maxine could easily identify. She needed to know if Emily had that same birthmark. The easiest way to find out was to ask her directly if she had one and ifMaxine could see it.


    However Maxine didn''t want to speak over the movie, so she decided to use her spiritual sense toaskEmily, "Sorry for asking this out of nowhere, but do you have a birthmark on your left shoulder blade?"

 Chapter 40

    "Yes, why?" Emily answered with her spiritual sense. Maxine felt a shiver go up her spine.


    "Before I answer that, can I see it first?" Maxine asked tentatively with her spiritual sense, "You don''t need to even take your shirt off. I will look at it with my spiritual sense."


    "Alright, but you better only look at that one spot. I want to hear why you need to see it so badly afterwards," Emily replied.


    "I will. I promise," Maxine answered with her spiritual sense while simultaneously scanning Emily''s shoulder blade.She hadthe exact same birthmark that Jane had.I must have subconsciously recognized her when I first saw her.Tears started forming in her eyes and streaming down her face. She wasn''t sad, but extremely happy as she swiftly hugged Emily tightly.


    "Maxine?! What''s wrong? And why did you call me Jane?" Emily asked curiously. Maxine went ridged and quickly released Emily. She realized that she must have said Jane out loud when she saw Emily''s birthmark. She decided to tell Emily about Jane, but under the premise that it was from her earlier visions.


    "Because that is what someone called you in my visions," Maxine answered.


    "What?! Who was it?" Emily asked, "And how did he see my birthmark? Were me and him lovers?"


    "No, you two weren''t lovers, but don''t worry his intentions were noble when he saw your birthmark. He was wrapping your wounds up in bandages. You were hurt pretty bad," Maxine answered, "As for who it was, it was the same person that I saw the future through."


    "How bad was it?" Emily asked. Maxine hesitated for a moment, but still told her. Emily shook with terror after hearing all of thegory details. "Why didn''t he take me to a hospital?!" Emily asked.


    "Because the essence beasts had already destroyed nearly all of the hospitals he could take you to," Maxine answered, "The few that were left wouldn''t have wasted the resources on someone as badly injured as you were."


    "Did that other me survive?" Emily asked.


    "Yes,she did. It was mostly due to the gentle care of that man, but it didn''t matter. Shewas killed by a sneak attack while she was trying to heal someone," Maxine said, "None of that that shouldn''t happen this time. You aremuch stronger than she was and you have me." Maxine smiled reassuringly at Emily. Maxine was determined to never let Emily suffer that kind of fate a second time.


    "Why didn''t you tell me or my grandpa about this before?" Emily asked.


    "It didn''t seem important and I didn''t evenconsider that you were that Jane until a few minutes ago," Maxine answered with her spiritual sense.


    "You still should have said something," Emily told Maxine.


    "Mama? Why are you and Emily looking at each other and not watching the movie with me?" Silky asked. Maxine glanced at the TV and noticed that Silky had paused the movie at some point.


    Maxine quickly retracted her spiritual sense and answered, "I am sorry, Silky. Me and Emily were talking with our minds. Like I do with you once in awhile. Remember?"


    "Yes, I remember," Silky said cheerfully and looked at the both of them, "What were you talking about?"


    "Private things," Maxine answered while hoping Silky would leave it at that.


    Silky looked at the both of them curiously for a few moments as if working something out in her head before she blurted out, "Am I going to have two mamas now?" That sudden question made both Maxine and Emily recoil and blush feircely. Maxine hadn''t realized that Silky had known about relationships of that nature. Although Maxine wouldn''t mind that kind of relationship with Emily, but she wasn''t certain if Emily was okay with it.HoweverEmily didn''t say a word. Her mouth only opened and closed a few times as if she wanted to say something before she fled to the bathroom. After giving Silky a scolding glare, Maxine chased after Emily.


    Maxine thought for a moment before she gently knocked on the bathroom door and asked, "Emily are you okay in there?" Am I an idiot? Of course she isn''t okay after that question.


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    "No!" Emily answered with both anger and embaressment from within thebathroom, "Why did Silky even ask that anyways?"


    "I am not completely certain," Maxine replied, "But it may have something to do with how I have been talking about you around her alot for the past few weeks and my mother might have told her that I like you. Those two things plus the fact that I told her that we were talking about private thingsand that was probably why she felt the need to ask that." Those weren''t the only reasons. There was one more that she knew, but didn''t say. Silky had used the spiritual mark that Maxine had placed in her mind to read her thoughts to a degree. Silky had clearly sensed the love that Maxine had for Emily and that is why she asked that question. However Maxine couldn''t tell Emily that. It would be hard to explain why Silky hada spiritual mark placed in her mind.


    "I almost thought youtold her to say that in order to tease me when I first heard it," Emily said, "I am happy I was wrong."


    "I wouldn''t use Silky to tease youabout something that," Maxine said, "Anyways we are too young to worry about things like that. Afterall we are only thirteen."Maxine knew that they had enough to worry about without adding on to it. The essence beast hordes were a big enough weight on Emily''s mind.


    "Your right," Emily said, "Go back and watch the movie. I will be out in alittle bit."


    "Alright," Maxine said as she walked back to the couch and sat down to watch the movie with Silky.However Silky asked that question again before Maxine could resume the movie. Maxine realized that she couldn''t get away with not answering it. This was clearly very important to Silky and it was very likely that she would keep asking that question until she got an answer.


    Maxine let out a sigh and answered, "I don''t know if you will or not."


    "Why not?" Silky asked innocently.


    "I don''t know if she loves me like I love her," Maxine replied softly to Silky and was secretly thankful that the walls around the bathroom were rather thick.


    "Why don''t you just ask, mama?" Silky asked curiously. Maxine wanted to ask, but to Emily they had only known each other alittle more than three months. Due to Emily''s inexperience, it was very likely that even if she felt that way, she wouldn''t know what those feelings were. Anyways, the likelihood that she had those kind of feelings for Maxine were dismal.


    "It''s not that I don''t want to. It''s that I am afraid of what her answer might be," Maxine said and paused for a few moments before continueing, "For now let''s just wait and see. Okay?" Fortunately Silky nodded and said nothing more. Maxine resumed the movie.


    Emily came out of the bathroom after about ten minutes. While they watched the movie, Maxine snuck fivebronze and ten copper stage Shadow Wolves into Emily''s shadow with orders to protect her. She wanted to ensure Emily''s safety when she wasn''t around. After the movie was over, they talked about random things and played a few card games. It was fun.


    Just before dinner time, General McKenzy arrived to take Emily home. Maxine said goodbye to the both of them and went to the kitchen to make dinner. She pulled out some venison that she had harvasted from the Crystal-Antler Deer that had been caught in Silky''s webs yesterday. It''s flesh was far more filling than any normal meat and it saved on the food bill due to Silky''s immense appetite. Silky still ate three times more of the dinner than Maxine had.


    Maxine started to play a game involving making shapes with essence with Silky. It was an excellent way to improve their essence control. The game lasted for hours as Silky could always make the same shapes as Maxine. It wasn''t until Maxine made alot of tiny of performers doing various tricks that she finally won this little contest with Silky. However it was late and she needed toput Silky to bed.


    After putting Silky to bed, Maxine made ten more copper stage Shadow Wolves and had them enterSilky''sshadow. Even though she knew Silky could defend herself, Maxine still felt better knowing that her adoptive daughter had some bodyguards.


    Maxine pulled out the three bronze essence cores that she had and suddenly got an idea.What would happen if I combined three of my Shadow Wolves? She summoned three of her bronze stage Shadow Wolves and ordered them to merge into one being. They lept at each other and fused together. The result of that fusion was a Three-Headed Shadow Wolf that was at the peak of the bronze stage. For some reason, she thought it would be at least iron stage and shortly after realized why. She could only control creatures that were weaker than herself. It worked the same way with any essence beasts that she might tame in the future. Unfortunately the room was quite cramped in her room since the Three-Headed Shadow Wolf was almost three times the size of anormal one. She quickly ordered them to split apart and to return to her shadow.If I have enough of those Three-Headed Shadow Wolves, I may not even have to fight an iron stage essence beast myself again. I could just unleash agroup of those things at it.She made some mental notes to go on a lengthy hunting session tomorrow to acquire all the bronze essence cores that she could.


    Maxine turned off the light and laid down on her bed to cultivate. She cultivated for four hours as she normally did every night and opened her eyes. Silky was laying on top of her again. Maxine didn''t have the heart to ask Silky to get off of her and tried to get some sleep. Although Maxine didn''t need as much sleep as a normal person, she still needed some. Evenwith her iron stage cultivation, she needed at least two hours a night to function properly. Maxine hugged Silky and finally drifted into sleep..

 Chapter 41

    Maxine had eaten breakfast with Silky and gotten to the forest early. She had roughly four hours to hunt for essence cores and another hour to create Shadow Wolves before she had to go get lunch and visit her mother at the hospital. However when Maxine and Silky got to Silky''s nest, Maxine saw the Shadow Cat pacing nervously back and forth infront of it. As soon as the Shadow Cat noticed them, itlooked at them for a few moments before it walked leisurely away.What the fuck was that about? Was that thing worried about me?


    Maxine shrugged and told Silky to check her nest for any essence beasts. Maxine had no intention of taking any of the essence cores that might come from those things since they were technically Silky''s kills. It felt too much like stealing to Maxine. Maxine summoned all of her Shadow Wolves and used them to track any bronze stage essence beasts in the area. Whenher wolves found a scent, she chased after them while they tracked it and killed whatever essence beast it was.


    Maxine spent more time than she had intended hunting for essence cores since she had remembered half way through the hunt that she had promised Patrick to make a Bow for Meagan. It took alot of time to harvast the sinew and bone needed for it. However it would be deadly once it was completed. Unfortunately there weren''t very many bronze stage essence beasts around. She had only managed to acquire six of them since she started and it had already been four hours.


    As Maxine finished up harvasting everything, a lonecopper stageFire Fox lept at her. It looked half-starved. She caught it mid-air by the throat and was about tostrangle it to death when she thought to use it as a guinea pig. She wrapped it in shadow tendrils and shoved it into her shadow. She was worried that the realm that her shadow connects to had an atomasphere that was poisonous to her and since her Shadow Wolves were not technically alive, they didn''t count as they didn''t actually need to breathe. She sent one of her Shadow Wolves into her shadow to observe it while she made more bronze stage Shadow Wolves.


    After completing the sixth Shadow Wolf, Maxine checked on the Fire Fox. It was still alive and didn''t seem to be poisoned.She was satisfied that the air there wasn''t toxic and rewarded the Fire Fox with a feast of flesh that remained of the essence beasts she had killed earlier.


    Maxine quickly checked the time and saw that she still had thirty minutes before she needed to go get lunch and visit her mother at the hospital. Shetold Silky through her spiritual sense that she was going to go check out the place within her shadow, so that she wouldn''t worry when Maxine disappeared.


    After ordering all of her Shadow Wolves back into her shadow, Maxine entered the shadow herself, but didn''t cut off the flow of essence to it. She looked around for a moment and took a deep breath and didn''t feel anything wierd. Next she made certain she could still feel the spiritual mark on Silky''s mind while in this place, so that if she couldn''t maintain the essence to her shadow, she could still find a way back. Even though the spiritual mark was faint, she could feel it quite clearly.


    Maxine glanced at the small portal on the ground and picked up her Twilight Iron Blades that were laying beside it.That must be what I created when I put things into my shadow.Maxine dumped alot of her essence into it to be maintain that small portal and left all of her copper stage Shadow Wolves to guard it as she left the small cave. The view outside was still in shades of grey and didn''t appear any different than when she saw it through the eyes of her Shadow Wolf. She was enjoying the thick shadow essence in the air. She could literately feel her strength increasing just by standing here and breathing normally. She couldn''t imagine what cultivating here would do.


    Maxine finally extended her spiritual sense and felt for that village that she detected before. However it was being attacked by, what looked like, bandits and each of the bandits were more than one rank of cultivation above the villagers. The bandits weren''t even sparing the children as they raided the village. Maxine could feel her rage rising rapidly as she ordered her bronze stage Shadow Wolves to merge together into Three-Headed Shadow Wolves. She ordered them to attack the bandits and formed her essence armor as she ran towards the village at top speed.


    As she reached the village, Maxine saw a young girl that looked to be the same age as herself being pushed down by one of the bandits as he tore the clothes off of her. Maxine charged straight at him. She kicked the wouldbe rapist in the face hard enough that it broke his neck with an audible snap, but that wasn''t the end of it. The force of the kick launched him into the air and slam into the roof of a distant house. However Maxine didn''t have the time to stop and check on the girl as she started slaughtering the bandits by using her blades. She had killed five of them before they noticed that she was there. They started to block her blade attacks with their weapons only to dispair when she cut through them as if they were paper and in turn cut them in half.


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    Maxine had found it odd that they didn''t encase their weapons in essence. It was almost as if they didn''t know how to use their essence, but that only meant that it was easier to save the villagers. Some of which hadseen her in action, but she didn''t care since they didn''t attack her. She heard several bandits scream in terror at the edge of the village as her three Three-Headed Shadow Wolves and two normal ones tore into the bandits. She made short work of the bandits and the few that managed to retaliate only hit air as she dodged out of the way. Their leader put up far more of a fight than his compatriots. He encased his ax in essence as he blocked and attacked. However his skill was pitiful anddidn''t last longer than five exchanges before Maxine beheaded him in one swift motion.


    Even though it made Maxine feel disgusted with herself to do it, she immediately started to harvast the essence cores from the dead bandits. She didn''t have the luxury of picking where she got bronze essence cores to make her Shadow Wolves. However she found an unexpected harvast from their leader when she found a dimensional pouch on him. She had been wanting one ever since she found out that her shadow connected to another world rather than an empty space. It had been a big problem since she didn''t know how to make one, but now she didn''t have to worry about it.


    Unfortunately after grabbing that pouch Maxine felt alot of eyes on her and looked up to see that the villagers looking at her in fear. She looked at herself and realized that she was absolutely drenched in dark grey blood. She quickly used her essence to remove all of it from her body and clothes. The villagers'' fear quickly turned to shocked fascination as their eyes locked onto her clothes.Huh?All she was wearing were a pair of blue jeans, white tenni shoes and a light grey tshirt. It wasn''t anything impressive.Wait a second.Can they see color?!Maxine looked carefully at them and it was indeed the kind of look she would expect for someone to have if that someone had seen color for the first time.


    Maxine retracted her essence armor and cautiously said, "Umm, hi." However she didn''t really expect them to understand her, but was instead hoping that they could understand her tone.


    None of them appeared to have understood her, but an old man, whom she thought was their headman, came forward. He looked gratefully towards her and bowed his head. The rest of the villagers did the same.Maxine recognized the gesture as one of gratitude. She smiled happily at them and quickly rantowards the portal that she had left openas she ordered her wolves back to the cave. The reason she left was because the portal had sent her a warning that it was almost out of essence. It had burned through the essence she had left in it faster than she had anticipated, but it didn''t matter. In any case, she was more than satisfied with the haul she got out of this even if it came from people that she had killed.She had gotten thirty bronze essence cores from the bandits and one dimensional pouch that she had yet to search.


    As soon as Maxine got back to the portal, it was about to collapse and she immediately jumped into it. She looked around and saw that her exit hadn''t moved. She was still in the same spot that she had entered into the shadow world in.Maxine checked the time on her phone. She had only been in there for ten minutes and asked Silky via spiritual sense how long she had been gone. Silky''s answer confirmed that. The time flow between the two worlds was the same.


    Maxine decided to go back into the shadow world another day and survey the area a bit better than last time. She didn''t have the time to check to see what the wildlife looked like and how powerful it was. If there wereenough bronze stage essence beasts there, she could hunt them in the shadow world rather than her own. For now Maxine needed to go get Silky and get her some lunch. However Maxine wasn''t going to eat anything herself. Themere thought of food right now made her sick to her stomach. This happened every time she killed someone in the previous timeline as well.


    As they made their way back home, Maxine gave a few orders to her Shadow Wolves. The first one was to notify her if someone were to approach the cave. She had alot of her wealth inside of it and didn''t want the residents of that world to steal any of it. The second one was that if anyone tried to steal anything that belonged to her that her wolves should detain them by any means necessary as long as they don''t kill the thief. The last order was for them to swallow her wealth and flee if on the off chance that a powerful being approached the cave. With that out of the way, Maxine finally felt that she could relax somewhat and enjoy the rest of the day with Silky and her mother.

 Chapter 42

    When Maxine heard thechime of an incoming text from her phone, Maxine was forcing herself to eat dinner with Silky as she still hadn''t gotten over killing those bandits just yet and probably wouldn''t for a couple days.That text had been the third one she had gotten today. However because she had been visiting her mother at the hospital, she didn''t bother reading them and had almost forgotten about it.


    Maxine quickly pulled out her phone to look at the first text. Patrick had sent it. When she saw the words ''want to hang out'' as the subject, Maxine wasexcited for all of two seconds until she read the contents of it. It stated that he and everyone else wanted to hang out with her next week and wanted to know when she was available.Why would he be interested in me? I have the face of the person that tortured and killed him for fuck''s sake.She felt alittle depressed as she read the other two texts. They were written differently than the first one, but she felt that he was asking about the bow using hanging out as a pretext. Clearly he was impatient, but it made sense. Patrick had never needed to make his own equipment before and didn''t know how long it might take.


    Maxine looked over the materials she had. There was enough to make a bow for Meagan. However Maxine had never made anything like a bow before, so she didn''t know if she could make it without failing at least once.That meant she would have to construct it slowly to avoid making any errors.After thinking about how long it would take her to make the bow under those conditions, Maxine sent Patrick a text telling him that she would be free on thursday next week and made it clear that this date wasn''t a sure thing. She used asking her mom as an excuse, but hopefully Patrick would get the message that she might now be able to make the bow. Unfortunately she did have to still had to tell her mother about hanging out with Patrick and company. Otherwise she might worry if Maxine didn''t visit her on thursday.


    Before Maxine could work on the bow, she had a few things she needed to do. First had to check on Silky''s reading level. Even though Silky had just started learning, she had already learned all of the sounds that each letter makes just yesterday and was now reading children''s books at the first grade level.Maxine wished that she could learn something as complex as reading that quickly. Silky''s capacity to learn was indeed terrifyingly high.


    Next Maxine needed to find a means to scout out the area in the shadow world. For that, she decided to create a batch of ravens for that purpose. It didn''t take her long to make twenty of them using copper essence cores, buthave much of them left.She had given Emily more than half of the ones that she had, so that Emily could cultivate faster. It didn''t matter since Maxine wasn''t keen on making too many of those ravens anyways. Maxine sent them into her shadow and ordered them all to map the surrounding area of the cave and village as well ascount the number of bronze stage essence beast or higher. She dedicated one of her ravens as a sentinel to alert her if the village was attacked as well. She figured since she had protected that place once that she was now responsible for it.


    There was one more thing Maxine wanted to do before she worked on the bow.It was to take a look at what was inside of the dimensional pouch that she had gained earlier. Maxine pulled out the dimensional pouch from her shadow. She didn''t dare carry it around with her earlier. It would paint a target on her back if anyone saw her using it. Using her spiritual sense, she searched the interior of the dimensional pouch and found alot of food and water. She decided it would be better to drop those goods off at that village that she saved. She had no idea if any of it was even edible for humans and didn''t want to take the risk of poisoning herself. There was enough of it in it to fill up a her room, but most offood was field rations like jerky. However there was one item in the pouch that wasn''t either food or water. It looked like a crude book. She wished she could read the characters written on it, but for all she knew it was the bandit leader''s diary. Fortunately the dimensional pouch still had enough space left for her blades and the essence cores that she had left in the cave. She immediately retrieved those items and put them into the dimensional pouch. She quickly cancelled all the orders she gave the Shadow Wolves, except for the one for her shadow wolves to flee if they were to detect the approach of a powerful being.


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    With that out of the way, Maxine could finally focus on making Meagan a bow. However, she had no idea where to even start. She knew what it was supposed to look like in the end, but had no idea how a collection of bronze ranked bones were supposed to look like one solid piece.Maybe, I coulduse the same method thatI did when I made my Twilight Iron Blades. It should be the same in theory.Maxine injected her essence into the smallest bone that she had and tried to manipulate the trace strands of essence within it.Please work.The bone changed shape with great difficulty, but she didn''t dare put any more of her essence into it.Huh? Why is this so much harder to manipulate than the twilight iron? Could it be because it was of a similar attribute to my own? It would certainly make sense ifthat was the case. I better be careful. These bones are not anywhere near as durable as thattwilight iron is..Maxine carefully used that same trick as she did with the twilight iron to try and fuse two of the bones together. Although the two bones were softer while her essence was being injected into them, the bones still took quite some time to merge together. She kept adding onto the mass of bone one piece at a time. When all of the bones were together, she knew made them take the shape of a bow, but it was over6 feet long. She stopped there for now as she was low on essence. Removing the impurities from this bone bow and compressing it to make it stronger would takea minmum ofthree days if she didn''t want to destroy it by accident. In the end it shouldn''t be longer than three feet. Maxine put the bow into the dimensional pouch before placing it in her night stand. Unless someone knew what it was, they wouldn''t bother stealing something so ordinary looking. However just in case, she placed a tracking type spiritual mark on it.She knew she had to make the bow string but couldn''t make it until she finished working on the body of the bow.


    It was nearly eight at night when she checked the time. It was nearly time for her to put Silky to bed. Maxine walked out of her room and found Silky resting in the middle of the living room reading a book. It was one Maxine read when she was small. She hated to interrupt Silky, but it was time for the little arachne to go to bed. It was fortunate Silky had finished the book before Maxine could reach her and Maxine put her to sleep on a blow up mattress. She didn''t like to make Silky sleep in that kind of bedding, but there wasn''t any spare beds other than her mother''s bed. Maxine didn''t want to give Silky a bed only to have her sleep on a blow up mattress as soon as her mother gets out of the hospital. Still Silky needed her own bed. It was yet another thing that Maxine needed to talk to her mother about.


    Before Maxine went to bed, she checked on how much her ravens had explored. They were rather efficient as they had already explored the forest and found a grassy plain. They had also marked every bronze stage essence beasts and a few in the iron stage within one hundred miles of the cave. There were a couple other villages as well, but half of them looked like they had recieved some harsh treatment from bandits as their populations were decimated. A quick review of the explored area revealed a bandit stronghold, but it was almost ninty miles away. It had at least two hundred bandits and one of them was a recently risen iron stage essence cultivator. It would be difficult for her both physically and mentally, but she needed to eliminate them later to ensure the safety of the villagers since it was very likely the bandits she slaughtered earlier came from that place.


    Maxine released a sigh as she turned off the lights around the house and wentto bed herself. She had alot of things to do before she met up with Patrick next week. However tomorrow she wouldneed to make twenty nine Shadow Wolves and one shadow clone using the bronze essence cores in preparation for demolishing that bandit stronghold. The shadow clone was going to be used to maintain the portal, so that she wouldn''t have to worry about getting back. Maxine let out a sigh as she got in her bed and started to cultivate.

 Chapter 43

    After eating breakfast, Maxine had spent a full hour to created 29 Shadow Wolves and one shadow clone using the bronze essence cores that she got from the bandits. Her shadow clone was almost a mirror copy of herself down to the cellular level. If someone ignored the fact that it was eminating a bronze rank 5 aura, they would think it was her. After she was done eliminating that bandit stronghold, she could use it as a decoy later. However she wasn''t going to attack that place just yet. It was daytime in the shadow world. She wanted to do a night attack as she wasn''t confident that she could beat that many bandits if all of them were awake and alert. Hence she decided to get everything she needed to do done in the morning.


    Maxine worked on the bow some more by removing some of the marrowin the bones that made up the bow. It was a slow process and she could only remove a small ammount of it at a time. However the more she removed the smaller the bow got. When she was about to exhaust all of her essence, she had gotten around half of the marrow out of the bow. It was now about 5 feet long. She promptly put it back into the dimensional pouch. She put the pouch inside of her bra inbetween her breasts. It didn''t feel right to leave all of her wealth laying around her house. Maxine looked at the time and still had a few hours before lunch and decided to go visit her mother early today. She had a few things to talk about with her anyways.


    Maxine brought Silky with her as always to see her mother. When they got to her mother''s hosptial room, she was looking alot better today. Maxine wasquite happy to see that.


    "Well this is a surprise," her mother said, "I wasn''t expecting you until after lunch."


    "Yeah, I know," Maxine answered, "I wanted to talk with you about acouple things."


    "Such as?" her mother asked.


    "Well for one, Silky needs a bed of her own," Maxine said.


    "But I like sleeping with mama," Silky announced.


    "I know Silky, but you need a bed of your own," Maxine said.


    "She is right, Silky. Little girls need their own beds," her mother agreed.


    "Fine," Silky pouted as she folded her arms. Maxine thought Silky looked adorable.


    "What was the other thing you wanted to talk about with me?" her mother asked. Maxine felt somewhat uncomfortable, but she knew that she couldn''t go out to hang out with Patrick and company without telling her mother.


    "Some of my friends want to me to hang hang out with them on thursday next week. Is that okay?" Maxine asked. A strange smile spread across her mother''s face.


    "Of course you can hang out with your friends," her mother said, "I hope I can meet these new friends of yours soon." Maxine was confused for a moment until she realized the words she used hinted that she had friends other than Emily and Amanda when she used the words ''some of my friends.''


    "I will. Thanks mom," Maxine said.


    "Your welcome," her mother said, "Now tell me about these new friends of yours." Maxine understood her mother''s curiosity. The Maxine of the past wasn''t a very social person and didn''t possess friends. Her mother was probably worried about Maxine picking the wrong kind of friends.


    Maxine carefully told her mother about Patrick. She could tell her mother was rather surprised and happy at the same time. Maxine knew her mother had been worried that she wasn''t even going to try to socialize with boys. Maxine had told her mother that they had first met when Maxine was acting as a tag along with Amanda on one of her jobs for General McKenzy and the other meet up when Maxine had taken Silky to get a thorough check up by some doctors.


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    Maxine continued talking about Patrick and mentioned several times that he already had a girlfriend. Oddly enough her mother gave Maxine a thoughtful look whenever Maxine mentioned Meagan. After awhile, her mother teased her that Maxine sounded jealous of Meagan. Maxine ignored her mother''s teasing and started to talk about Maxwell and Jack instead. Unfortunately she couldn''t tell her mother much beyond their appearances since she technically hasn''t met them yet in this timeline.


    After that, Maxinegossiped about random things with her mother, but that didn''t keep them occupied long. Maxine suggested they watch the television until lunch came around. Her mother agreed and asked her to pick out a show to watch. Maxine made certain that what she picked was child friendly.


    After her mother''s lunch arrived, Maxine said goodbye and went back home since she didn''t dare take Silky to the hospital cafeteria. It would be far to expensive to buy a meal large enough to satisfy Silky''s tremendous apetite and Maxine didn''t have that much spare cash on her. However if they were using essence cores as currency, she would have more than enough, but that kind of economy was not going to appear for quite some time from what she could tell.


    When they got home, Maxine started making Silky some lunch that mostly consisted of meat from essence beasts. Silky ate other foods, butas often as she did meat. Maxine knew that Silky would eat what she needed since most other beastkin she had encountered did the same thing and were extremely healthy.


    While Silky was eating,the raven that Maxine put on sentinel duty tried to get her attention. She looked through the raven''s eyes and saw that there was a large group of people approaching. However they did not look like bandits. They looked like the injured survivors from a bandit raid. Most likely from one of the other villages that were attacked. Maxine looked closer and noticed that more than half ofthem were children. The villagers ran over and helped them into their village. It was clear that they were taking those people in.Maxine stopped looking through that raven''s eyes.


    Maxine cleaned up after lunch and waited until after dinner before she checked on the shadow world again. It wasn''t dark yet, but she still wanted to go there to cultivate. She ordered the shadow clone that she made earlier to create a portal and left her cell phone with it. Maxine didn''t want to miss an important call as brought Silky with her to the shadow world because she was planning on being gone for awhile. She also wanted Silky to try and learn the language of the villagers since she learned so quickly. Silky might even be able to learn some fabric making techniques from them as well.


    However Maxine didn''t send Silky right away and had her play with the Shadow Wolves while she cultivated. Her rate of cultivation skyrocketed compared to how it was on Earth, but unlike when she absorbed massive ammounts of essence from essence cores, she felt no pain. In fact it felt wonderful, but she knew that she still had to be careful since she wasn''t completely certain that her core was fine. Her spiritual sense was constantly monitoring her essence core and didn''t let up on her vigilence during the entire time she was cultivating. Fortunately there were no problems.


    When Maxine opened her eyes as she finished cultivating, she saw that it was now dark out. She had gotten ten days worth of cultivation in one session.This place is amazing for cultivation. It''s slightly slower than using a bronze essence core a day on Earth.


    Maxine noticed that Silky was napping while leaning up against her a couple copper stage Shadow Wolves. She brushed Silky''s hair with her fingers and silently checked on the villagers with her spiritual sense. Many of the newcomers were camped outside in tents and most of them were asleep. However there was a village girl wandering around the tents making certain everyone was comfortable. It was the same girl that Maxine had saved from being raped yesterday.


    Silky woke up and had walked up behind Maxine. Maxine told Silky to stayin the cave and ordered all of her copper stage Shadow Wolves to protect Silky.Maxine had the bronze stage ones to follow her as she ran down to the village. The girl was about to enter a cottage when Maxine reached the village. Maxine cleared her throat to get the girl''s attention before removing all of the food and water from inside her dimensional pouch.Fortunately all of the food was in leatherbags so that none of it was contaminated by being put on the ground. She had wanted to give this food to the villagers anyways and right now they desperately needed itdue to therecent additions to the village. The girl was rightfully startled as Maxine gave her a smile and wave before running towards the bandit stronghold. Maxine knew that she would have to be very careful in her assault tonight even with the aide of forty bronze stage Shadow Wolves.

 Chapter 44

    It took Maxine more than an hour to get the bandit stronghold in sight since her Shadow Wolves weren''t as fast as she was. Fortunately that just made the conditions for her assault easier as more of the bandits had fallen asleep. Now that she was closer, Maxine scanned the stronghold more carefully to get an exact count of the bandits. There were 228 bandits in total, but that didn''t account for the entire population. There were forty women inside.Some of which were having sex with the bandits. She doubted that they were given much choice in the matter.Maxine could feel her rage explosively rising. However she forced herself to remain calm. She was confident that she could decimate these bandits, but not if she fought all of them at once. She would need to do this right and thin out their numbersconsiderably before she fought them in an upfront manner. Otherwise if she couldn''t finish this in one night, they may seek retribution on the villagers when they couldn''t find Maxine.


    Maxine formed her essence armor and stripped. Even as dark as it was, the color on her clothes would draw attention like a torch at midnight if she got any closer. She lamented that she didn''t have any black clothing, but those were normally reserved for funerals. The white mask that was part of her essence armor might draw attention, but not as strongly as her colorful clothes would. After getting all of her clothes off, she placed them into her dimensional pouch and lashed it to her waist using her shadow essence before ordering her Shadow Wolves to merge into the three headed variety. There were thirteen of the Three-Headed Shadow Wolves and one normal one after they merged.


    Maxine did her best to conceal her essence as she slowly approached the bandit stronghold walls. She looked up and saw torch bearing patrols along the top of the walls. They were walking in pairs, but the gaps between them were more than enough for Maxine to slip inbetween them using her greater speed. She immediately hid in some of the darker areas near the wall and stabbed several exploding essence darts into the stronghold wall. However she didn''t detonate them. She was doing this in preparation for when the bandits discovered her. It would create an opening for her Shadow Wolves to enter the stronghold without having to force their way in through the front gate.


    Maxine stealthily made her way to the baracks where the majority of the bandits were sleeping. Fortunately she noticed that none of the women were currently inside of it. She carefully placed more exploding essence darts around the whole thing and drilled holes into the walls using her essence. She placed several fragmentation essence darts into them.They were the same kind of essence dartsthat one of her students made by accident thathad exploded like fragmentation grenade. She was planning on detonating all of the planted essence darts after getting into position. However she couldn''t let them sit for very long before they lost their potency.


    Maxine made her way towards the iron stage bandit leader. It would be best if she could perform a sneak attack on him and immediately detonate all of the essence darts that she placed earlier. She carefully used her spiritual sense to scan inside the room he was in. Unfortunately he wasn''t alone and it wasn''t with a woman either. He was having a meeting of some kind with his lieutenants. She couldn''t understand what was said, but he sounded angry as he yelled at his men.


    Maxine carefully used her essence to drill a hole near the floor that led into that room. She created alot of the fragmentation essence darts and shoved them carefully into that small opening that she made. Luck was with her as no one noticed her actions and she immediately found a nice hiding spot next to some water barrels. The bandit leader was still yelling at his men when she detonated all of the essence darts behind him and she started detonating the other ones that she had placed one after the other. Simultaneously she ordered her Shadow Wolves to charge through the gap in the stronghold walls and attack the bandits inside of them.


    Maxine stayed hidden as she had no intention of coming out and fighting directly herself unless she had to. However she did create a shadow clone to make an appearance when her Shadow Wolves made it inside of the bandit stronghold and had it jump on the back of a Three-Headed Shadow Wolf. She didn''t want them to search for her and thought it would serve as a good distraction while Maxine sniped a few of the less vigilent bandits.


    The bandits that didn''t get caught in the explosions were quickly gathering into a group and charged at her Shadow Wolves. She saw that three of them were giving orders and slowly formed some essence darts. She had her shadow clone mirror her actions. Maxine took careful aim and threw the essence darts at the three bandits coordinating the other bandits as her shadow clone did the same. To the untrained eye, it would look like her shadow clone had killed them when infact it was Maxine that dealt the killing blow. These actions were heavily draining on her essence, but it was worth it when she saw that the bandits were in disarray. They weren''t a match for her Shadow Wolves without a capable leader to coordinate them.


    Suddenly, the heavily injured bandit leader tore through the wreckage that used to be his dwelling. Maxine was surprised that he had survived the shredding effect of her fragmentation essence darts. He charged into the fight and Maxine ordered three of her Three-Headed Shadow Wolves to fight him while keeping her shadow clone away from him. She wanted to reinforce the idea that her shadow clone was the real attacker. However he apparently wasn''t convinced as he ignored her shadow clone and he started looking all around himself as if he expected a sneak attack. Maxine knew that she couldn''t snipe him now since he clearly that it was coming and would probably be able to dodge it if she tried.


    However before her Shadow Wolves could get close enough to attack him, the bandit leader formed a ball of essence in his hand and threw it at her shadow clone. Maxine ordered the Three-Headed Shadow Wolf to move quickly so that the essence ball wouldn''t hit her shadow clone. The essence ball barely missed her shadow clone and hit the stronghold wall. It quickly expanded in size to be able to enclose an entire man within it and faded away. The part of the wall that was encased within that essence ball was now gone.HOLY SHIT! That attack vaporized a chunk of the damn stronghold walls! I can''t let him throw any more of those!When she saw him making that same pose again, Maxine quickly rescinded the orders to the three Shadow Wolves she sent to attack him. Because if he destroyed enough of her Shadow Wolves using that attack, she would have to abandon her assault on the bandit stronghold due to lacking the strength to finish them off.


    Maxine got out of her hiding spot and threw several volleys of essence darts at him while she charged at him. He dodged most ofthe essence darts and deflected therest of them with his sword. Fortunately it disrupted his ability to form that essence ball again and she was close enough that it was impossible for him to try it again. Maxine retrieved her Twilight Iron Blades from the dimensional pouch and slashed at him with her blades. Maxine was surprised not by that he was able to block her attack, but by the fact that his sword wasn''t damaged. She slashed at him again and watched the weapon as their weapons clashed. She detected a thin layer of essence encasing the sword.He isleagues above his minions when it comes to using essence and when it comes to combat.


    Every time Maxine attacked he blocked and he didn''t seem capable of retaliating. She knew due to his injuries that he couldn''t fight back properly. However she saw that he was becoming increasingly more aggitated as the fight progressed. It was no doubt due to the fact that his men were getting slaughtered by her Shadow Wolves and couldn''t come to back him up. Maxine waspleased with theseturn of events. All she had to do was to keep this stalemate up until her wolves eliminated all of the bandits and the fight would be over. There was no way this guy could win against her Shadow Wolves attacking him all at the same time. Maxine smiled beneith her mask, but she didn''t drop her guard. In fact she intensified it greatly. If he was going to try something desperate, now would be the time.


    Just as she expected, the bandit leader ignored his defense and attacked her in a violent rush. That forced Maxine to dodge each of his wild attacks. However she noticed several deep gouges appearing on the ground and the buildings behind her after each of his attacks.He knows how to project his essence too. This guy would be a very nasty opponent if I were pressed to fight him on even terms.However she wasn''t overly concerned as the bandits were quickly being overrun by her Shadow Wolves. There were less than thirty of them left. She just had to keep avoiding his attacks for a few more seconds and she could let her Shadow Wolves swarm him.


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    Unfortunately the bandit leader wasn''t done with his bag of tricks just yet as the speed of his attacks instantly tripled. He unleashed an attack at her head.FUCK! Maxine dodged backwards to get outside of his reach while trying to parry the blow, but she was too slow as she watched as the edge of the blade got closer to her face. Her mask was shallowly hit. The force of the impact threw her to the side as her mask shattered. Fortunately that diverted most of the force behind that attack and she only felt like a giant palm was shoved into her face. She twisted mid-air and landed on her feet and skidded to a stop. God damn that was close! I seriously need to figure out how to make my speed surge like that. It would make a great escape technique. Maybe I should ask Patrick next time I see him.Fortunately she no longer needed to fight since her Shadow Wolves had finished the last of the bandits a moment after she was hit by that attack and she watched asher wolves swarmed him. She quickly ordered them not to kill him, but to restrain him. She had something special in mind for the bandit leader that led this group of murderous rapists.


    Four of her Three-Headed Shadow Wolves were clamping down with their jaws onto each of the bandit leader''s arms and legs. It looked painful, but the vile bastard didn''t make a sound. Maxine slowly approached and looked him in the eye. His eyes were filled with both fear and surprise. She saw the reflection of her face in his eyes and remembered that she hadn''t bothered to reform the mask of her essence armor. Maxine walked up to him and stepped on his crotch. She twisted that foot back and forth. He grit his teeth and his eyes became teary eyed, but he didn''t scream in pain.Oh? Have a high pain tolerance to physical pain do we? I guess I will just have to switch to soul rending pain instead.


    Maxine removed her foot and walked around to his head. She placed her hand onto his forehead and slashed into his mind with her spiritual sense. He finally released a bloodcurdling scream, but Maxine wasn''t going to show him any mercy for the cruelties he has unleashed on others. She was fully intent on destroying his mind while simultaneously pillaging his mind for language and reading skills. This method would give her incomplete language and reading skills because pillaging his mind often destroyed as many memories as it gained, but it was better than nothing. The memories she found in his mind were absolutely revolting. Memories of rape, murder and theft were prevalent in his mind. His childhood memories were so faded that they may as well not exist. However there was some useful information in his head besides what she wanted. They called themselves the Shade race. The areathat Maxine was currentlyin was called the Fallen Goddess Forest. This forest was part of a territory called Kenta and it had a large capital city shared the same name. The leader of this territory is at the peak of iron stage and had been at that stage for nearly a decade.Nosurprise there. I doubt anyone can breach that wall. I was stuck at it for two years before I died last time and I still have no idea how to breakthrough it to the next stage.Finally Maxine tried to find the memory for how he created that wierd essence ball, but for some reason, she wasn''t able to find it.She started cursing internally. That knowledge must have been part of the memories that she destroyed when she had first attacked his mind.


    However Maxine was satisfied since she had gotten some of the language and reading skills that she had wanted originally. Maxine looked at him. Amazingly the bandit leader was still alive, but he was now a drooling idiot. He had soiled himself as well. She had already destroyed him as a person, but still felt unsatisfied with his punishment. However it would serve no purpose to torment an idiot and Maxine simply beheaded him. She grabbed the dimensional pouch that was tied to his waist.


    Maxine created shadow tendrils from her shadow and had them harvast all of the essence cores from the bandits as well as any dimensional pouches that they might have.That''s more dimensional pouches than I expected these guys to have. They must have alot more people that know how to make these things.It only took a few minutes to retrieve them all. It seemed that only two other people had dimensional pouches. There were 213 bronze essence cores and one iron essence core.Huh? Why am I short twenty essence cores?Maxine searched again with her spiritual sense, but didn''t find any more essence cores. However she did find over 20 bandits fleeing in different directions and the dead bodies of seven young women. Maxine immediately felt horrible. Killing evil bandits was one thing. Killing innocents that happened to be in her way was another. She knew it was bound to happen, but she had anticipated that no more than one or two getting killed in her attack. However she had killed seven innocents and it made her disgusted with herself for her carelessness.


    Maxine ordered her shadow clone to help her gather the dead women. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she carefully laid them on the ground next to each other.These poor girls didn''t deserve to suffer and die like this.She intended to bury them before heading back to the cave. However after gathering them all, Maxine felt eyes on her and looked towards the source of that feeling. There were 33 women of varying ages. They all looked terrified at first, but when they saw her face they all collapsed. They were crying tears of relief. She heard them call her by a title of some kind, but didn''t understand it. She would askthe villagers about it another day if she could find the time.


    Maxine turned back towards the dead girls. Maxine emptied out a dimensional pouch of everything except for books or medicinal herbs. Afterwards she placed the bodies of the dead girls inside of it. She didn''t want to bury them anywhere near the place where they suffered so much.


    Maxine looked back towards the weeping Shade women and ordered all, but one, of her Three-Headed Shadow Wolves to separate since she could tell they weren''t in any condition to run the distance to the village that she was looking after. She banished all of her shadow clones. She got their attention and gestured to them to mount up onto her Shadow Wolves. As they got onto her Shadow Wolves, Maxine ran towards the storehouse. As she walked there, she looked through the dimensional pouches that she had retrieved from the dead bandits and removed anything that she couldn''t use. She emptied one out entirely by putting it''s contents into the other dimensional pouches, so that she could fill it with food. Inside of the warehouse was preserved meats and sacks of grain. Maxine put as much as she could into the emptied dimensional pouch.


    Afterwards Maxine ran back outside and mounted onto the Three-Headed Shadow Wolf. She ordered all of her Shadow Wolves to head back towards the village. When the village was insight, Maxine had all of the women got off the Shadow Wolves and she threw one of them the dimensional pouch filled with food. She relayed how to get the items inside of it and made certain that at least one of them could do it. However before she could go back to the cave, Maxine needed to find a spot to bury those seven women. She ran into the woods and found a nice quiet spot. She dug the graves almost ten feet down since she didn''t want anything to dig them up and placed each of the women in one. Afterfilling up their graves with dirt, she said a quick prayer for their souls and headed towards the cave where she left the portal open at.


    Silky hug tackled Maxine as soon as she came into the cave. She wondered why Silky hadn''t come out of the cave to do that and noticed that the opening into the cave was only about two feet wide. However with her legs included, she was nearly three and a half feet wide and the abdomen of the spider portion of her body was a foot and a half wide. The cave entrance was just too narrow for Silky to get through it with any kind of speed. Maxine estimated that it would take Silky almost five minutes to squeeze through it. Maxine knew that Silky wouldn''t be able to live inside her house for much more than a year before they had to have some double doors installed. Otherwise Silky would have too much trouble getting in and out of the house.


    Maxine smiled and hugged Silky back before taking both of them back through the portal. She went over her gains from destroying that bandit stronghold. She gained 2 dimensional pouches, 213 bronze essence cores, 1 iron essence core,12 strangemedicinal herbs and two more books. She was going to try translating her collection of books using the incomplete knowledge she pillaged from the bandit leader when she had more time. However Maxine was happy that she finally had some breathing room now as she looked at all of the essence cores that she had. If she turned all of the bronze essence cores into Shadow Wolves, facing the next essence beast horde wouldn''t be too tough of an ordeal as long as the military deals withthe copper stage essence beasts. Fortunately all that she had to worry about now was completing that bow for Meagan and meeting up with Patrick and everyone else on thursday. She wondered if Emily or Amanda would want to come with her to see them.

 Chapter 45

    Maxine was walking with Emily towards the cafe that Patrick had designated as their meeting point. She was happy that Emily had agreed to go with her on such short notice. It may have been something to do with Maxine being asked to hang out by a boy. Emily knew that Maxine was afraid of men, but Maxine hadn''t told her that it wasn''t as much of a problem as it used to be. Unfortunately Amanda couldn''t come with them as she was still busy with that petition she had put forward to the government. Something about a group of idiotic senators arguing against it.


    As they progressed, Maxine relaxed greatly when she saw that quite a few other girls had dyed their hair to silver grey, the same as her own. This and the fact that she had the foresight to drop Silky off at the hospital to spend time with her mother meant that she wouldn''t be swarmed by fans.


    Maxine thought about the past few days and wondered why General Jones hadn''t called her yet to make peace.That asshole has alot more willpower than I gave him credit for. However she figured he was near his breaking point and would call her soon. However just in case she checked on him through one of the ravens in his shadow. He was walking with a limp through the base and she noticed he had ear plugs in his hand. Well that''s one way to block out my ravens'' psychological tactics and from the looks of it he hasn''t been behaving. Perhaps I should up my game alittle.She added an order for the ravens to gently rub his nose with their feathers while he slept and to pull out his ear plugs whenever possible.


    Maxine retracted her awareness from the ravens as the cafecame into sight. She could see Patrick, Meagan, Maxwell and Jack sitting at a table. They were talking. When they were about ten feet away, Maxwell noticed both of them. However his eyes didn''t lock onto Maxine like she had expected. Instead he was staring at Emily.Huh?Maxine was curious about that. She knew that she was prettier than Emily and Maxine didn''t recall any time that she wouldn''t look at a more beautiful girl first. However she remembered that she loved brown hair and Maxwell shared that preference. Hence it made perfect sense why he looked at Emily first.


    However Emily noticed his bold gaze and started blushing slightly.She is into him too?! Maxine got angry and looked towards Patrick. However she didn''t recall telling him thatEmily was Janeand immediately calmed down. It was coincidence that Maxwell was interested in Emily. However since Maxwell was basically the masculin version of herself, it didn''t bother her as much as if it were someone else.


    After introductions were out of the way, Maxine and Emily started talking with everyone, However that was simply a ruse to fool anyone that might be listening. The real conversation was done through spiritual sense as she had already explained the reason why it was necessary.


    "So, Patrick tells me you were working on making me a bow. Is it ready?" Meagan asked through spiritual sense. Maxine had finsihed the bow the night before and even test fired it to ensure that it was of sufficient quality. She had rated it as middle bronze bow.


    "Yes, I have it on me as a matter of fact as well as some bronze essence cores. I am giving it all to Patrick for now. He can distribute that stuff later," Maxine responded as she handed Patrick a dimensional pouch under the table. She had given them twenty bronze essence cores.


    "A dimensional pouch?! Did you figure out how to make them?" Patrick asked after he recieved the dimensional pouch.


    "No, I didn''t. I found it," Maxine answered.


    "Where?" Patrick asked. Maxine thought about it for a moment. She trusted Patrick quite a bit, but Emily was also included in this spiritual sense conversation. However she seemed to be occupied. She was conversing with Maxwell almost exclusively using spiritual sense.


    "In the world that connects to my shadow," Maxine answered.


    "Any chance for getting more of those?" Patrick asked.


    "Not for the moment," Maxine answered. There was a way to get more, but that would require her to find someone that could make them. Or find more bandits. However both methods would require her to disappear for at least a few days to locate them and she couldn''t do that without drawing attention to herself.


    "It''s fine. Just having just one of them is enough for our group," Patrick said, "Although it could never hurt to have more." Maxine let out a sigh as she fished out her spare dimensional pouch.


    "Here," Maxine told him as she handed him thedimensional pouch, "I have another one on me. I know you guys need this more than I do anyways."


    "Thanks a bunch," Patrick said, "Anyone else have any questions for Maxine or Emily before we head out and have some fun?"


    "I do," Jack sent to Maxine using his spiritual sense, "Any chance we can meet Silky?" Maxine was startled by that question.However she found it amusing an instant later. He was obviously a fan.


    "Maybe another day. I left her with my mom at the hospital," Maxine answered, "Anyone else have a questoin for me?" She waited for some time before Patrick announced they would go. Meagan insisted on going to a clothing store first. She was clearly intent on getting a new outfit today.


    While they walked around from store to store, Meagan had made a show of hanging on Patrick''s arm. It was as if she was announcing that Patrick belonged to her. Maxine didn''t need such a reminder and Emily didn''t seem to be interested in him. She appeared to be more interested in Maxwell.


    However while they were in the clothing stores, Maxine wasn''t idle. She was looking for new bras. The one she was wearing were rather tight. She looked for Emily to help her, but she was still talking with Maxwell. Maxine started to feel jealous. She thought she had been okay with this, but apparently she wasn''t. Fortunately Emily noticed Maxine staring at her and came over to help her.Maxine looked at Emily out of the corner of her eye. She looked like she wanted to say something, but was thinking it over first. When Emily looked like she had made up her mind, she looked at Maxine.


    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    "I realized something while talking with Maxwell ealier," Emily said with her spiritual sense, "It made me think about when I first met you. You spoke very little andyou were very cold to everyone. But I could tell you were just hiding how scared you were of everyone. Then you changed. I guess that was the day that you started getting those visions. You became confident and more outgoing. It was like you became a completely different person. I just have one question before I continue. Is Maxwell the one you saw the future through?" Maxine felt sweat instantly appear on her forehead as she nodded her head up and down slightly. Maxine was nervous because she was afraid Emily knew more than she was letting on. Emily continued, "I thought so. I think during your visions, you must have absorbed his personality. That''s why you two almost talk the same way and it is also why you have no problems with Patrick, Maxwell and Jack even though you are afraid of men. It''s because you already know them enough to know that they wouldn''t ever hurt you."She isn''t completely correct, but it''s close enough that it doesn''t matter. Wait a second. My mother is around me alot more than Emily and she isn''t an idiot either. How has she not noticed my personality change? No time to think about it now. If mom says something, I will deal with it then.


    "You''re absolutely right, but why tell me this now? It doesn''t change anything," Maxine said.


    "I know it doesn''t change anything, but you seemed like you were unaware of the changes to your own personality. I was worried that you had a serious problem," Emily answered with her spiritual sense. Maxine knew that Emily had every right to be worried since there were alot of diseases that were related to sudden personality change, butEmily clearly wasn''t awarethat essence cultivators don''t suffer fromthe same diseases that effected normal people.


    "Fair enough," Maxine replied, "Now help me find a bra that fits."After a few minutes, Maxine finally found a bra that looked like it would fit and went to try it on in the changing room. Although she had toadjust it a few times, it still fit. She looked at the size and it was a size 34b bra. She had wanted her breasts to stay small as possible, but unfortunately that is not meant to be as she still had more growing to do. She just hopes that they don''t get any bigger than C cup. Otherwise her breasts will start getting in the way of her swordsmanship.


    After buying a couple bras of that size, Maxine left with everyone else to go watch a movie. However when they sat down, somehow she ended up sitting next to Patrick and Emily was sitting on the other side of Meagan with Maxwell beside her. Meagan started leaning against Patrick''s shoulder at the start of the movie. Maxine wanted to lean against Patrick as well, but resisted that urge.


    The movie wasn''t as good as she thought it would be. After it was over, Maxine noticed that it was almost time for dinner. She said goodbye to everyone and left with Emily. Maxine walked Emily to her house before she headed back to the hospital where Silky and her mother were at. Silky was undoubtedly hungry by now and would be wondering where Maxine was. When she got there, her mother wanted her to tell her how the outting with her friends went. Maxine told her everything that happened and showed her the new bras that she had gotten. Silky asked what they were for. Fortunately her mother explained the purpose of a bra to Silky.


    Aftertalkingwith her mother for awhile longer, Maxine went home with Silky. She made and ate dinner before going into the Shadow World with Silky in tow. Maxine wanted tohunt some essence beasts there. She reminded Silky to stay in the cave and ordered all of her bronze stage Shadow Wolves to follow her. She started hunting for essence beasts.


    For the next hour, she killed bronze stage essence beasts and avoided the iron stage ones. She knew that she could kill one, but it would be too inefficient to kill them as it would take her over ten times longer to kill one iron stage essence beasts than ten bronze stage essence beasts. She had collectedfifteen essence cores before she went back to the cave. She checked the village on her way back and found that they were doing quite well. When she got to the cave,Silky told her about something shiny on the ground and pointed at it. It was mostly buried in the dirt, but it definitely had color to it. Maxine gently brushed the dirt off of it to get a better look at it and discovered a golden bracelet engraved with an intricate vine pattern. It was beautiful. However it wasn''t really gold. It was a much more durable material. Maxine wondered where it came from.


    Maxine started to dig the bracelet out of the ground.She scanned the dirt with her spiritual sense and found that the bracelet was being worn by a skeleton with a small headstone buried under a thin layer of dirt. Whoever it was a woman based on the skeletal structure. However shehad an essence core and the core it had was golden with several spots eminating prismatic light. She had never seen a core with that color combination before, but she knew whoever this was must have been far more powerful than herself. However as soon as she noticed that her portal leading back home was centered over that core, she became nervous. She could only think of one way that it would act as a beacon to her portal. That was only if both of their attributes were the same and had a similar essence wavelength. It just wouldn''t work otherwise, but the part that confused her was the fact that people with similar essence wavelengths tended to be related by blood. However that was impossible. She knew that she wasn''t adopted ever since she found a labeled picture of her mother holding a newborn Maxine. She didn''t recall ever having a missing aunt either. Even if Maxine did, there was no way that anyone from earth could attain the same level of power as this person had.


    Maxine shoved those thoughts out of her head aslooked at thegolden bracelet with greed in her eyes. The chances that the bracelet was an artifact rose sharply due to the fact that this person was an essence cultivator. There were very few essence cultivators in the previous timeline that simply wore something because it looked pretty. Not even the femaleessence cultivators would wear something like that if it didn''t have some sort of use. The only exceptions were for wedding rings. However there was no knowing what that use was until she tested it out.


    Maxine hastened her speed at digging up the bracelet, but she was careful not to disturb the remains as she worked. It would be too disrespectful to the dead. It didn''t matter that she was graverobbing, but the dead have no use for anything like this bracelet. She removed the bracelet from the skeleton without causing it any damage. Maxine covered the skeleton back up and thanked whoeverthis used to befor the bracelet. Maxine put the bracelet into her dimensional pouch so that she could figure out what it does later. There was a gem-studded ring as well on the skeleton, but since it looked like a wedding band, she left it alone. Graverobbing might not bother her too much, but she refused to take the representation of someone''s love. It just felt wrong to her. Before Maxine sat down to cultivate, she walkedaway from her portal, so that she wouldn''t be sitting down on a gravesite.

 Chapter 46

    Maxine was sitting on her bed while staring at the golden bracelet that she had acquired three days ago. She haddedicated the past two days of her free time trying to figure out what the golden bracelet does. At first she had thought that it improved attack power and tried channeling her essence through it before unleashing a Crescent Moon Blitz attack. However it wasn''t any more powerful than when she did it normally. She had tried channeling essence through it in several different ways. Next she tried to see if it was a defensive artifact and had Silky throw rocks at her. Unfortunately the expected bubble shield didn''t appear and Maxine earned a few bruises. It didn''t even prove to be the extremely rare automatic healing artifact. She had even tried cultivating while wearing it with no change occuring. She was almost on the verge of thinking that it was just an extremely durable piece of jewelry at this point.


    At her wits end, Maxine used her spiritual sense and scanned it thoroughly. She didn''t do this before because she never considered that this might be a storage device. Unfortunately it wasn''t, but she did find a strange matrix of essence inside of it. At what looked like it''s core, there was a small glowing orb.However she didn''t dare touch it with her spiritual sense. She had no idea what a cultivator that was that strong would be capable of.It could be the soul of the woman that had died in the cave just waiting for someone dumb enough to initiate contact with it, so that she could take over their body. Or, it could be something else entirely, but she didn''t want to take that chance as she swiftly put it back into her dimensional pouch. What she needed right now was a suitable guinea pig. Unfortunately she didn''t know anycultivators that she hated enough to do that to.


    She shrugged as she retrieved ten bronze essence cores from her dimensional pouch and started to make more Shadow Wolves. After she had finished the fifth one, Silky awkwardly came in through the doorway. It always fascinated Maxine to watch Silky get through the door one leg at a time. However it never took her more than ten seconds to get through one.


    "Mama can I have one of those?" Silky said while visibly drooling. Maxine knew she was talking about the bronze essence cores.


    "Yes, you can have one, Silky," Maxine handed Silky one of them.


    "Thank you, mama," Silky said as she gave Maxine a hug. However after parting from the hug, Silky threw the essence core into her mouth. Maxine immediately panicked.


    "Spit it out! You could choke on that!" Maxine yelled while rushing towards Silky to try and force it out of her mouth. Silky flinched and promptly spits out the bronze essence core into her hand.


    "I am sorry, mama. I wasn''t going to swallow it. I was just trying to get the yummy stuff inside of it," Silky answered. Maxine calmed down quite a bit at hearing that and remembered that Silky had required the essence cores to evolle in the past. Wait a second. Can Silky evolve again? That would be interesting to find out if she can.Maxine had never heard of an evolved for of an arachne, but that didn''t mean they don''t exist. The best timepersue that would be during childhood.


    "Then you should have said that before putting it in your mouth. You scared me," Maxine said as she hugged Silky.


    "I didn''t mean to scare you, mama," Silky said while tears started to form in her eyes, "Please don''t be mad at me."


    "I am not mad at you," Maxine said as she pulled herself away from Silky, "Can you tell me why you needed to putthat essence core in your mouth to get the stufff inside of it?" Silky''s face perked up as she nodded her head.


    "I put it there because I get more of the yummy stuff when it''s im my mouth," Silky answered innocently.


    "Show me," Maxine said, "But be careful not to swallow it. Okay?" Maxine extended her spiritual sense to encompass Silky''s whole body.


    "I understand, mama," Silky said as she put the bronze essence core back into her mouth. She rolling it around her mouth like it was a jawbreaker as the essence within it was being simultaneously drained and refined. There was far less loss to this method than the one Maxine knew. Silky was getting twice of the essence from that core than Maxine would have and was doing it in far less time. It was amazing. Although itdidn''t have much use to Maxine at the moment, but it would be a great boon to her friends.After Silky had finished draining the essence from the core, she spat it out and it disintegrated before it even hit thefloor.


    "Amazing Silky. Here have some more for showing me that," Maxine gave Silky three more bronze essence cores. Maxine intended to experiment with that method herself once her core is completely stable and put it to paper before giving it to her friends. Other than Patrick, no one else had the experience to handle any problems that might arise.


    "Thank you, mama," Silky said as she got out of the room with her prize in hand. Maxine wondered how many bronze essence cores it would take before Silky got to the iron stage. However at that moment Maxine realized she had never really checked Silky''s cultivation since she evolved into an arachne. She checked it at that moment and found that Silky was more powerful than Patrick. She had a cultivation of bronze rank 4. Maxine was impressed with Silky''s cultivation. Maxine did the math in her head and it would only take roughly thirty bronze essence cores for Silky to get to iron stage. She could definitely spare that many to get another iron stage fighter, but at the same time, Maxine didn''t want to spoil Silky. She needed a reason to give her the bronze essence cores.Maybe I could give them to her for improving her reading level.


    Maxine pulled out more bronze essence cores to replenish what she gave to Silky and made five more Shadow Wolves. She checked the time and saw that she still had a few hours before lunch time. Maxine decided to take Silky out for a jaunt through the forest to get some exercise and to check on her nest. Silky was excited to get out of the house, but as Maxine opened the door, she saw Jack of all people pacing back and forth infront of her house.How the hell did he figure out where I live?However Maxine soon realized any of Silky''s, or her own, fans would have known where she lives. The part that really concerned her is why he was here. Jack wasautistic enough that there is no way that he would ever go somwhere new like this by himself. Not unless it was something far more pressing than just to meet Silky. There is a possibility that henoticed something anomalous about her behavior during the outting with everyone. His attention to detail is frightening. She remembered one time when he tracked a squirrel through a forest that had leaves covering the ground without the use of his spiritual sense just to prove how good he was at tracking. He even pointed out that it had an injured hind leg while tracking it. When he had found and pointed it out, it did indeed have an injured hind leg. She still had no idea how he had did that.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    "Hey Jack. what are you doing here?" Maxine asked from the doorway to her house. Jack was startled as he turned towards Maxine.


    "What? Oh,hi, Maxine," Jack said in greeting, "I have something I would like to ask you." Maxine became curious as to what question that he had on his mind that would drive him to come here. She was about to ask him why he didn''t just call, but recieve a spiritual sense message from him before she could, "It is a question that I don''t want anyone to know that I asked you."


    "Mama, is that one of the friends you saw a few days ago?" Silky asked from behind her. Maxine turned her head and looked at Silky.


    "Yes, he is. He wanted to meet you before and was disappointed that he couldn''t," Maxine answered Silky.


    "Really?," Silky said as she looked at Jack. However before she could answer Jack had already gotten alot closer and wasgivingSilky a look of adoration. He pulled his phone out and took Silky''s picture and giggled excitedly. What. The. Fuck.I never thought that Jack of all people would be a fanboy. He didn''t speak much and he was normally quite calm when I was around him in the previous timeline. Although he did dote on his pet tarantula.


    "It certainly looks like it, Silky," Maxine said.


    "He''s wierd, mama. Did he hit his head?" Silky asked innocently and Maxine had to struggle not to laugh at that question. However Jack didn''t seem to have even noticed that Silky spoke as he continued to take pictures of her from different directions.


    "No, he didn''t. He just thinks you are super cute," Maxine said and a huge smile spread accross Silky''s face. After a few seconds, Jack finished taking Silky''s pictures and Maxine said, "Jack? You said you had a question for me. What was it?"


    Jack seemed to snap out of his fan boy mode and sobered up as he answered, "Yes, I did say that. Do you have somewhere there are less people around? I don''t want anyone to listen into our conversation."


    "Yes, I do," Maxine answered, "As a matter of fact, Silky and myself were about to go for a hike. Want to tag along?"


    "Of course. Lead the way," Jack said.


    Maxine started running down the street with Silky and Jack. Fortunately she didn''t have to slow down for Jack and she was happy that he didn''t go back into fan boy mode as well. It didn''t take them very long to reach the forest and enter it. While they were walking towards Silky''s nest, Jack pulled out his cellphone and took out the battery. Maxine narrowed her eyes and did the same.Jack still didn''task again about what he wanted to ask until they reached Silky''s nest. There weren''t that many essence beasts inthe webs andthe whole thing was in horrible condition. Silky ran towards it as soon as she saw it. She immediately cocooned the essence beasts and started repairing her nest. Maxine looked towards Jack curiously. She really wanted to know what he wanted to ask her.


    "Do you have any electronics on you that might be able to transmit sound?" Jack asked with his spiritual sense.


    "Maybe," Maxine answered using her spiritual sense as she put a sound proof barrier around the bangle on her wrist, "Why can''t you just talk to me using your spiritual sense?"


    "I havn''t gotten enough practice at and talking with both my voice and spiritual sense at the same time to maintain the ruse that we are not talking about anything important," Jack answered.


    "Fair enough. Now what was so important that you needed to ask me?" Maxine asked.


    "How long have you been in that body, Maxwell?" Jack asked directly, "And don''t give me that bullshit about you being a seer."Fuck. I should have known he would have noticed something.


    "Three and a half months. What gave me away?" Maxine asked.


    "Several things actually," Jack said, "I was already suspicious of you when I saw the video file of your battle with that bear. There is no way an untrained and inexperienced girl could have fought like that. Your tactics in that fightwere almost exactly what the Maxwell I know would have done. Next Patrick''s behavior, before and after observing you, gave me another clue. He was first terrified of you, but when he came back, he said you weren''t a threat. That along with a small slip up while telling us that you were a seer, gave me another clue. You also wield two blades like Maxwell prefers as well. Your speech patterns are almost identical and finally, your reaction when I asked you how long you have been in that body. There were some other things, but they are inconsequential next to those. However I found it odd that your mannerisms were different and that you were unconsciously avoiding physical contact with men. I would like an explaination."


    "The original owner was still in this body when my soul entered it. We merged together and it just so happens that she had a phobia of men. I have achild beating bastard of a dad to thank for that," Maxine said. The moment that she mentioned that her father was a child abuser, Jack''s eyes burned with fury. However his face remained freakishly calm.


    "That would cetainly explain a few things," Jack said, "Does anyone besides Patrick know about this?"He seems really chill considering I just proved the existence of souls. Unless ... Patrick already told Jack that he was a reincarnator already.


    "Not exactly," Maxine answered, "Emily made a guess that was very close to the truth."


    "Emily?" Jack said with slight confusion on his face, but it quickly vanished, "You mean your girlfriend?"


    "Emily said I was her girlfriend?" Maxine said as a smile spread accross her face.


    "Yes, she did. It was when you were in the changing room," Jack said, "Maxwell was rather disappointed when he found out about that." Maxine was elated that Emily considered Maxine her girlfriend.But why did she blushwhen Maxwell stared at her? Maybe I should ask her.


    "I bet he was," Maxine told him and remembered about those 12 medicinalherbs that she got off of those bandits, "Oh!Can youhelp me find out what the properties of these medicinalherbs are? I could use your freakish perception to help me figureit out after I feed one to an essence beast."


    "I should be able to as long as it doesn''t take more than an hour. I need to head back home for lunch. Otherwise my family will wonder where I am," Jack answered.


    "Thanks again," Maxine said, "Follow me and don''t worry about Silky. She will be quite safe inside of her nest."


    Maxine summoned twenty Shadow Wolves out of her shadow. Jack seemed startled by their appearance, but quickly calmed down. She had her Shadow Wolves lead the way to find a bronze ranked essence beast. Ittook almost half an hour to find one and she pinned it down with shadow tendrils. Maxine withdrew one of the strange medicinal herbs from her dimensional pouch and force fed it to the essence beast. She slashed it''s shoulder shallowly to see if it starts healing and watchedthe essence beast carefully with her spiritual sense. She detected that Jack was doing the same. However what shesaw made her angry. The essence beast''s heart rate was accelerating as well as it''s eyes going bloodshot. It started making thrusting motions with it''s hips as it started panting heavily. The medicinal herbs were clearly very powerful aphrodisiacs.I was hoping that these things were healing herbs not fucking aphrodisiacs. I should have skinned those fucking bandits alive.


    Jack agreedthat it was an aphrodisiac and Maxine quickly killed the essence beast. Unfortunately he couldn''t stick around and she had to take him back to where they entered the forest. She reminded him not to share with anyone that she was a reincarnator and reminded him to try his best not to be seen before he started running back home. She definitely didn''t want Jack, or anyone else for that matter, to deal with the General Jones.


    Maxine wanted to destroy the aphrodisiacs as soon as Jack got out of sight, but she refrained from doing so. If she tried to destroy them using fire or essence and she inhaled some of the fumes, she would probably enter a sexual frenzy and would probably rape the first man that she encountered. She needed a different way to dispose of these things. She guessed that she could just force feed them to essence beasts another day. Sine she had already done what she had planned for today, Maixne decided to go home and get lunch with Silky before visiting her mother.

 Chapter 47

    Maxine slowly woke up in her bed and as usual, Silky was sleeping on top of her. No matter how hard Maxine tried to teach Silky not to sneak into bed with her, Silky would still be laying on top of Maxine every morning. It was troublesome, but not something that Maxine couldn''t tolerate. However right as she was going to wake up Silky, Maxine felt something cool on her right wrist. She lifted her arm to see what it was and saw that it was the golden bracelet.WHAT?!She didn''t remember taking it out of her dimensional pouch last night and she had even made certain that Silkyknew not to play with it either. Maxine became extremely nervous as she grabbed the dimensional pouch that was under her pillow and shoved the golden bracelet back into it.That was more than just alittle creepy.


    Maxine woke up Silky and got ready for the day. She wanted to go looking around in the shadow world today. However she wasn''t going to leave Silky with nothing to do like she did last time. Maxine was going to try and widen the cave entrance, so that Silky could join her. It wasn''t good for Silky to remain stationary for too long. If that wasn''t possible, Maxine would just give her something to read or play a game with her Shadow Wolves.


    As soon as they entered through the portal to the shadow world, Maxine tried to widen the cave opening as she had planned. The rock broke apart with only alittle difficulty. She tried to make it look likehad widened naturally, but wasn''t able to do it. Instead it looked like a wild beast had widened the opening, which suited her just fine. After making certain it was wide enough for Silky to pass through it, Maxine brought Silky out of the cave. Silky voiced that she found this place odd since it had no color. Maxine sympathized since it was slightly jarring if someone hadn''t seen something like this before.


    Maxine covertly checked on the village with her spiritual sense while she was here. The villagers were doing much better than before. The majority of the villagers were able to walk around on their own and only a handful of them were bedridden due to their injuries. However it saddened her when she saw a small child missing a leg. She noticed that there was a crude statue in the town square that wasn''t there before. It had Maxine''s basic shape and didn''t look finished yet.Well that''s one way to thank me. Would have prefered medicinal herbs though.Silky noticed the statue as well and asked about why they built it. Maxine told Silky how she had saved alot of the villagers and it was their way of showing their gratitude. However Maxine was determined not to interfer with their lives any more than necessary.


    Maxine took Silky hunting for bronze ranked essence beasts. She was curious at how well Silky could fight against something just as strong as she is, but decided against it. She didn''t want Silky to get hurt fighting something by herself because Maxine wasn''t able to block an attack from hitting Silky in time. Maxine quickly summoned her Shadow Wolves to assist in the hunt. It would be best if Silky learned how to fight in cooperation in a team rather than by herself. The Shadow Wolves were able to track down a few essence beast which Maxine and Silky quickly dispatched. It was a trial to keep Silky from devouring the essence cores that they harvasted from the essence beasts. They managed to get twelve copper and six bronze essence cores from hunting only half an hour.


    However during the most recent scuffle, several trees in the surrounding area got badly damaged. However one of those trees only had a single cut in it and that cut was leaking blood-red sap out of it. That immediately caught Maxines attention. She quickly looked at the leaf and branch configuration of the damaged tree.IT''STROLLS BLOOD!Maxine took out a water bottle from her dimensional pouch and emptied it onto the ground. She brought it up to the wounded tree and collected the sap. Silky looked on with curiosity as Maxine slowly collected the tree sap.


    "Mama, why are you collecting that red tree sap?" Silky asked.


    "This sap is special and really rare. It''s called ''Troll''s Blood Sap.'' If a tablespoon of this is consumed, it can can regrow an entire arm or leg," Maxine answered, "However it takes awhile to work depending on how much nutrition and/or essence the consumer can procure. Also you have to make sure that it''s actually comes from the right kind of tree. Otherwise you may end up consuming a deadly poison instead." It was a small miracle that she found this stuff. Mostly because the Troll''s Blood Trees are almost indistinguishable from cottonwood trees and they don''t typically grow within one hundred miles of each other. The only way to find such a tree is by pure chance and now that she had found one she was going to place multiple spiritual sense marks on it. However she still had to make certain that it was Troll''s Blood sap and not something unique to this world.


    "Cool," Silky said with eyes filled with fascination. I see Silky has learned a new word.Maxine stroked Silky''s head with her free hand.


    Maxine managed to gather two doses of the Troll''s Blood sap, but she still needed to test it. After a few minutes she found another bronze stage essence beast and pinned it down with shadow tendrils. She hacked off one of it''s limbs and fed it a dose of the Troll''s Blood. It''s limb was visibly regrowing. A smile spread across Maxine''s lips. She decapitated the essence beast and collected it''s core. Maxine made a mental note to get a sap collector later. She had wished that she had found some of this stuff in the previous time line, but it had only been discovered a year before her death.


    Maxine was about to go back to hunting with Silky when one of her Shadow Wolves still at the cave signaled her that someone was approaching. Maxine used her spiritual sense to investigate and found three villagers were approaching it. They appeared to be following some of Maxine''s old tracks from a few days ago. She hadn''t exactly been careful about hiding her trail. Against a veteran tracker, it wouldn''t have mattered anyways if she had hidden any of her tracks. They would still be able to track her even if she didn''t leave much for them to follow. However it didn''t appear like they meant her any harm, but appearances could be decieving.


    Maxine got Silky to follow her back to the cave. They got there ahead of the villagers following her trail, but not by much. Maxine didn''t know how long they would watch the cave once they arrived and also she didn''t want to reveal the existence of the portal. It would make things more complicated than they had to be. However when Silky tried to follow Maxine into the cave, she seemed to hit an invisible barrier. Maxine found this bizarre.Who the hell put this barrier up? And why didn''t it affect me?Maxine didin''t have time to think about it as she reach outside of the barrier and grabbed a hold of Silky''s wrist. She tried pulling Silky through, but that didn''t work either. At her wits end, she tried coating Silky in her shadow essence and for some reason that allowed Maxine to pull Silky into the cave. After Silky was inside of the cave, Maxine saw the villagers in the distance and it was clear that they had seen either Silky or herself as they increased their pace. She heard a few excited shouts. Maxine pulled Silky towards the portal. Fortunately thevillagershad encountered the same barrier that had kept Silky from entering.


    Before Maxine and Silky could enter the portal and return home, one of the villagerssaid something. It was about this cave being the resting place of the fallen goddess and that Maxine must be a priestess or descendant of the fallen goddess in order for her to enter it. They took several steps back before bowing towards the cave and heading back to the village.


    After the villagers were some distance away, Maxine looked towards the remains of the woman beneith her portal. Maxine understood that she must have been the fallen goddess, but she was curious as to why they thought she was a descendant of that woman. Out of curiosity Maxine scanned the villagers as they walked towards the village. The one that was in charge had some medicinal herbs on him. Oh, so they were going to give me some herbs. Now I feel alittle silly for reacting the way I did.Maxine shrugged and saw no point in going back out to hunt in the shadow world since she had already gotten quite the harvast. However she intended to go back to the village tomorrow and use the Troll''s Blood Sap on that small boy that was missing his leg. She hated seeing a child suffer like that. Without further ado, Maxine gently pulled Silky along and went into the portal.


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    As soon as she saw that she was back in her room, Maxine used her essence to clean both her clothes as well as Silky''s and checked her cellphone for any missed calls. There was one that she had missed. It had been Emily and she had left Maxine a voicemail.. A smile spread across Maxine''s face and she played the voicemail message that Emily left her. Emily wanted to eat lunch together. Maxine was only too happy to oblige and called Emily back telling her that she would be there in roughly an hour. She got changed into a cuter set of clothes and took Silky with her to see Emily.


    They arrived at Emily''s house at the time Maxine had said they would. As Maxine knocked on the front door, it had occured to her that Silky had never been here before. Nor had she actually met General McKenzy, whom opened the door. Silky appeared to enjoy every bit of this new situation as she followed Maxine inside the house. Unfortunately it wasn''teasy to take Silky out to eat with them since she couldn''t fit in a car, so they decided to cook something. Silky went to the other room towatch TV withGeneral McKenzy while Emily and Maxine cooked. They had decided on an egg salad.


    While they peeled the boiled eggs, Maxine looked observed Emily out of the corner of her eye. Emily kept giving Maxine short glances and seemed nervous about something. Maxine knew that Emily wanted to say something and even knew the contents of what she wanted to say. However Maxine didn''t want to rush Emily.


    The eggs were almost all peeled by the time Emily spoke, "Maxine, I told Maxwell that you are my girlfriend. I did it without thinking about how you felt about me. I am sorry. I..." Maxine had raised her hand and put her index finger over Emily''s mouth to silence her.


    "I am not angry. In fact I wanted to find out if you wanted to be my girlfriend," Maxine said while she smiled at Emily.


    "Really?" Emily asked hopefully.


    "Yes," Maxine answered.


    Emily was blushing slightly as she said, "I almost thought you were going to kiss me againinstead of saying that." Maxine thought that Emily almost sounded disappointed.


    "I can remedy that if you want," Maxine said with a mischievious smile.


    "You really shouldn''t. My grandpa has a clear line of sight on us. He has been watching us the whole time," Emily said softly. Maxine glanced over her shoulder. General McKenzy did indeed have a clear line of sight on them and was watching them. He didn''t appear to have a happy expression on his face either.I can sympathize with that look. I would have the same expression if my only grand daughter prefered the company of other girls. Although he sort of deserves it after all the shit he has put me through.


    "Looks like you are right," Maxine said as she shrugged and started to cut up the boiled eggs, "Now we better hurry up and put this food on the tablebefore your grandpa starts to think we are flirting." They quickly finished up the egg salad and put them onto some bread to make egg salad sandwiches. It was a satisfying meal. Unfortunately Maxine couldn''t stay much longer since she still had to go visit her mother at the hospital. There was a bit of good news though. Last time she was there her mother had just started to go through physical therapy.


    Emily insisted on going with Maxine and Silky to the hospital. Maxine didn''t mind at all. She wanted to spend as much time as she could with Emily. However Emily still wasn''t used to the fact that she could run faster than most cars and had General McKenzy drive her there. Maxine got to the hospital ahead of Emily and went to her mother''s room with Silky. When they got to the room, it was empty.Mom must be at physical therapy. I guess I will see how good Silky is at reading while I wait.


    Maxine looked around for a moment to make sure no one was nearby and retrieved a book from her dimensional pouch. The title on it was ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.'' Maxine thought it would be a great choice for Silky to read since Silky loved to eat chocolate and thus far Silky has shown to have a fourth grade reading level as well. This particular book should be a good way to test her reading level. Maxine had Silky read to her for awhile. Silky had read twelve pages before Emily arrived. Emily sat down next to Maxine and they listened to Silky read out loud. Maxine thought she saw Emily glance down at Maxine''s hands for a moment, but wasn''t certain of it.


    When her mother arrived from physical therapy, Maxine could feel her mother''s eyes glance curiously at Maxine''s right wrist as a nurse helped her get back into the hospital bed.First Emily and now momhave looked at my wrist. What are they looking at?Maxine looked down and saw the golden bracelet on her wrist. She had no idea how it had gotten there. She was concerned, but not afraid.Mostly because she felt no hostility from it.


    After the nurse left, Maxine reached for the bracelet to put it back into her dimensional pouch. However before she could grab ahold of it, she felt a weak spiritual sense connect to her mind. A woman''s voice was transmitted through it, "I am sorry for scaring you, but I need the essence that you unconsiously emanate in order maintain my existence. Unfortunately that requires physical contact."So that orb inside the golden bracelet was the soul of an essence cultivator.


    Maxine replied angrily using her own spiritual sense, "You could have asked before forcing yourself onto my wrist."


    "I would have asked this morning, but I had just woken up at the time. I am not even certain howthe bracelet I am insideended up on your wrist in the first place. You put me into your storage device before Icould process where I was. By the time you opened it back up, my soul was about to disapate due to lack of essence," the woman''s voice replied, "It was either take a chance that I would anger you or die." That made some sense to Maxine. The woman no longer possessed a bodyto sustain her souland was forced to become a parasite in order to survive. However what bothered her was that she didn''t need to do that in the shadow world.Maybe the essence on Earth is too thin for it to sustain her.


    "I may not like it, but I understand," Maxine said, "What''s your name anyways?"


    "Hellen, or at least that''s the closest translation of my name that I can come up with," the woman''s voice said, "I am the wife of Poison Emperor Guan. He will reward you greatly if you give this bracelet to him and lead him to my body." A reward huh? I doubt that. He will more than likely be pissed off that I robbed his dead wife''s grave, but that might be diminished greatly when he finds out that her soul is bound to this bracelet. However with a name like Poison Emperor, he is probably just an evil bastard that will kill me regardless of what I say or do and with my luck he is probably even more powerful than she was before she died. FUCK! I should have left this damn thing where I found it. It''s too bad that I can''t just put the golden bracelet back in her grave. If he finds her still inside ofthe bracelet later, she could tell him how I left her there to die. Now that would definitely piss him off. It''s best that I hold onto this thing for now and get as much information as I can from her about the disposition of her husband. Maybe, he isn''t as evil as I fear. She also might know the method on how to breakthrough into the stage beyond iron stage.


    "Okay, Hellen. I will let you stay on my wrist and I need to explain why I have been quiet this whole time to everyone around me," Maxine said using her spiritual sense, "But before I do, I have one question. Who the hellis Poison Emperor Guan and how do I find him?"So I can stay as far away from him as I can until I know that he isn''t going to kill me.


    "How do you not know the protector of your world?" Hellen said curiously through her spiritual sense, "There are traces of his immortal level essence in the air. Although it is odd that those traces appear to bearound fourteen Earth years old."Maxine rememberd the first essence cultivators appeared alittle more than thirteen years ago and she knew that regardless how how careful an essence cultivator was they would still emanate at least some essence. It felt as if something clicked into place inside of her mind.It was HIM! He is the reason Earth is like this! THAT BASTARD!!!

 Chapter 48

    "Protector, my ass," Maxine sneered using her spriitual sense, "Where thehell wasthis protector when millions of humans were being slaughtered by essence beasts?! WHY THE FUCK HASN''T HE DONE ANYTHING TO HELP US!?!" She is absolutely livid. If Hellen actually had a body, Maxine would have grabbed her by the shirt while yelling at her.


    "I am sorry about those deaths, but there are far worse things in the universe than those paltry essence beasts that you have encountered thus far. I doubt you have encountered anything surprassing iron stage yet," Hellen responded, "There are evil races that would enslave your race, world-eating essence beasts that could swallow this planet whole and cosmic anomalies that can tear this world asunder. Those are the things the my dear husband protects your world from. What little down time he has is likely spent recovering. He doesn''t have the time or energy to protect those people from essence beasts that already dwell on it. At least he gave your race a cultivation method. He didn''t leave all of you defenseless." Hellen''s response had surprised Maxine into silence and calmed her down somewhat. There wasn''t a reason for Hellen to lie to her. However Maxine regained her rage as Hellen spoke especially when she mentioned that this Poison Emperor Guan left them a cultivation method.


    "He didn''t give us ANYTHING! The cultivation method I use was derived from the collective hard work of others," Maxine replied venomously.


    "WHAT?! He wouldn''t have left your race without a means to defend yourselves," Hellen said in disbelief, "The alliance would have punished him severely for such negligence. I can''t see him not teaching you a cultivation method. Unless ... he used the forbidden technique."


    "Forbidden technique?" Maxine asked in confusion.


    "That technique rips souls from the future and places them into their respective bodies in the present. It damns one timeline to save another and if your control isn''t absolutely perfect, certain souls will be reborn into the wrong body. However when that happens, two different souls end up in the same body and it almost always results in the destruction of both souls. Only in the rarest of cases do the two souls actually merge together," Hellen said, "For those reasons, it is only used as a last resort when the cultivation methods of the alliance causes the people of a world to go violently insane."So I ended up in this body because of his fuck up? At least I didn''t end up getting my soul destroyed. And did she just say their cultivation method drives people insane?! That sounds alot like the asshole that killed Emily''s parents. Why didn''t this Poison Emperor Guan kill the crazy bastard before he could do that to Emily''s parents? This is just another reason to hate that prick.


    "I think he used it. I have met someone that knew events that havn''t happened yet. Theyknew when the first essence beast wave was going to occur," Maxine said.


    "I see," Hellen said and paused for a moment before she continued, "I am sorry that the use of that technique had been necessary."


    "But why was the use of that technique even necessary in the first place? He didn''t actually have to set foot onto Earth in order to protect it did he?" Maxine asked.


    "You are right. It wasn''t necessary for him to live on your world to protect it," Hellen answered, "I have a suspicion about why he would do it. However I need you to answer a couple questions to confirm it." That sounded reasonable to Maxine.


    "Alright, go ahead and ask me what you need to," Maxine said.


    "Tell me where you found the bracelet that I dwell within and describe those surroundings in as much detail as you can," Hellen said.


    "I found the golden bracelet on yourremains in a cave. The cave isn''t very deep. Your body was placed in a large chamber with a headstone of some kind buried above your head. At the entrance of the cave, there was a strange barrier that keeps everyone from entering, except myself. However when I coat someone in my essence, it let''s them through," Maxine answered.


    "Interesting. That confirms that someone found my body. I had died in the middle of a forest," Hellen asked, "Did you find a glowing sphere anywhere near my body."


    "No, I didn''t," Maxine responded.When Maxine had found the golden braclet before, she had scanned everything within two three feet of her corpse.


    "In that case, could you take me there? I want to be certain you didn''t miss anything," Hellen said.


    "Alright. I go there every night to cultivate anyways, so it''s not an issue," Maxine said, "By the way, what is that sphere you are looking for?"


    "That sphere is a special barrier that freezes time for whatever is inside of it and it contains my baby," Hellen said, "If she isn''t there, there is a chance that my husband found her andfound a home for her on your world in order to hide her."Oh, shit. No wonder she wanted to know if I saw it.


    "Maybe you''re right. I didn''t find any thing like that when I was there yesterday," Maxine answered.


    "You best take care of your surroundings now. Your mother and friend seem quite concerned," Hellen said.


    Both Emily and her mother had already asked Maxine what was wrong several times, but was unable to since she had been too focused in her conversation with Hellen to answer them. They were worried because Maxine had released an intense killing intent earlier when Hellen had told her it was Poison Emperor Guan''s fault that Earth''s essence levels rose. That killing intent had thoroughly frightened everyone in the room. Maxine did her best to tell them what had transpired between her and Hellen. However Maxine omitted the fact that Poison Emperor Guan was the cause of the rising essence levels on Earth. If thatever got out, the government would try to eliminate him and that would be tantamount to suicide if he was as powerful as she suspected.


    Maxine calmed herself down and tried to enjoy spending time with Emily, Silky and her mother. She was please to know that her mother was making excellent progress in regaining strength in her hands and Maxine found out that her father had gotten sick while he was in prison. She hardly even cared. She hated her father and hadn''t talked to him since he had been in prison.


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    Unfortunately her mother reminded Maxine about the desire for grandchildren. That caused Silky to ask where babies came from and that was a very awkward conversation for Maxine. Emily had appeared amused until Maxine included her in educating Silky. She could have sworn she heard Hellen laughing from within the golden bracelet during the whole process. After they had finished that talk, they watched some TV until it was time to head home for dinner. Emily had to go home as well when General McKenzy arrived. After Maxine got home and finished eating dinner, she took Silky with her and entered the shadow world to cultivate.


    "How did you do that?" Hellen asked out of nowhere through her spiritual sense, "You literately travelledto another dimensional plane with a passenger and made it look effortless. It would have taken me aweek of grueling effort to do what you just did."


    "I don''t know for certain, but every time I pour my essence into my shadow it creates a gateway to the spot right above your essence core," Maxine answered.


    "Interesting," Hellen said, "I will examine the cave now. Give me a moment." Maxinefelt like Hellen was examining her from head to toe, but didn''t feel any spiritual sense coming into contact with her body. However she did detect Hellen scanning the whole cave. After Hellen had finished scanning the room, Maxine got impatient because Hellen wasn''t saying anything.


    "What did you find?" Maxine asked.


    "Nothing other than some double encryped text. It''s the same kind of encryption that my husband keeps on all of his alchemical notes. Only myself and a handful ofhis close friends can decrypt it," Hellen said, "It says things along the lines of that his wife lies here and that he has taken our daughter to a safe place. He never once mentioned his or my name in it."Sounds like he is being overlycautious to me, but if he has some nasty enemies pretending to be his friends, that would be the reason for it.


    "That''s good," Maxine said, "I wonder which part of Earth he took her to."


    "So would I," Hellen said and was silent for a few moments before she asked, "Can you take me outside to see the stars?" Maxine was confused by the change of subject, but didn''t see any harm in fulfilling that request.


    "Alright," Maxine answered, "Any particular reason that you want to see them?"


    "I want to know how long it has been sinceIdied," Hellen said.


    "Fair enough," Maxine answered as she walked outside of the cave. She waited for a few minutes seeing if Hellen had gotten the look she needed, but she started to get impatient. "So.. you going to tell me how long you have been dead or what?"


    "What? Oh, I am sorry. I was just absorbed in my thoughts. If I have read the positions of the starts correctly, I have been dead for almost one hundred Earth years," Hellen answered, "Why hasn''t he come to retreive my body yet?" Maxine didn''t even need to think about whom she was talking about. It was obviously her husband.


    "Maybe he is occupied by defending my world or he is having a hard time dealing with his enemies," Maxine offered.


    "For that to be the case, his enemy would have to be ten times stronger than my husband to even stand a chance. His poisons are beyond lethal and there are only a handful of essence cultivators that can deal with them. None of which are hostile towards my husband," Hellen answered, "As for him being occupied defending your world, that is even less of a reason. He could have easily conjured up a clone or had one of my relatives to retrieve my body."


    "Then I can''t imagine why he wouldn''t retrieve your corpse," Maxine said through her spiritual sense. Hellen became silent once more. Maxine walked back into the cave and got into a comfortable position. However she couldn''t concentrate enough to cultivate because she was trying to figure out why any man would leave his beloved''s corpse to rot in a cave for this long. If he had been trying to keep his daughter''s survival a secret, all he would have to do is leave his wife''s body in the cave for a couple decades and find a suitable skeleton to act as a stand-in for his daughter before burying the both of them. Unless they had DNA testing capability, no one would ever know. However If they did, that would be a good reason why he didn''t do thatand he couldn''t take the risk that his hidden enemies would go after his daughter.


    After solving that mystery in her head, she was able to concentrate enough to cultivate. However before she could begin, Hellen spoke, "You look nothing like your mother." Several of people had made the same comments when Maxine had still been small. Howeverit almost felt like Hellen was about to add something else, but had stopped herself for some reason.


    "I am aware. What''s your point?" Maxine asked.


    "Just making an observation," Hellen answered while sounding pleased, "I am guessing that you are an only child. Am I right?"


    "Yeah. Why do you ask?" Maxine replied while keeping her suspicion out of her voice.


    "I just want to know more about the person keeping me alive," Hellen said. Maxine didn''t believe her. There was something else to these questions that Hellen wasn''t mentioning. It''s almost like Hellen thinks I am a descendant of hers. Maxine couldn''t dismiss that possibility off hand. After one hundred years,four or more generations could have gone by, but what Hellen had said earlier about Poison Emperor Guan''s essence being around fourteen years old seemed odd to her. Because the rate that Earth''s essence increased was too fast for him to have come to Earth more than fourteen years ago and from what Maxine understood, it was impossible for Poison Emperor Guan to keep his essence from leaking outside of his body. That mean he hadn''t arrived beforethen and even if he had kept his daughter in the stasis field the entire time, she would at least be fourteen or fifteen years old. That would make it impossible for Maxine to be related to Hellen or Poison Emperor Guan.I am over analyzing things. I need to relax.


    "That''s reasonable," Maxine said as she got comfortable, "I am going to cultivate now. I would appreciate it if you didn''t interrupt me while I do it."


    "Alright, Maxine," Hellen said. Maxine wondered only for half a second why Hellen knew her name. She had obviously heard it when she had still been at the hospital with her mother.


    Maxine made certain that Silky knew not to leave the cave before she began to cultivate. She loved to cultivate here. It was far faster and more comfortable than on Earth. However she felt that Hellen was observing Maxine while she cultivated. It was annoying, but she tolerated it. There was no way her cultivation method would be any use to Hellen anyways ifher cultivation method drove people on Earth insane. After Maxine was finished cultivating, she realized that she hadn''t asked Hellen what Poison Emperor Guan looked like.


    "Hellen? You still there?" Maxine asked using her spiritual sense.


    "Yes, it''s not like I can get up and leave," Hellen responded, "What is it?"


    "What does Poison Emperor Guan look like?" Maxine asked.


    "That''s easy enough to answer. He looks rather plain. Although you would never be able to tell considering that he wears a mask most of the time. He says it''s to keep from inhaling his own poisons, but that''s nonsense since he is immune to most poisons. He wears it because he is embaressed that every other essence male cultivator he has encountered has been far more handsome than himself and he doesn''t want to be called ugly," Hellen said, "However if you want a definite way to identify him, it''s his eyes. They are the most beautiful and unique pair of eyes I have ever seen. They are golden with small specks of green in them." Maxine felt as if she was hit by a thunderbolt.Those are the same kind of that the Shadow Cat has.

 Chapter 49

    Maxine had been so worried that she stared at the ceiling the entire night and had completely forgotten to make any more Shadow Wolves the night before. It wasn''t helping that Hellen had asked her several times what was wrong. Maxine would have actually welcomed the distraction of Silky sneaking into her room, but Silky hadn''t done that.


    She couldn''t get Hellen''s description of Poison Emperor Guan''s eyes out of her head. It had just been too similar to how she would describethe eyes of the Shadow Cat and if the Shadow Cat is Poison Emperor Guan or at the very least something similar to whatMaxine''s Shadow Wolves are to her, it''s presence represented the fact that Hellen''s daughter was most definitely on Earth and in the area. She couldn''t go out to Silky''s nest because she couldn''t risk being seen by it due to the golden bracelet that she is wearing and she can''t just take it off since Hellen had yet to build up any reserves of essence to be away from Maxine for more than a few minutes.


    Maxine turned her head to look at the clock on her nightstand. It was 7 AM.Might as well get up.Maxine quickly bathed and got ready for the day. Because her mother had been in the hospital for so long, they were running low on several things and it forced Maxine to cook essence beast meat that she had harvasted during her previous hunting trips in the forest. However while she ate, she was trying to force herself to think about something other than the danger that Poison Emperor Guan represented. She needed to find Hellen''s child and make sure the kid gets the bracelet that contains the soul oftheir mother. It was quite possible that the government already knew about her, but due to the bad relationship she had with General Jones, she doubted that he would help her find Hellen''s child. That meant that Maxine could only rely on Amanda to help her do, but she was busy negotiating with some senators to get her petition put through. Once that was out of the way, it shouldn''t be that hard to narrow down who could possibly be Hellen''s kid with the location and age range that Maxine knew.


    A thought formed in Maxine''s head. Maxine could post a video on YouTube to promote Amanda''s petition for essence cultivators to police their own. That would help Amanda greatly due to Maxine''s popularity. All she would have to do is greet her fans in that video and show off her abilities to give her fans an idea of why having a police force made up of essence cultivators was a good idea. If she remembered correctly, there was a camcorder in the closet along with a tripod mount for it.


    Before Maxine went to the trouble of doing all of that work, she called Amanda. She didn''t want to do something without first telling the person she was trying to help.


    "Hello?" Amanda said.


    "Hey, Amanda," Maxine said over the phone, "This is Maxine."


    "Hey, Maxine. Sorry, I havn''t been able to hang out lately. Those senators that I told you about last time are being idiotic and listening to General Jones rather than me," Amanda said.


    "That''s kind of the reason I called," Maxine said, "I have an idea that might help."


    "I don''t know, if anything would help. Those old codgers are very stubborn," Amanda said and let out a sigh before she continued, "It''s like they think the military can handle us quite easily."


    "They arn''t wrong. The military can handle essence cultivators below bronze rank quite easily, but it''s the stronger ones they need to worry about," Maxine said, "I think they just don''t understand how powerful an essence cultivator can be and the only way to do that is to show them."


    "You''re probably right," Amanda said, "Was that your idea?"


    "Not entirely," Maxine said, "Even if they see what an essence cultivator can do, they still might not agree with you to form a police force out of them so I was wanted to post a video online. It would either have me or Silky demonstrating just how powerful an essence cultivator can be. That way, even if the senators say no, their constituents will make those senators agree to your proposal."


    "That might just work," Amanda said, "Go for it."


    "Will do," Maxine said, "I will send you a video to look at before I post it. Talk to you later. Bye.


    "Bye," Amanda said and Maxine ended the call.


    Now that she had Amanda''s go ahead, Maxine quickly went to the hallway closet and rummaged through it to look for the camcorder. She quickly found it and it''s tripod mount. It needed some new batteries, but that was easily remedied. Fortunately the manual for the camcorder was with it in it''s carrying case.


    After putting some new batteries in it, Maxine turned it on to make sure that it still worked and noticed a few old videoes was still on it. She opened up the small panel on the side to view a small three inch screen and played the one of the more recent videos. It showed her seventh birthday. Both of her parents were smiling and happy as Maxine recieved her gifts from them and their neighbors. It had been a happy time before her father started drinking. It is a cherished memory. Maxine found herself stroking the small screen with her thumb as it played as tears started to form in her eyes.


    Once the video was finished, Maxine checked to see how much recording time was left on the data card. It had roughly thirty minutes left of recording time.It was just barely enough time as long as she did it correctly the first time around. However Maxine would have some trouble finding safe place to demonstrate the physical abilities of essence cultivators. It was neccesary to make them understand the need for a police force comprised of essence cultivators. The only place she could think of was the forest that had the Shadow Cat, but she wanted to avoid that creature. She tried to think of alternate places to show off her abilities.


    While coming up with places to display her abilities, Maxine realized that she would have to have Silky display most of those feats since Maxine''s raw physical abilities were far greater and would give the public a false perspective. Afterall If Maxine wasn''t the strongest human on Earth, she was definitely in the top ten. She started byspeaking infront of the recording camera that Silky would be considered quite powerful for an essence cultivator and went onto explain the need for a police force to manage other essence cultivators while mentioning Amanda''s petition a couple times.


    After that was done, Maxine went out and discovered the only place that was long enough to demonstrate Silky''s speed was the highway. She used the mile markers as a way to give them an idea of Silky''s speed and set up the camera to show the time down to the milisecond. Maxine made Silky carry it the whole time while she ran. After Silky did the speed test, Maxine did the math and found out that Silky''s top speed was roughly three hundred miles per hour.Damn she''s faster than I thought.Next, she went back to her home and asked a few of her neighbors to see if Silky could lift up their car for a video. Fortunately, one of them agreed to it as long as they didn''t damage his vehicle.It wasn''t a problem in Maxine''s opinion. It''s not like they were going to play catch with the car.Maxine instructed Silky to only lift the front end of the car a couple feet off the ground. Maxine walked around the car while recording the whole thing and aimed the camcorder under the car to show that Silky was doing this all on her own. After Silky put the car back down, Maxine aimed the camera at her face. She said a reminder that Silky was stronger than the average essence cultivator.She tried to make the point that most essence cultivators were peaceful and the violent ones were in the minority.


    After she finished,Maxine felt that she had failed somehow. Going by the video footage she took, most people would think that most essence cultivators were in the bronze stage when the bulk of them were actually in the copper stage. Nonetheless it would definitely reveal the need for a specialized police force, so Maxine headed home to edit the footage.


    While walking down the street back to her house with Silky, Maxine saw a glimpse of the Shadow Cat out of the corner of her eye. However when she turned her head, it wasn''t there anymore. She extended out her spiritual sense just in case she wasn''t just seeing things. I hope that I am just being paraniod.She still didn''t find anything, but stayed vigilant. After she got inside her house, Maxine quickly got the video files off of the camcorder and edited them on the computer as best she could with what she had available. She e-mailed Amanda what she had slapped together and checked the time. It was lunch time. She made lunch and headed towards the hospital where her mother was at with Silky.


    When Maxine arrived there, her mother was on the phone. She was overjoyed that her mother could use her hands enough to hold a phone. That meant her mother would be getting out of the hospital in the next day or so. However it didn''t appearthat her mother got agood phone call. Her mother looked like she was worried. As soon as the call ended, her mother told Maxine what that call was about. Her father had gotten alot worse since yesterday and had been rushed to thishospital.Dad is that sick?Although she hated her father for abusing her,Maxine was genuinely concerned about him and asked her mother about which room he was in. Maxine spoke a few more words with her mother before leaving Silky with her and went to her father''s hospital room.


    She saw two guards posted outside of his room and told them who she was. Both of them looked at her in disbelief when she told them who she was.Yeah, I know what you two are thinking. How can this valiant celebrity be the abused daughter of that asshole?Unfortunately they wouldn''t let her into the room. There was a chance that he was infectious, but would still let her see her father through the doorway as long as she wore a face mask. Her father was covered in vomit, his skin pale and his eyes were bloodshot. He groaning in pain even though he had a morphine drip and didn''t even seem to be aware that she was there. She was horrified by how bad his condition was. This didn''t look like any illness she had ever seen.


    "That man has been poisoned," Hellen declared suddenly through her spiritual sense. Maxine had been wondering when Hellen would wake up. She had said the night before that she had to go into a rest state for awhile. Maxine hadn''t anticipated that it would have lasted twelve hours.


    "What do you mean poisoned? The doctors said he is sick," Maxine replied through her own spiritual sense.


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    "Those ''doctors'' are wrong. I know one of my husband''s poisons at work when I see them," Hellen answered.


    "How do you know it''s one of his poisons?" Maxine asked.


    "Look at your hishands," Hellen said, "There is a greenish hue to his fingernails. That is the most noteable side-effect of theSoul Breakerpoison that my husband created." Maxine audibly gulped.Thathas to be a nasty poison to be called that.Hellen continued, "His currentpain is mild in comparison to what is coming.It will only get worse as time progresses and if he survives for five days, the effects of the poison should disappear. He may even benefit from it with a stronger will. However that is only IF your father''s soul can endure that kind of pain."Why?! Why would Poison Emperor Guan do this to my dad? Could he just really hate child abusers? No, that''s not right. If he did, there would be alot more people like this in the country.


    "Is there an antidote?" Maxine asked desperately.


    "I am sorry. I do not know of one," Hellen responded, "You can only wait it out."


    "But why did he have to poison my dad?" Maxine asked while trying to keep herself from crying.


    "I''m not sure," Hellen answered, "May I ask why he was went to prison?"How did she knowDad went to prison? I never told her that.Maxine''s question was answered when she noticed that her father was handcuffed to the hosptial bed. She couldn''t bear to look at her father suffer any longer and started walking back towards her mother''s hospital room. Her mother needed to be told how bad off he was. Although she wouldn''t mention that her father had been poisoned. The less her mother knew the better.


    "Since I was eight, every time he got drunk he would beat me. The police found out about it and they put him in prison," Maxine replied and immediately felt intense killing intent coming from Hellen. It had been so intense that the two guards had felt it and they reached for their guns while nervously looking around.


    "THAT BASTARD!" Hellen roared, "That poison is too good for him!" Maxine was suprised by the intensity of Hellen''s rage. She had a feeling that Hellen would have torn her father limb from limb if she still had a body.


    "Why are you so angry?" Maxine asked curiously.


    "Because I am your...," Hellen said angrily with her spiritual sense before she calmed down, "Wait, you havn''t figured it out yet? That''s quite surprising considering all theclues that you have." What?Does she think I''m her daughter?I know for a fact that she said that she had a baby. Wait a second. FUCK! I can''t believe I forgotthat she had said that she had hoped that her husband had found a suitable surrogate mother during our conversation yesterday.Those are only used whenthe mother either doesn''t want to or can''t carry their own child through a pregnancy.Maxine continued with that line of thinking and recalled her birthday was February 3rd, 2005. If Hellen wasin the early stages of her pregnancy at the time of her death and was put in her mother''s womb aroundfourteen years ago, Maxine could very well be Hellen''s daughter. She hadn''t considered that before because she didn''t want to face the possibility that her existence was the driving force behind Poison Emperor Guan coming to Earth in the first place. However first she needed Hellen to answer just one question to be certain.


    "How old was yourbaby when you died?" Maxine asked almost mechanically through her spiritual sense while dreading Hellen''s answer.


    "I was alittle more than a month into my pregnancy at the time of my death, my precious daughter," Hellen answered.


    "How can you be certain that I am your daughter?" Maxine asked.


    "I checked your DNA against mine and you are without a doubt my daughter," Hellen said, "Also, you look almost exactly like I did when I was your age. Although it surprised me that yourhair is silver like mine was. I thought you would have had brown hair like your father''s."What? When did she check my DNA? Forget that. HOW DID SHE DO IT?!


    "How and when were you able to do that?" Maxine asked through her spiritual sense.


    "I checked it while you were cultivating last night using my spiritual sense," Hellen replied. Maxine was dumbfounded. In her past life, the most she had been able to do was scan down the single cells using her spiritual sense. Although the details of that single cell improved as her strength did, she could never look at the genetic code directly using it. However she knew why Hellen did it. It was because Maxine''s portal to the Shadow World had appeared over Hellen''s essence core.


    "That''s impossible," Maxine said.


    "It is quite possible, albeit with difficulty, once you reach silver stage," Hellen said.


    "Silver stage? Is that after iron stage?" Maxine asked curiously.


    "Yes, it is, but you don''t have to worry about that for now," Hellen answered, "Is there anything else you would like to know?"


    "Not for now," Maxine said, "Now I need to tell my mom what is wrong with dad." Maxine was just a short distance from her mother''s room.


    "I don''t know why you still call that vile man your father," Hellen said.


    "He may be an asshole, but he was stillthere to raise meunlike Guan, whom essentially abandoned me," Maxine said angrily through her spiritual sense and blocked off her mind to end that conversation. It was onlymaking her angry. She needed to be at least somewhat calm when she told her mother about her father''s condition. UnfortunatelyafterMaxine described her father''s condition to her mother, she clearly didn''t understand how bad off her father was and was forced to recreate his exact condition using her essence. Her mother looked at it for only a couple moments and started crying. Seeing her mother cry, Maxine couldn''t supress her tears either and hugged her mother as she cried with her. Silky had never met Maxine''s father so she didn''t cry with them. However she still tried to comfort the both of them by hugging them.After Maxine and her mother stopped crying, they simply sat in silence while trying to watch TV until Maxine had to take Silky home for dinner.


    After making dinner and eating it, Maxine wanted to do something to get her mind off her father''s condition and entered the Shadow World with Silky. As soon as she walked outside of the cave, Maxine knew that Hellen wanted to talk, but firmly kept her mind baracaded off to any spiritual sense. She wanted to try something new with her Shadow Wolves and summoned them from the surrounding woods. She had sent them there when she had discovered that the cave was Hellen''s burial site.


    When all of them arrived, Maxine formed her essence armor and ordered one of her Shadow Wolves to merge with her essence armor. She assumed that thismight strengthen her defenses. The Shadow Wolf dissolved into a greyish mass as it came at her. She stood still as this greyish mass flowed all over her body and noticed that her essence armor was changing. A wolf-like tail sprouted out of her lower back, the claws on her hands became larger and greyish fur appeared on her forearms and calves. The essence core that the Shadow Wolf had was nestled between her breasts. Fortunately the tail that had formed hadn''t damaged her clothes when it formed.Now this is an interesting transformation of my essence armor.She also noticed that her power had increased by a small margin and tested her speed. She had gotten thirty percent faster and could hear Silky exclaim at Maxine''s current appearance. Maxine smiled to herself and wondered what would happen when she had one of her ravens merge with her essence armor.Would I get black angel wings?It was a juvenile thought, but it was appealing in it''s own way. It would give her the ability of flight. Although she knew that it would require alot of practice to fly with those wings.


    Maxine recalled her ravens that were still in the process of expanding her knowledge of the surrounding area. The closest one would requirea few hours to return. She dissolved her essence armor and had the Shadow Wolf that had merged with her go on standby. Maxine decided tomake some more Shadow Wolves and cultivatein the mean time inside of the cave. After she was finished with making the Shadow Wolves and cultivating, Maxine could feel Hellen''s spiritual sense nudging her incessantly. She let out a sigh and finally lowered the spiritual sense blockade that she had erected earlier.


    "What is it?" Maxine asked using her spiritual sense.


    "You used three techniques that I have never seen before," Hellen responded, "I wanted to know their names." I guess she figured out how to use the techniques from watching me andI can sort of understand that she has never seen someone make a creature using a combination of an essence core and shadow essence. But how could she have never seen essence armor before?


    "Essence Armor is the name of the defensive technique you saw me use earlier," Maxine answered honestly, "As for the other two techniques, I haven''t come up with a name for them yet."Although when I think about it, it would make sense to name how I create the Shadow Wolves with something simplistic like Conjure Shadow Wolf. As for when I make a Shadow Wolf merge with my essence armor, I should call that Essence Armor of the Wolf.


    "Incredible. I can''t believe you created two techniques on your own," Hellen said, "I am I right to assume that this Essence Armor is a technique you learned from someone else?"


    "Yeah, I learned it from a friend," Maxine said.


    "Is this friend a boy?" Hellen asked.


    "Yes," Maxine answered while knowing full well that Hellen wanted to know if Maxine had any romantic persuits and decided to make it something clear, "But before you get excited, you need to know that he already has a girlfriend and has no interest in me."


    "But that doesn''t mean that you are not interested in him," Hellen teased. Maxine feltheartache at that because Hellen was right. However Maxine knew that he would never be interested in her and had given up deluding herself otherwise. That had left her alot more energy to devote herselfin her relationship with Emily.


    "That''s true enough," Maxine told her and noticed that her ravens had arrived, "Now I am going to experiment with my abilities some more and I don''t want to be distracted. Alright?"


    "As you wish, my daughter," Hellen said as she retracted her spiritual sense from Maxine''s mind and Maxine let out a sigh. She didn''t think she would ever get used to Hellen being her biological mother.


    Maxine immediately formed her essence armor and took off her shirt and bra in anticipation that they would both be destroyed once the raven merged with her essence armor. Afterwards she ordered a raven to merge with her essence armor. Unfortunately the result is not what she expected. Feathers started sprouting out of her arms and hands. Her essence armor on her fingers had elongated and created webbing between them as the feathers formed on it. Her thumb was the only finger that wasn''t affected. Her shoes and socks had come off her feet as her feet turned into talons. After the transformation finished, Maxine looked at herself and was disappointed.She looked like a harpy.Damn it. I was hoping that I would look like an angel. Oh, well.Although she was disappointed in how it looked, Maxine still had the capacity for flight and decided to try to take off. She flapped her arms like she had seen birds do while going at a slow run. Unfortunately, she crashed several time before she could even glide. Damn!This is hard.Rather than make a fool of herself she separated herself from the Shadow Raven and got back dressed.


    Maxine had one last thing she wanted to try before she went back home and went to bed. She ordered one of the Shadow Ravens to merge with a Shadow Wolf just to see what happened. When the two merged, a pair of large wings sprouted from the back of the Shadow Wolf and it''s front paws turned into talons. Maxine tilted her head in curiosity and named this new creation the Winged-Shadow Wolf. She ordered them to separate and ordered all of her creations to go back and hide in the forest. Maxine went to get Silky before she headed back home to go to bed.


    After Maxine had put Silky to bed, she laid down in her own bed and remembered her father''s condition. She felt her eyes start to tear up again. Part of her wanted to seek out Emily to comfort Maxine. Unfortunately, it was far too late at night for Maxine to go to Emily''s house, so she tried to think about something positive to cheer herself up.At least, I don''t have to worry about Poison Emperor Guan getting angry and killing me since I am his daughter.Maxine wondered briefly how Guan would have reacted to the future Maxine that Patrick had described. He would probably have dispaired and tried to fix her.Maxine heart skipped a beat at a sudden realization. Her soul may not have entered this body and fused with the original Maxine by chance.

 Chapter 50

    For the past three days, Maxine had been extremely worried about her father. He had gotten increasingly worse as Hellen had predicted and he had been moved to a specialized quarantine room. She watched as the doctors had tried putting him into a medicinally induced coma to shield him from the pain because the painkillers were not enough to stop the pain. However his coma only lasted a couple hours before he woke back up screaming. Maxine was almost at the point where she wished her father would just die, so that he wouldn''t have to suffer anymore. According to Hellen, this was the last day that her father would be suffering from that poison and she wanted to check on him early today since her mother was being released from the hospital today. It was earlier than they had expected due to her mother''s rapid recovery.


    After leaving Silky at her mother''s hospital room, Maxine went to check on her father. He was still in monstrous amounts of pain as he squirmed and moaned in his hospital bed. The nurse monitoring him told Maxine that he was actually in less pain than he had been last night. Apparently, the poison was starting to wear off. However that didn''t mean he was out of danger just yetand his mind could be broken due to the extreme pain he had suffered which would be worse than death. She had to convince her mother not to come here. It would break her mother''s heart to see her father like this.


    Maxine extended her spiritual sense and gently connected to her father''s mind to see how bad off he was. That was a mistake. She instantly detected how much pain he was really in through that connection. It was comparable to the pain she felt when she boosted her own power to Iron Stage. She immediately retracted her spiritual sense and dejectedly walked back to her mother''s room to give a report on her father''s condition.


    As soon as Maxine got back to her mother''s hospital room, she saw that her mother was in a new set of clothes and that Silky was holding the backpack with spare sets of clothes in it that Maxine had brought the other day. They were just waiting on the doctor''s instructions before heading home. Although she hoped they would come soon with those. General McKenzy would be arriving with a van to take Maxine''s mother home. Maxine tried to convince her mother not to go see her father, but it was a futile attempt. Her mother had insisted that they go see him.


    "What did you expect would happen?" Hellen admonished Maxinethrough her spiritual sense, "Claudia loves that man to such an extent that she stayed with him even though he abused the both of you. It wasnaiveof you to think she wouldn''t want to see him."


    "You''re right. I shouldn''t have even tried," Maxine replied, "I just didn''t want her to get upset when she sees how bad off he is."


    "I know," Hellen said, "You just wanted to protect someone you love from pain just like how your father left you here on Earth to protect you."I have lost count the number of times Hellen has tried to convince me not to hate Poison Emperor Guan for abandoning me over the past couple days. It has been a trail not to argue with her over it. I know that I can eventually accept her as my mom, but I don''t think I will ever be able to accept that man as my father.


    "Please don''t bring him up, Hellen," Maxine said through her spiritual sense, "I know you and him are my biological parents and that you both care about me. I even know Guan''s intentions were for my benefit, but he still corrupted a whole planet with his essence. In doing so, he indirectly killed millions of people and doomed one of Earth''s timelines. I might be able to forgive him for abandoning me, but I can''t forgive him for that."Maxine wanted to ask Poison Emperor Guan something as well. She wanted to know if he had truly done what she had suspectedfour days ago. If he did, she wanted to know why he chose her soul to fuse with the original Maxine. Because she hadn''t come up with a good reason herself. There were literately thousands of other people he could have chosen to balance out the madness of the original Maxine.


    "I understand that better than you do, but still he is your father," Hellen said.


    "No need to remind me," Maxine said and saw her mother''s nurse coming into the room, "The nurse is here. Talk to you alittle later."


    "Alright, Maxine," Hellen answered.Well at least she isn''t demanding that I call her mom.


    The nurse asked if her mother wanted a wheelchair or if she wanted to walk out. Her mother had enough of being in a bed and insisted on walking. Her mother went to check on Maxine''s father. Although he seemed to be better when they got there, her mother still looked distraught apon seeing him like that. Maxine didn''t like to see her mother like this especially now. She told her mother that her father looked alot better than he did when she saw him earlier and her mother appeared to calm down.When Maxine got a call from Emily asking them when they would be getting out that Maxine ushered her mother to the main entrance of the hospital.


    As soon as Maxine, Silky and her mother had gotten outside, Emily had waved to them to get into the van. General McKenzy had brought that van because Silky had wanted to ride home with her Grandma Claudia. Maxine had caught Silky calling her mother that three days ago after Hellen had a private conversation with Silky. Fortunately Maxine had asked Hellen not to talk to Emily letting Maxine know about it first. She had to explain that soul-enchanted artifacts were non-existent on Earth and may freak Emily out if Hellen were to start talking to her. Maxine had a long talk with Emily the night before about Hellen, but omitted the fact that Hellen was her mother.


    Everyone loaded into the van and Maxine sat next to Emily. She held Emily''s hand and smiled at her. Maxine had already told Hellen about her relationship with Emily and surprisingly Hellen had been fine with it. She didn''t even mention the desire for grandchildren, which Maxine thought was odd.


    "How''s your dad?" Emily asked.


    "He''s better, but still in alot of pain. The doctorshaven''t figured out what was wrong with him yet," Maxine said. Even though it upset her greatly to lie to Emily, Maxine didn''t dare tell her the full truth of why her father was sick in the first place. Because if she did, she would have to tell Emily everything about Poison Emperor Guan. Maxine didn''t want to burden Emily''s mind with things of that nature.


    "That''s great," Emily said with a smile, "Umm, you know that person you mentioned last night? I would liketo talk to her."


    "Okay," Maxine said and saw Emily''s expression change as their conversation started. Unfortunately they were keepingMaxine out of that conversation. Maxine really wanted to know what they were talking about as Emily''s expression kept changing. Fortunately their conversation didn''t last very longsince the drive to Maxine''s house wasn''t a long one.


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    Silky ran ahead and held the front door open as everyone got out of the car.Maxine smiled at Silky''s thoughtful behavior.After everyone was inside, Maxine checked the time and saw that it was still some time until lunch. She quickly went to the kitchen to see what she could make for lunch to set it out in advance. Thankfully she had the foresight to make a trip to the store yesterday to stock back up on food for ordinary people. She rather not feed her mother essence beast meat for the first meal out of the hospital. It would boost the constitution of an ordinary person to consume essence beast meat, but it would cause some indigestion for first time eaters.After returning to the living room, Maxine chatted with everyone. Emily seemed to have finished her talk with Hellen.


    "We need to talk later," Hellen said via spiritual sense. I wonder what she wants to talk about.Maxine continued to talk with everyone up until lunch time and Emily came with her to help.


    "So what did you two talk about," Maxine asked.


    "About you mostly. She seemed really interested in our relationship," Emily said, "That was until I mentioned that you seemed like a different person four months ago."Maxine winced internally. It was clear what Hellen wanted to talk about now.


    "I did have a good reason for it though," Maxine said.


    "Yeah, no one could live someone else''s life and still be the same person after," Emily said.


    Maxine was cursing inside as she said, "I think I just heard your grandpa''s stomache growling. Let''s put this meal on as quickly as we can." Emily nodded her head as they finished making lunch. Unfortunately after everyone ate lunch, Emily and General McKenzy had to leave.


    Maxine told them goodbye and did everything she could for her mother with Silky trying to help. Her mother was quite tired and went to her bed to go to sleep for awhile. Maxine created another shadow clone with a bronze essence core to help take care of her mother.


    After Maxine made it, she ordered it to keep an eye on her mother asMaxine went to her room. She closed her bedroom door and contacted Hellen with her spiritual sense, "What did you want to talk about?"


    "I heard something rather interesting from Emily. She said that your personality changed quite suddenly four months ago and that you had a prophetic ability. I know for a fact that you don''t. You don''t practice the necessary cultivation technique," Hellen said, "I need to know something, Maxine. Are you a fused soul?"Maxine let out a sigh.


    "I am sorry, but I am," Maxine answered and felt heartache coming from Hellen. Maxine thought for a moment before she added, "I don''t thinkthis was an accident though."


    "What?!" Hellen exclaimed, "What makes you think that?" Maxine told Hellen exactly what Patrick told her about the Maxine from the other timeline. "By the maker! You would become like that if this hadn''t happened to you," Hellen said.


    "And we would have never met," Maxine added, "The other me wasa scared little girl. She would have been too afraid to experiment with her abilities like I have."


    "I gathered as much from my conversation with Emily," Hellen said, "However I am still goingto talk to your father about this. I need to know ifhe did this intentionally or not."


    "So would I," Maxine said with her spiritual sense even though she was almost certain that it was intentional, "Any idea when we will be able to?"I hope she doesn''t say that we can only wait for him to come to us. He only just recently came around to poison my dad for abusing me. I seriously don''t want to wait five years to get to talk to him.


    "Unfortunately, I don''t," Hellen responded, "If I were still alive, I could find him using my spiritual sense to scan the nearby planets."


    "Well if you had that kind of range, his must be greater. Can''t I just release alot of essence towards the sky to get his attention?" Maxine asked.


    "NO!" Hellen replied quickly, "You would undo all the hard work of your father did to hide you if you did that. We can''t take the chance that anyone passing by would detect your essence." She wondered why it would be that big of a problem, but quickly remembered that her essence is similar enough to Hellen''s that they would realize that they were mother and daughter.


    "I understand your concern, but hasn''t it been one hundred years since you died? Who would even remember you well enough to know that I am your daughter just based on my essence?" Maxine asked.


    "Many would. Your physical abilities are not the only thing enhanced each time you increase your cultivation. Your memory improves as well. Although it isn''t as obvious in the lower stages," Hellen answered.


    "I guess we have to wait then," Maxine said disappointedly.


    Before they could talk anymore, Maxine''s mother was calling for her. She was wondering how her mother knew that her shadow clone wasn''t her as shewent to see why her mother called for her. Her mother had recieved a phone call from the hospital.I wonder why I didn''t hear her cellphone ringing. She must have set it to vibrate.Her father''s pain had diminished alot since they left and it was manageable now. He was resting peacefully. It was a relief to hear that. Her mother didn''t know when he would be released though or even when he would be taken out of quarantine. Fortunately Maxine knew that he had been poisoined and wasn''t contageous. Her father being qurantinedwas a pointless measure, but she wasn''t going to say anything about it.


    Maxineasked her mother if there was anything else she needed to talk about. Her mother wanted Maxine to go check on her father dinner. She didn''t have a big problem with that, but didn''t want to leave her mother alone. Her hands hadn''t gotten back to full strength yet. However Maxine decided that she would leave her shadow clones and Silky to keep an eye on her mother while she was gone.


    After dinner, Maxine went to the hospital to check on her father yet again today. When she got there, she immediately noticed that he wasn''t groaning in pain anymore, and that his face was a normal color. However she wasn''t certain how stable his mind was after having to endure that kind of pain. It was unfortunate that she had no idea how to check on his mental state without penetrating into his mind with her spiritual sense. She pulled out her camera to take a picture of her father. It would be alot easier to show her mother how her father was doing with a picture than it would be to explain it to her later.


    "See you tomorrow, Dad," Maxine said before she left. She walked outside and went to a park. She found a secluded spot and searched the area with her spiritual sense to make sure no one was nearby as she formed her essence armor. She rolled up her sleeves and took off her shoes and socks. She summoned one of her ravens and had it fuse to her essence armor. After her essence armor finished changing into harpy mode, Maxinespread her recently formed wings. She had figured out how to fly, more or less,in this state yesterday and wanted to fly home as a form of practice. The only reason she was going to do this here is because she doubted anyone would see her in the fading light. Even ifsomeone did they would just think that she was a large bird or that it was a trick of the light.


    Maxine lifted both of her wings up towards the sky and brought them down quickly. She shot off the ground like a rocket and into the sky. She moved her wings in parralel with her body the moment that her upwardmomentum was about to arrest and began to glide towards her house. She enjoyed the feeling of the wind running through her hair and caressing her skin as she flew through the air. When her house came into sight, Maxine felt alittle disappointed that it couldn''t have lasted longer, but didn''t circle around since it might cause her mother to worry if she took too long in getting back. Fortunately it was fully dark by this time and she landed in her backyard.


    Shortly after Maxine walked into the house, her phone rang. It was General Jones. She smiled to herself as she answered it while thinking he was about to give in to her demand to leave essence cultivators alone. Unfortunately that wasn''t the case. He had called because they located an iron stage essence beast near Jefferson Citythat could possibly be the leader of the next essence beast hordefor this part of the US and he asked herif she would be participating in it''s elimination. Even though she hated General Jones, Maxine promptly agreedsince she wanted to protect thefamily that she lost in the previous timeline.

 Chapter 51

    Maxine had her essence armor on to make herself more comfortable while she was waiting in the in the breifing room with almost twenty nine other essence cultivators. Almost half of which were wearing explosive collars. It was obvious that they had very little or no combat experience just based on how they moved. Maxine felt irratated since there wasn''t a single soldier among the essence cultivators. Even four or five of them would have greatly reduced the difficulty of killing any Iron Stage essence beast.


    Maxine spotted Patrick, Meagan, Maxwell and Jack as they entered the breifing room.I wonder when General Jones figured outthose three were essence cultivators. Emily was no where in sight, but that made sense since Emily''s healing abilities would only be helpful after the the fighting was over. Not to mention that General McKenzy would be against her participating anyways.


    General Jones was standing infront of them as began the breifing, "Three days ago we detected an extremely powerful essence beast in a forested area near Jefferson City and attempted to eliminate it with a surprise missile attack. However due to some abnormal electromagnetic interference, possibly generated by the beast itself, the missiles failed to detonate as they struck near the target."That doesn''t sound good. I only know of three iron essence beasts that have the lightning attribute and only one of them is strong enough to roast the electronics of anything near it.That essence beast was the Tempest Weasel. It wasn''t anywhere near as durable or as strong as a Terror Bear, but it''s ability to unleash lightning bolts was a problematic.Those lightning bolts could severely injure bronze stage essence cultivators and stun iron stage ones for a couple seconds. Afterwards the Tempest Weasel would attack ruthlessly while their targets. She just hoped that there was only one of them. It was unfortunate that she wasn''t certain if that essence beast would be responsible for the next essence beast horde or not. The leader of that horde was never actually seen.


    "That is why all of you freaks are here. Although I am loathe to admit it, your combative abilities are useful in eliminating this threat and the lot of you should be able to locate the creature withyour strange radar-like ability," General Jones said, "Our attack plan is simple, you freakswill limit the essence beast''s movement while the army bombards it with artillery. This has been a proven tactic by Ms. Levings in her previous battle with that oversized bear. Any questions?"


    Maxine voiced a question, "How certain are you that there is only one of them?"


    "Repeated infared satelite scans have comfirmed that there is only one of them," General Jones said smugly.That doesn''t mean shit. Those things are cave dwellers.


    Someone else asked an important question, "How will the artillery units know where to shoot?"


    General Jones pulled out a strange looking rifle, "This is will paint the target using a laser and the artillery units will target whatever it is aimed at. CorporalSmith will be the one to operate it." There didn''t seem to be any more questions.


    "Hellen, can you find that iron stage beast and describe what kind of beast it is and how many that I am going to be facing?" Maxine asked Hellen via spiritual sense.


    After a few moments, Hellen answered, "A weasel of some kind about the size of one of your Shadow Wolves with arcs of electricity jumping across it''s body. There are two of them, a male and a female. The male is actively hunting outside and he is Iron stage rank 1. The female is bigger and more powerful than the male by two ranks and is dwelling in a cave that is on a cliff face."Fuck, it is a Tempest Weasel and there are two of them. Thatasshole is either intentionally sending us to our deaths or he is an incompetent idiot that can''t even get us decent intel. If I were a betting girl, I would put my money on him doing this shit intentionally.


    "Thanks, Hellen," Maxine said and contacted her friends to tell them about the two Tempest Weasels. Patrick didn''t respond, but he was clearly angry. Meagan was more outspoken about her anger in their conversation via spiritual sense. Maxwell had the same opinion as Maxine that this was a suicide mission. He had met General Jones in private already. As for Jack, he didn''t appear to be surprised at all. Maxine couldn''t discount the fact that Jack had noticed something about General Jones'' behavior.


    Maxine and the others were immediately ushered into a transport truck. Maxine sat down near her friends. She started to discuss with them what they should do, but after she mentioned how many Shadow Wolves that she had, they wanted her to send them at the Tempest Weasel to overwhelm it. She would have to make all of her Shadow Wolves fuse into the three headed variety to be powerful enough to be a threat. However it made her unhappy to reveal to the millitary that she had them and asked them to come up with something else with her. Unfortunately that wasn''t meant to be. All of the plans that they came up with had a very low survival rate even if they included all of the essence cultivators and artillery support. Maxine didn''t like it, but she had no choice as she finally agreed to their suggestion, but only after the other essence cultivators fled. It was quite possible that General Jones had reported that he had seen her Shadow Wolveson the day thathe threatened to put her mother in prison.


    When the transport truck stopped, Maxine and everyone else got off. Maxine stretched out her spiritual sense to locate the male Tempest Weasel and found out several others were doing the same. She found it some distance away and signaled Patrick and everyone else to follow. As soon as they were out of sight, Maxine retrieved her Twilight Iron Blades from her dimensional pouch and pulled out a few Steel Silk Vests for her friends while Patrick pulled out weapons from his dimensional pouch. Meagan was wielding the bow that Maxine made. Jack had a two inch thick steel rod with a spearhead carvedon the end of it. It looked like a crude short spear. Maxwell had two machettes. Maxine remembered using those two machettes herself in the previous timeline until she had a blacksmith make a pair of chinese dao blades to replace them.


    Maxine scanned the area and summoned all of her Shadow Wolves from the shadow world. The looks on her friends faces was priceless as they saw her Shadow Wolves leap out of her shadow on after the other. After all of the wolves had exited her shadow, Maxine ordered them fuse into Three-Headed Shadow Wolves. She ordered them to follow her without being seen. She didn''t thinkher Shadow Wolves would be needed tokill the male Tempest Weasel as long as the female one doesn''t come out to defend it''s mate.


    Maxine''s group moved towards the Tempest Weasel. When they arrived, Maxine recieved a spiritual sense communication from the other groups of essence cultivators. They had wondered where Maxine''s group had gone.She simply responded that everyone in her group was getting prepared for the fight. The other groups accepted her reason.


    "Everyone restrain it. Kill it if possible," Maxine heard via spiritual sense from Corporal Smith.He must have been trained in cultivation by one of my students.


    Maxine charged without hesitation as her friend formed their essence armor and followed behind her. This wasn''t her first time participated in a group assault, but for Jack, Meagan and Maxwell, this could very well be the first time they had even been inlarge group battle like this. It would be good for them to experience it and since it was many against one, it shouldn''t be too taxing. Maxine just hoped that the Tempest Weasel couldn''t rapid fire it''s lightning attack. Some of Tempest Weasel''s had that capability.


    Maxine hadn''t even crossed half the distance when a barage of essence based attacks flew towards the Tempest Weasel. It created a tempest of wind and lightning that surrounded the Tempest Weasel. All the essence attacks were nuetralized by it. However this move had drawbacks, the Tempest Weasel couldn''t move while using it and it couldn''t use another lightning attack for at least ten seconds afterwards. Maxine took advantage of this window of opportunity to close the distance and aimed a vicious stab with her blades at it''s jugular. Unfortunatley it noticed her and dodged her attack. She unleashed a flurry of attacks to keep it occupied while using her spiritual sense to check if any artillery attacks were coming. It was hard to keep the Tempest Weasel from moving, but somehow Maxine managed it. She kept up her assault as others joined her. Patrick appeared out of nowhere and shield slammed the Tempest Weasel to knock it off balance. At the same time, Jack stabbed forward with his spear from the opposite direction.It was their favorite combination from the previous timeline. Patrick must have practiced it with the others.Maxine watched as Maxwell leapt on top of the Tempest Weasel and started stabbing into it''s back while it recoiled away from Jack''s spear. Maxine took advantage of it''s distracted state and slashed at the Tempest Weasel''s jugular vein. As her blade came down, an arrow made of essence pierced the eye of the Tempest Weasel.Seems like Meagan is integrating herself into this attack combination fairly well.Due to the pain of having it''s eye pierced, the Tempest Weasel wasn''t able to see the attack that Maxine unleashed towards it''s neck. Her blades dug deeply into it''s neck and blood spurted out of it''s neck as Maxine retracted her blades. Maxine got splattered with it''s blood as she felt a surge in it''s essence. The ten second gapfrom it''s earlier attack had ended.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    "Shit! Back off!" Maxine yelled as she retreated. Electrical arcs were already forming around it''s body. Maxine desperately stabbed both of her Twilight Iron Blades into the ground and skipped backwards. She noticed that Jack and Maxwell did the same with their respective weapons when they realized it was too late to avoid the incoming attack. Patrick took shelter next to Jack right as the Tempest Weasel unleashed it''s attack.A lightning storm was unleashed from the dying Tempest Weasel. Fortunately all of that electrical energy was attracted to the metal in their weapons and they were unharmed by it. The Tempest Weasel unleashed that attack for twenty seconds in total. It was clearly it''s last ditch effort to eliminate it''s attackers, but it was loosing blood too quickly. It collapsed after it finished the attack. The weapons used to attract the lightning as glowing red, even her Twilight Iron Blades. Maxine gulped as she realized that if that had hit her, she would have been turned into a charred corpse.


    Unfortunately, no one could enjoy the victory as abeastial roar of rage made the forest tremble. It was the female Tempest Weasel. Maxine quickly retrieved her blades and put them into her dimentional pouch. She was already angry at the other essence cultivators since they hadn''t helped that much aside from their initial attacks. It was quite possible that they were awed by the coordination of Maxine''s group. Howeverother than Corporal Smith and Maxine''s group, all of the essence cultivators began to runlikethe devil was on their heels when they detected the strength of the female Tempest Weasel. Maxine started cursing internally. Because the corporal was present, Maxine couldn''t bring her Three-Headed Shadow Wolves into the fight. She couldn''t take the risk that the military or government would see her as a major threat and try to eliminate her.


    As the the female Tempest Weasel came into sight nearly one thousand feet away, it unleashed a lightning attack at a group of five essence culitivators. She heard them scream for a moment before their charred corpses hit the ground.Oh, shit. It''s lightning attack is way more powerful than it should be. It must be a variant.Maxine felt it''s enraged gaze lock onto her. She looked down at the blood splatters on her clothes and realized why it picked her out of everyone present.FUCK! It knows I delivered the killing blow on it''s mate.


    Maxine turned around and ran towards the area where her Three-Headed Shadow Wolves were. At the same time, she told everyone else that she was luring the Tempest Weasel into another large group of essence beasts, so that they could fight it out with each other. Thistactic would keep allow her to keep the secret that she could control Shadow Wolves.


    Maxine ordered her Three-Headed Shadow Wolves to charge towards her while snarling. However Maxine hadn''t even ran two hundred feet when she detected that the female Tempest Weasel was about to unleash another lightning attack. She swiftly pulled off the tracking bangle from her left wrist and threw it behind her. The lightning attack hit the bangle turning it into molten slag and it hit her with about half of it''s original power. It still hurt to high heaven as it burned her back. She knew that she had at least second degree burns on her back from that attack, but Maxine didn''t dare slow down or stop.


    Maxine could feel the female Tempest Weasel rapidly gaining on her. She realized that her Shadow Wolves wouldn''t make it before the Tempest Weasel caught up to her. She felt tears flow down her face as fear slowly took hold of her. Fuck, I am such a dumbass. I should havereleased my Shadow Wolves before I went to that damn breifing and had them swarm the Tempest Weasels long before anyone ever got here. But, no. I just had tolet my friends get some experience fighting essence beasts as a team.


    Maxine spun around and decided to try her best to evade it''s attacks until her Shadow Wolves arrived. However in that instant, she felt a second source of killing intent coming from Corporal Smith that was directed at her. She finally noticed that he wasn''t holding the same rifle that General Jones had shown at the briefing. It looked like agauss rifleand he was aiming it at her, not the female Tempest Weasel. She side-stepped to the right as his hand squeezed the trigger. A projectile moving several times faster than the female Tempest Weasel hurtled towards her and punched a dime-sized hole in her left arm. She felt the bone in her upper arm shatter as she cried out in agony. If she hadn''t side-stepped, Maxine would have died when that projectile punched through her heart. Her fear and pain was quickly replaced by unbridled rage.I came out here to help. And that BASTARDnot only sends me and the others on a suicide mission with a bunch of inexperienced retards, but also gives me the added ''fuck you'' of a sniper. Now I have to deal with a Iron stage rank 3 Tempest Weasel WITH a broken arm! I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!Maxine released roar as her essencesurged wildly throughout her body. However it was draining herstrength rapidly.


    With a thought, Maxine created shadow tendrils that pierced and destroyed the railgun rifle that Corporal Smith was aiming at her. In the next instant, she glared at the female Tempest Weasel, which appeared to be terrified of her as it desperately tried to turn around. She reached out her right hand and made a grasping motion as five massive shadow tendrils wrapped around the female Tempest Weasel. She lifted the female Tempest Weasel into the air using those massive shadow tendrils. However as it was raised into the air, Maxine noticed that her shadow tendrils were actually fingers of a massive hand. She was faintly aware that Hellen was yelling at her to stop using her essence so wildly.


    The Tempest Weasel released an intense lightning tempest around it''s body in an attempt to free itself, but it had almost no effect on the massive shadow hand. Maxine clenched her right hand into a fist and watched as the massive hand of shadow brutally crushed the female Tempest Weasel. Blood burst out of every orafice it had followed by it''s internal organs.


    Maxine immediately felt faint as the massive shadow hand vanished and she realized thatshe had drained all of her essenceas the corpse of the Tempest Weasel hit the ground with a thud. Maxine wasn''t too far behind it as she began to collapse. Her essence armor had dissolved before she had even hit the ground. Unfortunately she landed on her already badly injured left arm and it cause her alot of pain. She rolled onto her back with difficulty and heard the others yelling in the distance as one of them tackled Corporal Smith. Since it was clear that they weren''t going to kill him, Maxine gave her Three-Headed Shadow Wolves an order to go deeper into the forest to conceal their presence and were only to fight if they were attacked first. If they were to arrive and not attack the Maxine in her immobile state, it would be obvious to anyone with a brainthat she was the one controlling them and it was a sure thing that the corporal would report it.


    After a few seconds, Patrick appeared at her side and leaned down to pick her up. However an overwhelmingly powerful presence appeared andMaxine felt pressure being put on her very soul. Whoeverit was suppressing them with their spiritual sense. However it seemed to be affecting Patrick and the others far more than herself. She could hear several thumps as they fell unconscious as Patrick fell down towards her. However he was able to keep himself from collapsing on top of Maxine and was hovering over her on his hands and knees. Patrick struggledto stand back up and Maxine heard a man say, "I can appreciate your tenacity to protect that young woman, but it isn''t necessary. Now, sleep." That man sounded familiar somehow.


    The pressure on their souls steadily increased until Patrick passed out a few seconds later. Fortunately he fell backwards and didn''t land on Maxine. Maxine barely noticed that the pressure on her soul had liften as struggled to move, but itwas futile as she heard footsteps approaching her. She had drained too much of her strength earlier when she killed the female Tempest Weasel.After a few seconds, the man appeared in her sight. He wearing a hooded leather tunic and leather breeches. The only feature of his face that she could see clearly was a pair of glowing golden eyes that had green specks in them. Maxine realized instantly that it was Poison Emperor Guan, her biological father.What the fuck is he doing here?

 Chapter 52

    Maxine glared angrily atPoison Emperor Guansince she was too weak to do anything else. She was still angry at him for polluting Earth with his essence. However Poison Emperor Guan didn''t seem to even notice her glare as she felt his spiritual sense enter her body through the hole in her arm. It spread throughout her body. He better just be giving me a medical examination. Afterwards, he pulled out a small vial from a pouch at his waist. After unstoppering the vial, he knelt down and propped her head up and brought the vial to her lips.


    "Drink this. It''s medicine," Poison Emperor Guan said and when he saw that her mouth remained closed, he continued, "You may not feel it, but you damaged your muscles, nerves and essence pathways when your essence surged earlier. If you do not drink it, you will be bedridden for at least a month."


    Maxine struggled to open her mouth only alittle. Poison Emperor Guan poured the medicine into her mouth. It was the vilest tasting concoction that had ever graced her tongue. If she weren''t immobile, she would have spit it out reflexively. Poison Emperor Guan ran his finger along her throat and it caused her to swallow the vile stuff. After it entered her stomache, she felt a warmth flowing throughout her body. It felt amazingly good. However she still couldn''t move.


    "You should be able to move some by this evening and walk by tomorrow. It will take at least three days for a full recovery," Poison Emperor Guan saidandglanced at the golden bracelet on her wrist as his eyes started to smile, "Hellen, it seems you have awoken. I have missed you greatly."


    "I have missed you as well, my love," Hellen replied using her spiritual sense in such a way that Maxine could listen in, "I know you don''t have much time to stay here, but can you answera couple questions before you go?"


    "I think I already know what you will ask, but yes I can," Poison Emperor Guan said.


    "Did you fuse our daughter''s soul with another?" Hellen asked.


    "Yes. The things that she did in the future were monsterous. Cutting the limbs off the one man that she liked and torturing him were the kindest things she did. I didn''t want that future to come to pass, so that is why I fused our daughter''s soul with another," Poison Emperor Guan said.That sounds way too similar to what the Maxine from the other timeline did to Patrick. But why did she like him? I didn''t find any memories from the original Maxine that included Patrick.


    "Why did it have to be the soul of a young man?" Hellen asked.Huh? I don''t recall ever telling Hellen that. She must have figured it out somehow.


    "The fused souls that survived in the past were always of opposing genders," Guan answered, "And that young man''s soul complimented our daughter''s perfectly."


    "That wouldn''t have been necessary if you found better people to raise me," Maxine chimed in with her spiritual sense.


    "I know," Poison Emperor Guan replied sorrowfully, "I must depart now. I wish I could stay longer, but I cannot risk revealing that you live or that your mother''s soul persists. At least, not until you are at least gold stage, Maxine." Maxine watched as Poison Emperor Guan levitated slowly off the ground and once he was roughly fifty feet into the air, he turned into a streak of light that soared into the heavens.Maxine had expected violent winds to batter her as well as a thundering sonic boom. However none of that happened.I wonder how hekept that from happening.


    Maxine was curious about something and asked, "Hellen, how long do you suppose Patrick and the others will be unconscious for?"


    "Within half an hour," Hellen replied and began to tease Maxine, "You don''t have to worry about your boyfriend. Your father was rather gentle with him."


    "He''s not my boyfriend, Hellen. I thought I already told you he isn''t interested in me," Maxine responded.


    "I think he is interested," Hellen said, "Your other friends charged at the man that shot you whilePatrick was running towards you and he tried to protect you from a far superior being."


    "I am the strongest person in our group. Of course he would check on me first and try to protect me when Icollapse," Maxine retorted.


    "I could always ask him about his intentions when he wakes and end this dispute," Hellen teased.


    "Don''t you dare," Maxine told her. She didn''t want tostrain the fragile friendship she had with Patrick. It was already hard for him to see her as a friend considering she had the face of the person that tortured him in the previous timeline.


    "Fine, I won''t ask him," Hellen chuckled breifly before her tonebecame more serious, "Hmm? Your friend Maxwell is waking up. He is quick to recover."


    Maxine extended out her spiritual sense and watched as her previous self got to his feet. He shook his head a few times and checked Meagan and Jack to make sure that they were alive before jogging over towards Maxine and Patrick. Maxwell checked on Patrick before he saw that Maxine was looking at him.


    "Maxine, what happened and who was that?" Maxwell asked, "And what the hell was the deal with your eyes when you killed that essence beast?"Huh? Something was up with my eyes?


    "A middle aged man knocked you guys out with his spiritual sense. I don''t know what his name is," Maxine replied using her spiritual sense since she hadn''t recovered the ability to speak yet, "Nor did I get a good look at his face, but I did see his eyes. They were golden with green specks in them." Maxine figured that half-lies would be better than outright ones.


    "Golden? That''s wierd. Your eyes turned golden while you were killing that thing," Maxwell said as he gestured towards the crushed Tempest Weasel.


    "My eyes havn''t ever changed colors while I was using my essence in the past," Maxine said. Not unless I did it intentionally anyways. However Maxwell didn''t answer because he got distracted as Meagan made some groaning sounds. He ran towards her to help her to her feet. Shortly after Jack woke up and finally Patrick.


    The four of them started talking about the appearance of Poison Emperor Gaun. While they did that, Maxine checked out her left arm with her spiritual sense. The bone in her arm had been hit directly. At the point of breakage, there was a half-moon shaped piece missing from both pieces of her broken arm. That''s not a pretty break. I have no idea how long it will take me to heal from that.However she did notice that whatever medicine that Poison Emperor Guan gave her seemed to be accelerating her healing process by a huge margin.


    After studying how the medicine was working, Maxine noticed that her friends had yet to even ask if she needed help getting up. She got annoyed and growled at all of them through her spiritual sense for one of them to carry her to the transport truck since she couldn''t move. Patrick found the whole thing amusing as he picked her up in a princess carry. She might have enjoyed it if she was able to keep her head upright, but instead she was as mobile as a ragdoll at the moment. Patrick was careful not to jolt her wounded arm and was going at a nice slow walk. It would take them close to half an hour at this pace to get the transport truck. She found it odd that Meagan wasn''t making a fuss about Patrick carrying Maxine. That girl was very possessive.


    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    After being carried for ten minutes, Maxine was getting extremely sleepy for some odd reason. She figured it was a combination of completely draining her essence and the medicine that Poison Emperor Guan gave her. She fell asleep before they made it to the transport truck.


    Maxine woke up to something sharp was poking her in the bend of her right arm and opened her eyes to see what was going on. She was ina hospital bed anda doctorjust managed to put an IV needle into her arm. Maxine saw that he had a look of triumph on his face after putting the IV needle in and she guessed that he had quite a bit of trouble getting it past her tough skin Her skin was at a point where even a gunshot from a normal handgun would only give her a bruise. It was no surprise that they couldn''t pierce her skin without difficulty. A quick glance revealed that her left arm was in a unique looking splint of some kind. It immobilized her arm while giving access to the wound caused by the guass rifle.


    The doctor noticed thatMaxine woke up and asked her to see if she could move.It seems like the doctor knows about my immobility. Maxine tried to move her hand and managed to wiggle her fingers slightly. However she still wasn''t able to move well enough to talk just yet. The doctor asked her to move other parts of her body, but the most she could do at the moment was wiggle. He took a few notes on his laptop before he left the room.A few minutes after the doctor left, Maxineexpected that her mother would arriveany second, but instead it was General Jones that walked in.Well this is unexpected. Is he perhaps feeling guilty for trying to kill me?However as soon as she saw his smiling face, she knew that he didn''t feel guilty. He was probably pleased that she couldn''t move.


    "Good evening, Miss Levings," General Jones said while maintaining his smile, "From what I have heard, you are almost completely paralyzed. Nerve damage is a nasty thing. You are lucky to be able to breathe considering how extensive it is. And don''t worry about Corporal Smith. He is being severely disciplined for his assasination attempt onyou." Maxine wanted to kill him with a vengeance, but had to control herself.It would be so easy to kill this bastard. One order to the ravens in his shadow and he will be an eyeless eunuch just before death.But I can''t do it here. It would raise too many questions. I need to be patient.General Jones continued to pace in the room for a few moments while smiling at her. "Would you like to know something interesting?" General Jones asked while clearly not expecting an answer, "Earlier today we detected a powerful essence signature from the bangles you freaks carry on you. It matches perfectly with the first reading we ever recorded. I have long suspected the emergence of essence on Earth was not a natural event, but a triggered one. I believe it was caused by the same person that we detected fourteen years ago. We even managed to acquire a picture of him when he had first appeared. Take a look." General Jones pulled out a sheet of paper and held it infront of Maxine. It was a picture of Poison Emperor Guan in normal clothes. They even had a full view of his face. He looks like a ordinary person, like what you would expect from a store clerk. However there was no denying it was him just by the eyes.Why the fuck is he showing me this picture.


    Maxine looked at General Jones and he continued, "I am not certain if you are aware, but we have done certain studies to see if you freaks pass on your abilities to your offspring. Unfortunately, those studies found that it was inconclusive. However we did discover one interesting thing. Parents and children share very similar essence wavelength patterns. It is almost as good as a DNA test as long as we have sufficient data." Oh, fuck me.However, Hellen was oddly silent as if this wasn''t even a concern."The only problem with this test is that it takes time to analyze that man''s essence wavelength patterns and compare them against our database to see if we have any of his relatives on file. Although the chances are low, I have a strong feeling that we do," General Jones said while looking directly at Maxine with a vicious grin.Yeah, I definitely need to kill this fucker in themost painful way that I can think of.Because if anyone gets wind of this, I don''t think I will be able to live on Earth anymore.Just because I am the daughter of the man that polluted Earth with his essence, I will be far more hated than even Hitler.Wait. Hellen hasn''t reacted at all since General Jones started speaking.Maxine thought for a moment before it hit her. God damn it. I got all excited for nothing. There is no way he can get me based off the data he has. Maybe if Poison Emperor Guan was my mother instead of my father, they might have me.The idiot probably doesn''t realize that essence cultivators generally possess an essence wavelength similar to their mother and almost never their father.It is possible that he is here to scare me into an admission.Maxine stared at General Jones for some time without betraying even the slightest hint of fear in her gaze. They stared at each other for awhile until the doctor from earlier came back. He immediately yelled at General Jones for disturbing his patient and chasedGeneral Jones out of her room. Maxine used a portion of her concentration to keep an eye on General Jones through the ravens she had in his shadow. She wanted to make his death seem like he fell prey to some essence beasts. Having her ravens tear him apart while he putting gas in his car sounded perfect.


    Right as General Jones was leaving her room, Maxine heard Silky yelling. Although she couldn''t hear exactly what Silky was saying, Maxine knew the gist of it. Silky wanted to see Maxine and was making a huge fuss about it, probably because Silky could sense the extent of Maxine''s injuries through the spiritual mark within her mind. A few seconds later, Silky ran in through the door with ease since hospital room doors were wider than those at her house. As soon as Silky laid eyes on Maxine, she quickly came to Maxine''s side and examined her broken arm.


    "Mama, who hurt you?" Silky asked softly, but Maxine could see anger in each of her six eyes. She couldn''t blame Silky for feeling that way since Maxine was quite angry herself.


    "Don''t worry, Silky. The person who hurt me is already going to get punished and I will take care of the one that ordered it," Maxine said through her spiritual sense, "Now where is Grandma Claudia?"


    "She was right behind me a few seconds ago," Silky said as she looked towards the hospital door while looking alittle guilty. However Maxine extended her spiritual sense and found that her mother was calling for Silky.


    "You ran too fast for her, Silky. You know that she can''t keep up with you," Maxine said, "Now stop being silly and go let her know that you found me. She is still next to the elevator." Silky went back out of the hospital room. While Silky was away, Maxine noticed, through her ravens, that General Jones was getting in his car to drive home. He still had that smug expression on his face. However Maxine saw that his fuel gauge was rather low.You have to be kidding me. Am I really that lucky? However as he started up his car, a small meteorite pierced through his windshield and hit him in the groin. Charred blood and guts splattered all over the insides of the vehicle. General Jones was still alive, but he wouldn''t be for much longer. She could see the horror written all over his face as he stared at his mutilated body.


    Maxine couldn''t believe such a thing could happen by chance as she watched medical personel run up to General Jones'' car and bring him into the hospital.Why do they even bother? He no longer has a large intestine, his manhood or hip bone anymore. It would be kinderto just let him die.A few moments later, Hellen finally spoke through her spiritual sense, "I see your father''s throwing arm is as accurate as ever. He was quite angry when he discovered that man was responsible for ordering the attack on you."


    "How did he knew that General Jones was the one that ordered that attack?" Maxine asked.


    "He saw the man that attacked you, but he wanted to find out if there was anyone else involved," Hellen responded, "After watching your attacker, he discovered that General Jones was the one that ordered the attack and decided to only punish that man himself. Fortunately, your fatherunderstood that if he poisoned General Jones, it would implicate you. Hence the meteorite." In a way, Maxine felt relieved that she didn''t have to kill of General Jones herself. She never did like killing people. Now all she had to do was recover and pray thatthey killed the right iron stage beasts.

 Chapter 53

    Maxine was angry as shewalked with some difficulty out of the hospital with a nurse right behind her. She knew that Poison Emperor Guan had said that she would be able to walk after a day, but he didn''t mention that it would be this hard after two. It felt like her whole body was made of lead. I guess I can''t complain too much. He did reduce my recoverytime to one tenth of what it should have been.Maxine remembered how bad it had been yesterday. It had been a trial just to walk without falling down. It was like she was an infant learning how to walk for the first time. If it wasn''t for her iron stage cultivation, she would have been covered in bruises. Since she had improved so much, the doctors thought it would be alright torelease her today.


    Maxine hadwatched the news forthe past two days. Several news programs had featured her being rushed to the hospital and many people were blaming General Jones for her becoming injured. The essence cultivators that ran were interviewed and told the public that the intelligence reports that General Jones gave them were terrible, which lead to unnecessary deaths and injuries on their side. However that news was nearly forgotten when the world bore witness to a massive creature that looked nearly one tenth the size of the moon in the night sky, butit was only seenonce it started breathing fire.


    When Maxine had seen that creature, she immediately thought it was a type of dragon. Although it looked like it was a cross between the western and eastern dragons. It was fighting something extremely small in comparison to itself. Maxine knew that must be Poison Emperor Guan. She didn''t remember anything like this happening in the previous timeline as well and realized it was because of her that this thing could get this close. She wondered if it was because Poison Emperor Guan had come to give her that medicine, but dismissed it. He should have been able to intercept that thing well away from Earth, instead of this close. Hellen enlightened her that it could have gotten closer to Earth while Poison Emperor Guan was distracted and he only was able to detect it when it was already close.


    When that dragon breathed fire towards Earth, Maxine immediately noticed an orange glow outside of her window and felt horrified. Fortunately the fire breath had been blocked by Poison Emperor Guan as he deployed a barrier. Someone had gotten lucky with a video camera and caught his tiny sillouette infront of the flames. Almost an hour later, the dragon was killed and it''s corpse ended upon the moonand the whole thing had been such a spectacular sight that if the temperature hadn''t climbed twenty degrees, no one would have believed it. Hellen had told her that the fight would have been over in an instant if it hadn''t been taking place so close to Earth. The shockwaves from him releasing such intense essence would have caused worldwide earthquakes.. At the time, Maxine had wondered just how powerful Poison Emperor Guan was in relation to other immortal cultivators.


    The very next night the world saw that it wasn''t a work of their imagination because the dragon was still on the moon and a scientist estimated that it was almost six hundred miles long. Hellen gave her the exact size of that dragon and what it was called. It was called a Scarlet-HornedSpace Dragon and it was 592.3 miles long. From what Hellen had told her, It wasn''t even fully grown. Maxine couldn''t even imagine how big an adult one would be.


    Maxine brought herself back to the present as she walked outside of the hospital. She looked around, but didn''t see her mother''s car anywhere. Not that she could see anything with all of the reporters trying to talk to her. She had expected this to some degree, but she did not expect this many after that space dragon had appeared.Don''t these assholes have anything better to do on a Sunday?Fortunately the hospital had arranged for the nurse to help Maxine get to her mother''s car.


    On the drive home, Maxine detected four separate spiritual senses scanning her. She immediately extended her own spiritual sense and found the four sources of those spiritual senses. The closest one was a blonde pretty boy, who looked like a model. The next one was a more rugged looking young man with brown hair with a sword over his shoulder that was wrapped in cloth. The last two were actually a pair of twin girls. Both of them had raven black hair and were beautiful. All of those four were more powerful than Maxine by at least three ranks.


    "They arrived sooner than I expected," Hellen said through her spiritual sense.


    "Who are they?" Maxine asked with her own spiritual sense.


    "People from the alliance, I think. They must be here to either investigate or recruit essence cultivators," Hellen said, "As for whichgroup within the alliance that they belong to, I have no idea. Although that young man with the sword looks familiar, but I don''t know from where."


    "Fantastic," Maxine said sarcastically. She had to resist the urge to ask if it could get any worse, but didn''t want to jinx herself. It could always get worse. She had seen the power of that phrase when someone in her group during the other timeline had said it after they got rushed by a large group of bronze stage essence beasts. It had caused a pair of iron stage essence beasts to appear.


    "Look at the bright side. The mere fact that they are here, instead of much more powerful members of the Alliance, is a good thing," Hellen said, "It means that they don''t realize that you are my daughter."


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "I guess that''s the only good thing," Maxine said and knew it was only a matter of time before one of those four came to talk to her about joining their group. Maxine really didn''t want that if she could help it. If she joined a large group in the Alliance, the chances of being discovered by Poisn Emperor Guan''s enemies would rise sharply and it was quite possible they would take her off world in that case. She didn''t want to trust the government, or anyone else for that matter, to protect those that were important to her.


    When Maxine got home, Silky was extremely happy to the point that she was literately bouncing up and downwith joy. It was adorable. Maxine immediately gave Silky a hug before going to her room and Silky followed her. As soon as Maxine got in her room, she sat down on her bed and checked on her Shadow Wolves. Two days ago when she hadn''t been able to move, Maxine had ordered them to start hunting bronze stage and iron stage essence beasts within two hundred miles. She had done this on the off chance that one of those two Tempests Weasels were not the iron stage essence beast responsible for the next essence beast horde.


    When Maxine tallied up all of the essence cores that her Shadow Wolves had collected, She came up with a total of 242 bronze and10 iron stage essence cores and only two of her Shadow Wolves had been destroyed during their hunt. She wasn''t suprised that so few had been destroyed since her Shadow Wolves were essentially unkillable, unless their essence core was shattered. As for her ravens, they had joined up with her Shadow Wolves shortly after General Jones'' death by jumping from shadow to shadow.


    Maxine thought of a way to retreive those essence cores and ordered one of the ravens to come to her house.While it was enroute, Maxinetried to use her essence and immediately recoiled in pain. Although it hurt, it was still less than it was yesterday. She hadn''t even cultivated for the past couple days because it had caused her too much pain to do so.


    Maxine''s raven arrived ten minutes after she had summoned it and she opened the backdoor to let the raven inside. She summoned one of her shadow clones and had it combine with her raven. Just like she had expected, it turned into a harpy version of herself. She wanted to use this version of her shadow clone to retrieve the essence cores that her Shadow Wolves had collected, but since it was still light out and didn''t want it to be seen, Maxine ordered her shadow clone back into her shadow.


    Maxine wanted to talk to Hellen again about how she was able to kill that Tempest Weasel before. For some reason, she couldn''t accept that she was able to kill it just by using all of her essence at once. To her, it felt like her strength had jumped by a rank and the Tempest Weasel''s strength had dropped by a rank. It had been a bizzare feeling. Hellen always gave her a vague answer whenever Maxine asked about it. It was frustrating. However It was clear that Hellen didn''t wantMaxine to ever do a repeat performance of it.


    Maxine sat down on her bed and was about to talk to Hellen again when her cellphone made the tone to indicate that she had recieved a text message. She got it out to see that she had recieved a text message from Patrick. The content of the text was a code that she and Patrick had used in the previous timeline. To anyone else, it would look like runic symbols, but to Maxine it was as easy to read as english. Apparently, Patrick had harvested both of the two iron essence cores from the Tempest Weasels and wanted to give them to Maxine since she did all of the work. She had wondered what happened to them. Patrick wanted to give herboth of them since she had done almost all of the work. However Maxine thought it might be better to give Patrick alot of bronze essence cores as well.


    Maxine called Patrick to setup a place where they could meet up. Maxine suggested that she give them one hundred bronze essence cores and she immediately heard Meagan tell Patrick to agree in the background. She wondered for moment why Meagan was with him and realize that he must have taken Meagan out to eat.After a few moments, Maxine found out that they had a hard time finding any bronze essence beasts for the past couple days. Am I responsible for that?Maxine realized that her Shadow Wolves hunting range would include the areas that Patrick''s group could have chosen to hunt for bronze stage essence beasts. She immediately decided to double the number of bronze essence cores that she would give Patrick. However she wasn''t going to change the areas that her Shadow Wolves hunted. This method would ensure that no more essence beast hordes would appear anywhere near where she lived. Eventually they decided that they would meet sometime tomorrow.As she ended the call, Maxine noticed that Silky was looking at her from the hallway.


    "Mama, a weird man is watching the house," Silky said.


    "It''s probably just a reporter, Silky," Maxine asked.


    "That man doesn''t look like a reporter," Silky replied.


    "What does he look like then?" Maxine asked.


    "He has brown hair and has the cool rock that keeps changing colors," Silky said, "He also has a sword." Hecame hereway faster than I thought. I thought I would have at least another couple days before they would come near my house. I wonder where the other three are.


    "Don''t worry about him, Silky. If he wanted to do something bad, he would have done it already," Maxine said, "Now let''s go watch TV with grandma."


    "Alright," Silky said.


    As Maxine walked towards the couch to watch TV with Silky, she extended out her spiritual sense and found that same young man with the sword looking at her house from nearly half a mile away. When she found him, he immediately looked at the stone in his hand. It had just turned blue and the young man started smiling.


    Maxine asked Hellen, "Hellen are there any stones that change colors when exposed to spiritual sense?"


    "Hmm? Yes, there are," Hellen said, "Several as a matter of fact. Although most of them are used to detect any attempts at spying from stronger essence cultivators."


    "Do any of them turn blue?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, those are bloodline stones. They are used to locate missing relatives amongst weaker essence cultivators," Hellen responded, "But they don''t get used much by the stronger ones since their effective range is less than amile and it only works for those within two generations of each other. Why?"


    "Because that young man from before is holding one about half a mile away and the stone in his hand just turned blue when I scanned him with my spiritual sense," Maxine answered, "Why the hell didn''t you tell me that I might have blood relatives looking for me?"

 Chapter 54

    "I didn''t think my family would care enough to look for either of us," Hellen replied with a hint of anger, "I wasdisowned by my father when I eloped with Guan. Originally, I had been arranged to marry a man that I hated."


    "What the hell? Arranged marriages stopped being a thing since the dark ages," Maxine said, "And Your family should have known you wouldn''t agree to it."


    "Maxine, while arranged marriages are unheard of on earth, they are quite common within the alliance," Hellen responded, "The logic behind it is if two conflicting parties are kin they won''t fight, but that practice slowly became corrupted.Eventually they only performed arranged marriages to give two families an excuse to share valueable resources. I ruined any chances of that for my family when I eloped with Guan. That is why I was disowned and I am afraid that they may try to use you the same way that they tried to used me."


    "Like hell they will," Maxine responded.


    "You may not have a choice," Hellen said dispairingly, "That young man may just behereto locate you. There could be dozens of others on standby that are ready to forcibly take you back to my family."Maxine really didn''t want to leave Earth, but she didn''t want to be forced to marry anyone. For one she was far too young to even think about that. She tried to think of another reason why they would come here and realized that they could have mistaken Maxine for Hellen since they had very similar essence wavelengths.


    "Let''s not jump to conclusions just yet," Maxine said while trying to reason things out, "It could be just coincidence that young man is here. You said it yourself those bloodline stones are not typically used by stronger essence cultivators. He could be working on his own and confused you for me."


    "Ihad no siblings when my body died. It is far more likely that my parents had another child. Making that young man my brother," Hellen responded, "Also neither you or him are that powerful and he already had a rough idea where to look. So using a bloodline stone would make perfect sense."


    "Well shit," Maxine said and could sense Hellen''s concern. However Maxine had her own ideas about how to deal with this problem. One of them was to kill anyone that tried to take her away, but that wasn''t a good idea at this point. Maxine was currently not in any condition to fight. The most strength she could display, without enduring severe pain, was bronze rank 7. She couldn''t have Emily heal her either. Hellen had told Maxine that it wouldn''t help her recovery rate in the least. Although it may help her muscles and bones recover, Emily''s attempts at healing could make the damage to Maxine''s essence pathways worse. Emily''s control would have to be perfect and know what she is doing in order to heal Maxine''s essence pathways. The medicine that Poison Emperor Guan gave her was the best thing for her current injuries anyways.


    Maxine decided that she needed a surveillance system in place to be able to give her enough time to flee on the chance that they were there to kidnap her. Sheimmediately summoned all of her ravens, including all but one of the ravens in the shadow world. She was going to have them sit in trees like fixed cameras and patrol in the air to keep an eye out for essence cultivators. Fortunately, her ravens could quite literately see the strength of someone''s essence just based off their aura. All she needed to do was have them alert her to the approach of anyone surpassing bronze stage.


    Next Maxine conceived of an escape plan that could be put in motion instantly. She set up one of her shadow clones to be able to open a portal to the shadow world beneith Maxine''s feet on command. However she was worried about Silky and her mother. They could easily be used to draw Maxine out and she decided it would be best to take them with her when she fled. Unfortunately, she didn''t think that her Shadow Wolves would be a match for more than two or three iron stage cultivators. She would need at least a thousand of them to stand a chance at beating a dozen of them.


    Suddenly the doorbell rang and brought Maxine out of her thoughts. She immediately flung her spiritual sense to the front door to see who it is and saw that same young man again.Maxine was confused. She thoughthe wasgoing to try and kidnap her in the middle of the night, not come to her front door to say hello.


    Maxine''s mother answered the door and was greeted by the young man with the sword, "Hello, Ma''am. Could you give this to your daughter for me? I am a fan and I want to give her a gift." He held out a small gift wrapped box while scratching the back of his head. It was covered in green wrapping paper. A red ribbon was used to bind it closed with a bow at the top. The gift box wasbarely big enough to be able to fit a golf ball inside of it.


    Her mother smiled as she answered, "Of course."


    "Thank you," He said as he turned away to leave, "Have a good day."


    "Wait a moment," Maxine''s mother said, "Can you tell me your name? My daughter may want to know who to thank for this gift."


    "Zeph," he said as he looked over his shoulder as he left. Maxine felt confused as shetried scanning that box with her spiritual sense, but it wouldn''t penetrate into it. Her mother had already closed the front door and Maxine tried finding Zeph again. However he was no where to be found. Maxine got up and went to her mother to get the gift box.


    "One of your fans dropped this off," her mother said as she handed the gift box to her.


    "I know," Maxine said as she took it.


    Maxine quickly went to her room and used her spiritual sense to talk to Hellen again, "What is inside of this thing? My spiritual sense won''t penetrate into the gift box. I don''t want to open this up to get acloud of knockout gas to my face."


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "One moment," Hellen said as Maxine detected Hellen''s powerful spriitual sense at work, "A dimensional pouch is inside of it and a letter. It''s addressed to you."


    "Thanks," Maxine said as sheremoved the ribbon that was binding the gift box shut. She already knew that the ribbon was made out of a material even more durable than Silky''s silk from trying to scan the inside of the gift box earlier. When Maxine opened the box, she pulled out the letter and began reading it. ''Do not trust any of the people that invite you to join their sect. They only want to use for their own purposes. I can''t explain why, but you need to trust me. There is a communication device inside of the dimensional pouch. You can contact me with that later by injecting your essence into it.'' is what was witten.


    "That isn''t the only message on there. There is a secret one that has been placed on this paper using an old method only known to my family," Hellen said through her spiritual sense, "Inject a thread of essence into the bottom left corner of the note and you will see it for yourself."


    Although it cause a minor stinging sensation, Maxine did as Hellen directed and saw golden lettering appear on the paper. She quickly began reading it, ''My name is Zephyr Kavros and I am your uncle. If you are reading this then my suspicionsthat Hellen''s soul is in that braceletare true.There are some important thingsthat you need to know. Guan''s strength has increased immensely in the last one hundred years and he is about to ascend. Once he does, he won''t be able to protect you any more. Two years ago, he halted his cultivation to avoid ascending. I can only assume he did that so that he could watch over you until your strength was great enough to protect yourself. Unfortunately I haven''t had an opportunity to confirm this by talking to him. However even though he is that powerful, there are individuals that want to control him. Personally I think they are being suicidal considering your father''s history, but they think with the right leverage it would be possible. If they find out that you are his daughter, they will believe that they have found that leverage, but all they will find is death. Through their stupidity, and his, they would greatly weaken the Alliance as a whole and it would allow the evil races to gain moreterritory than they already have. It is in the best interest of everyone that you remain unknown. So I am begging you, do not join any sect. For if you do, they will realize you are his daughter and it will doom many innocentpeople to slavery and death.''


    Maxine cut off the flow of essence to the letter and it returned to it''s previous state.She was relieved that her identity as Poison Emperor Guan''s daughter was for the most part unknown to those that come to Earth. However she was worried about the intentions of her ''uncle,'' but what he had said made alot of sense. She needed to confirm that Guan is like that with Hellen before she would trust Zephyr alittle bit.


    "Hellen, what do you think about this letter?" Maxine asked through her spiritual sense.


    "It''s plausible. Guan never was one to tolerate others trying to control him and he has the strength to destroy any single faction within the Alliance just with his poisons. That was before his increase in strength. Now that he is stronger, he could probably do it without them," Hellen responded, "I remember when Guan was still weak. He was being forced to concoct medicines for a sect. That same sect became a poisonedruin two years afterwards. Last time I checked, no one below gold stage could go there without beingkilled by the residual poison mist."


    "Well that answers that question," Maxine said as she wondered why Zeph would even care about her. He wasn''t around when she was growing up, so he shouldn''t have any familial feelings towards Maxine. She didn''t even know if they had the same familial values as people from Earth. However it would make sense if he had been ordered by his family to give this warning.Why would those assholes order Zeph to do that? Wait. Hellen said her father disowned her, but said nothing about her mother. Ismy biological grandmother the one pulling the strings here?


    Maxine grabbed the dimensional pouch that was in the gift box and searched it''s contents. Just like the note said there was a device inside of the dimensional pouch and nothing else. It was disk shaped with alot of engraved runes on it and had a small bluesphericalgem in the center. She withdrew it from the dimensional pouch. It was only about the size of her palm.


    "Hellen, what is this thing and how do I use it?" Maxine asked using her spiritual sense.


    "It''s a Communication Disk. It allows essence users to communicate with each other from across the galaxy instantly. The gem in the center projects a holographic display of the one you are talking to," Hellen explained, "As for how to use it, just inject your spiritual sense into it and feed some of your essence into one of the recorded essence wavelengths of a person that is holding one. The disk will do the rest." Maxine put her spiritual sense into Communication Disk and foundtwo recorded essence wavelengths. One was Zeph''s, but she had no idea whose the other one was. She guessed that it was one of her biological grandparents. However Maxine had to restrain herself from using this thing tocontact Zeph. Part of her wanted to trust him, but her logical side of herself knew better. She quickly retracted her spiritual sense and placed the disk into her dimensional pouch.


    As for the dimensional pouch that Maxine wasn''t using, she thought it would be a good gift to give to Emily. Maxine put fifty bronze essence cores into it as well. It would do wonders for her cultivation. Now allMaxine had to do was give it to Emily and give her some training. Emily needed to learn how to avoid getting hit and fleesince she had already learned the defensive barriers. It would be a good way for Maxine to distract herself from her worries and it would nice to spend some time with Emily.


    Maxine called Emily''s cellphone and once Emily answered, she said, "Maxine? Are you home now?"


    "Yes, I am," Maxine replied, "I wanted to know if you wanted to do a few things with me tomorrow."


    "I can," Emily said, "What do you have in mind?"


    "I want to do some training and take you out to lunch," Maxine replied.


    "Training!? You just got out of the hospital! You shouldn''t push yourself like that," Emily reprimanded.


    "It''s not for me. It''s for you," Maxine said, "You need to learn how to dodge. I also have a gift for you."


    "Oh," Emily said, "What''s the gift?"


    "A surprise," Maxine said teasingly.


    "Alright," Emily chuckled lightly, "When should we meet up?"


    Maxine thought for a moment before she answered, "Around ten."


    "See you then," Emily said.


    "Alright, bye," Maxine said and the call ended. She was in a better mood now that she had talked to Emily. However she still didn''t like the fact that essence cultivators from the Alliance were on Earth. Fortunately, she learned from Zeph that none of them, besides himself, even suspected her ancestry, but she wasn''t going to take any risks. She was going to have her ravens on lookout and have them wake her if any essence cultivators approached her house.

 Chapter 55

    Maxine was tired this morning. Hellen had decided to teach her how to defend against charm-type skills lastnight until it was beyond late and Maxine had been woken up twice by her ravens after she had already gone to bed. Both times were nothing more than the essence cultivators from yesterday checking where Maxine lived. Although it confused her why they didn''t just wait until morning to locate her. However she pushed all of those thoughts out of her head as she got ready to go spend some time with Emily.


    Maxine got dressed and checked on Silkyto make sure she was getting ready as well. Maxine''s mother had gone back to work today and it meant that Maxine had to take Silky with her. Maxine thought her mother was pushing it, but understood why she forced herself to go to work. The money they had was dwindling and they needed the income from her mother''s job. It didn''t help that Silky ate more than Maxine and her mother put together and the recent hospital bills weren''t helping either. The good part though was that Maxine was able to suppliment their food with essence beast meat, which helped with the food costs, but that didn''t help as much as she would like. The only things that Maxine could think of to help with the household bills was to either craft equipment to sell to the military, sell the silk that Silky produces, or do paid interviews on TV.


    Maxine debated the pros and cons of those three choices while she brushed her hair. Out of thethree choices, selling equipment to the military would give her a very steady and large source of income, but she wasn''t too fond of them after General Jones had tried to get her killed. Not to mention, they may see her medieval style weaponry and armor as useless beside guns and kevlar. As for selling Silky''s silk, it wouldn''t sell as high, and Maxinewouldn''t know who she could sell it to. Not to mention someone might try to kidnap Silky to produce silk once the knew that she had that capacity. She didn''t even consider the TV interviews because it wouldn''t be a steady form of income. Once the public got tired of her, she would no long be able to use that method. None of the methods for gaining income had any particular strong points. It was frustrating.


    Maxine let out a sigh and pushed those thoughts out of her head as she walked into the kitchen to pick up the fifty dollars that her mother left on the counter. For today, she was going to enjoy her day with Emily and Silky. Maxine turned around and saw Silky was waiting next to the front door.


    "Alright, Silky. Let''s go and pick up Emily," Maxine said.


    "Okay, mama," Silky said.They left the house and made their way to Emily''s house.


    As soon as they got there Maxine knocked on the door and was greeted by General McKenzy smiling face. His eyes landed on Silky. Silky smiled and said, "Hello."


    "Hello, Silky," General McKenzy said and shifted his gaze towards Maxine. However his expression shifted to concernas soon as his eyes landed on Maxine''s face and he asked, "Maxine, is there something wrong? You look agitated." Maxine hadn''t been aware she hadthat kind of expression on her face.


    "I am just worried about how my mom is going to continue paying the bills," Maxine said honestly, "Hospital billsand Silky''s nutritional needs have drained mom''s bank account. I know she hasn''t said anything, but I know it''s beginning to become a problem." Maxine saw that General McKenzy was giving her an appreciative look.


    "Marvelous. Most teenagers don''t show this level of awareness," General McKenzy said, "However if it''s additional income you need, why not just teach others how to cultivate? I don''t recall ever making you sign an agreement not to."


    "That''s... a great idea," Maxine answered. I don''t know why I didn''t think of it. However when she thought about it more carefully, it became daunting task. She had a responsibility to make sure that each of her students had a certain level of character to ensure that they wouldn''t use their new abilities for criminal activity. With the military, she had known that each of her students had already been thoroughly checked over by psychologists, but in this situation, it would be all on her.At least, this is the most stable form of income for me since who wouldn''t want to become super strong and be able to run as fast as a car. It''s like being a super hero. And I know the perfect place to find students. I just need to place a few posts with my requirements on some websites and I will have my potential students.Doing thatwould also make another statement. It would be stating that essence cultivators that awoke to their power naturallywere not mutants and still human. They were simply people with a higher aptitude for cultivation.


    "Glad, I could help,"General McKenzy said while showing a gentle smile and turned his head slightly a moment later, "You two enjoy your day." Maxine saw Emily appear next to General McKenzy as he finished speaking.


    "We will, Grandpa," Emily said cheerfully, "Let''s get going, Maxine." Maxine noticed that Emily was dressed up for today and was wearing a backpack. Undoubtedly with a spare set of clothes for their training session.


    "Sure," Maxine said as she lead the way and looked over her shoulder at General McKenzy, "We should be back before three. See you later."


    They left at anice slow run with Maxine leading Emily and Silky to Silky''s former nest site. Although their slow run was nearly fifty miles per hour, it was still slow for them. Maxine didn''t dare go any faster since Emily was only bronze rank 1 and had only recently decided to start using her increased speed to get around town. She didn''t have enough time to get used to her maximum speed yet and might accidentally run into someone. That would be little different than the unfortunate person being hit by a car.


    It took them almost five times longer to get to Silky''s former nest. There were lots of holes and missing sections to Silky''s former nest. It made Silky distraught the moment she saw it. Maxine soothed Silky, "It''s alright Silky. Remember you live in a house now and we don''t need your webs to feed ourselves either."


    "That''s not it, mama," Silky said while looking even more upset, "This is the place we found each other. I want it to stay the same way." Maxine felt touched and was thankful Emily was staying out of this.


    "Silky," Maxine said soothingly as she knelt down to get on the same eye level as Silky, "It''s not possible to make it stay the same forever. The trees will grow as will the bushes that your webs connect to. But as long as you cherishyour memories of that time, it will always exist in you."


    "Really?" Silky asked with a bright smile.


    "Yes," Maxine replied. She saw Silky''s six eyes sparkle with joy. Maxine knew that even though Silky often showed great intelligence she would ocasionally do things like this to remind Maxine just how youngSilky really is.


    Maxine stood up and turned towards Emily and said, "Now let''s start the training session. First I need to do a review over what we did last time, so both of you show me your best barrier." Silky and Emily nodded as they both formed a Revolving Rumble Barrier. Silky, the same as last time,formed her barrier almost instantly. Howeverwhat surprised Maxine was that Emily had done it just as fast as Silky had and it seemed she was doing it effortlessly.She must have been practicing.Maxine was pleased about that. "Good, I see you have been practicing, Emily," Maxine praised, "Now that I know we don''t need to work on barriers at all, we can get to learning how to dodge."


    "How exactly will we be learning to do that?" Emily asked as she released her barrier.


    "That''s easy. I will make you dodge the attacks of essence beasts," Maxine responded, "Don''t worry too much about getting hurt though. I will make sure that they are far weaker and slower than either of you. It shouldn''t be too hard to dodge the attacks fromthem and it willbe alot harder for them to hurt you. Just keep in mind that they still can." Maxine extended her spiritual sense as she finished speaking and found a few copper stage essence beasts. Shedecided on the one that was either copper stage one for them to usefor practicing to dodge. When they were that weak,she could easily intercept it if Emily or Silky couldn''t dodge fast enough.


    Maxine quickly used her shadow tendrils to capture a wolf-type essence beast. She didn''t dare get a rat-type. It would bring back some bad memories from when the Sadist Rats attacked their school and it would cause Emily to hesitate or even freeze up entirely.


    While the essence beast was being transported, Emily took the opportunity to get changed behind some bushes. She came back out dressed in workout clothes as aCopper-Fang Wolf appeared while wrapped in shadow tendrils. It was still struggling in her tendrils. She walked up to it and stared it in the eyes as she connected to it''s mind with her spiritual sense. She thought she should at least try to see if it would be willing to help them train. Maxine pulled out two copper essence cores while trying to impress onto this essence beast using a series of mental images that if it does what she wants it to, she would give it the two copper essence cores after they were done.Maxine smiled to herself as the Copper-Fang Wolf stopped struggling and wagged it''s tail once to show it''s agreement. She hadn''t actually expected it to understand her due to it''s level of cultivaton, but this was definitely a pleasant surprise.


    "Maxine, what are you doing to it?" Emily asked.


    "I just wanted to see if it would agree to helping us train," Maxine replied as she removed the shadow tendrils from the Copper-Fang Wolf, "It agreed by the way and your up first."


    "Oh, alright," Emily said as she formed her priestess-like essence armor and seemed to get into a defensive stance.Maxine sent a few more images to the Copper-Fang Wolf to let it know to train with Emily first. However she made it clear to take it easy at firstas if it was playing with a pup.


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    Maxine watched as the Copper-Fang Wolf trotted towards Emily and jumped at her. Emily awkwardly dodged to the left and nearly fell down because she did it too forcefully. Maxine wanted to give Emily advice, but stopped herself when she saw that Emily became more focused. The wolf jumped at her again, and Emily dodged it. Although Emily''s movements were too big in Maxine''s opinion, but Emily was still able to keep her balance. It was an improvement, so she kept silent as she continued to watch Emily dodge the Copper-Fang Wolf. Emily was quickly dodging more and more smoothly as time progressed and the wolf began adding bites and scratches into it''s attacks. However Emily was able to dodge it all, but that was to be expected with the large cultivation gap between the two of them.


    Maxine checked the time and saw that Emily had only been practicing for only an hour. Yet she was able to dodge the Copper-Fang Wolf fluidly during this time, but she looked like she was starting to get tired. However the Copper-Fang Wolf seemed to be just fine. Maxine shook her head slightly as she remembered most wolves had incredible endurance.


    "Okay that''s enough," Maxine said as she snapped her fingers since she had already let the wolf know that it was the signal to stop, "Good job, Emily." The Copper-Fang Wolf immediately spun around and came to Maxine, whom had an copper essence core for it in her palm. The Copper-Fang Wolf quickly devoured the essence core and looked towards Silky. It clearly knew that Silky was next up for the dodging training.


    "Your turn, Silky," Maxine said and saw that Silky formed her platemail-type essence armor.


    "I am ready," Silky said eagerlyand Emily went behind the bushes again to change back into her nice clothes. The Copper-Fang Wolf jumped at Silky just as it got into range. Silky''s left legs kicked at the ground and she literately flew out of the way. Maxine was surprised at Silky''s fluid movement as Silky landed smoothly. She had done this with minimal movement and hadn''t gone off balance at landing. Maxine guessed thatSilky could have figured something out by watching Emily or that she had learned it while she was still roaming around saving people from essence beasts.Those were theonly reasonable things that Maxine could think of.


    However Maxine didn''t say anything and continued to watch as Silky dodged. The Copper-Fang Wolf was far faster to incorporate bites and scratches with Silky, but she was still able to dodge wonderfully. However Maxine did see a few errors with Silky''s dodging when she looked carefully, but those quickly disappeared as time went on. Maxine kept an eye on the time and snapped her fingers after an hour had passed.


    "Okay, we are done for now," Maxine said, "You did very good, Silky." Silky revealed a big smile at that praise.


    Maxine quickly gave the Copper-Fang Wolf it''s reward and used a series of images to let it know that they would return another day. She also let it know that they needed more training partners for multiple angle dodging practice and that she would reward them accordingly. The Copper-Fang Wolf looked at her for a moment and ran into the forest.


    "So, are we done for the day?" Emily asked.


    "Yes," Maxine replied, "Do you want to go out to eat now?" Silky''s face brightened considerably at the mention of food.


    "Sure," Emily said, "But where could we go? I''m not sure there are any restraunts that could handle Silky''s appetite or even let her through the door."


    "Let me worry about that," Maxine said and thought for a moment, "There is a chinese buffet, but it would take us about twenty minutes to run it from here. Would the both of you like to try that?"


    "Sounds good to me," Emily said, "What about you, Silky? Do you like chinese food?"


    "Yes!" Silky said.


    "Alright, let''s head out," Maxine said as they all got to their feet and ran towards the restraunt.


    When the three of them finally got to the restraunt, Maxine was pleased to know that they would indeed let Silky come in to eat. However they would charge her for full price due to her size, but Maxine didn''t complain in the least since Silky could eat more than any two people combined. Unfortunately the place was rather busy and almost everyone noticed as Silky came in and watched her as she piled on alot of different meats onto her plate before she went to their table.


    Maxine and Emily gosspied about random things during their meal and when they went to the cash register to pay the bill, Maxine noticed out of the corner of her eye that the blonde pretty boy from before was sitting at a distant table inside of the restaurant. He had probably been watching them for some time considering he was obviously on his second or third plate. He waved at her when she turned her head slightly to get a better look. Sheglared angrily at him since she didn''t like being followed and walked out of the building with Emily and Silky.


    "What was that about?" Emily asked after they left the building.


    "Just a pretty boy trying to recruit me," Maxine answered and winced as she realized that she said too much. She had just answered Emily reflexively due to how much she trusted her.


    "Recruit you for what?" Emily asked. Maxine thought for a moment and decided to answer truthfully.


    "To bemember of his sect, clan or faction," Maxine said and added, "He isn''t from Earth."


    "How can you be sure of that?" Emily asked curiously.


    "Hellen said as much after checking him and a few others out," Maxine replied, "And another recruiter verified it when he approached me."


    "Oh," Emily said, "Did you join any of those groups?"


    "No," Maxine answered, "The chances that they would take me off of Earth are too high for my tastes and I don''t want to be separated from you or my family if it''s possible." Emily smiled happily with a slight blush on her face.


    "Alright neither will I if they approach me," Emily declared, "How about we go back to my house to watch some movies?"


    "Sounds good to me," Maxine said.


    "Can we have some popcorn?" Silky asked innocently. Both Maxine and Emily looked at Silky and laughed.


    "Of course, we will," Maxine said after she stopped laughing, "Now let''s get moving."


    The three of them ran to Emily''s house and made some popcorn before sitting down to watch a movie. General McKenzy left them alone during this time and Maxine took advantage of the situation to cuddle with Emily on the couch. Maxine didn''t even care about what they were watching so long as she could be near Emily. After the movie was over, it was getting close to dinner time.


    "Looks like we need to head home, Silky," Maxine announced after stretching a bit, "I would stay longer, if I hadn''t promised mom I would be back for dinner." Silky looked at Maxine for a moment and started to shove what little popcorn was left into her mouth. Maxine smiled at Silky''s antics and turned towards Emily.


    "Let me see you to the door then," Emily said as she took them to the front door, but she stopped and turned around as if she were waiting for something. Maxine was wondering what it was and could only think of a goodbye kiss. She leaned closer to Emily to confirm this and saw thatEmily didn''t retreat or avoid her. Maxine went for it and gently kissed Emily on the lips. To her joy, Emily kissed back. Maxine''s arms wrapped around Emily''schest as Emily wrapped her arms around Maxine''s neck. She wasn''t certain how long they were kissing for, but right as Maxine wanted to deepen their kiss, she heard General McKenzy cough a couple times just behind her. She quickly separated from Emily while blushing fiercely. Emily was in a similar condition. General McKenzy had a neutral expression, which Maxine could only assume meant he was angry. Only Silky was showing a toothy grin.


    "I am going to have two mamas," Silky declared, which only made Maxine and Emily blush all the deeper. General McKenzy looked at Silky for a moment as he let out a sigh.


    "I think you and Silky shouldgo home now," General McKenzy said while looking at Maxine.Yep, he is definitely pissed.


    "Yes, sir," Maxine said meekly as she opened the front door and had Silky follow her. She had felt as if she were being supressed by General McKenzy''s eyes. It was as ifMaxine were still a man and had encountered a girl''s father after being caught with her hand up the girl''s shirt. It was that same kind of overpowering feeling.


    However as Maxine started to leave, she remembered she had promised Emily a gift and quickly fished out the dimensional pouch from her pocket and tossed it to her while saying, "That''s your gift. It''s a dimensional pouch. See you later, Emily." Maxine sent quick instructions on how to use a dimensional pouch via her spiritual sense before turning around to leave.


    "See you later," Emily replied from the front door, "And thank you."


    Maxineretreated home with Silky while thinking about her day. Aside from the appearance of the blonde pretty boy, she had an excellent day. She got to spend alot of time with Emily and Silky, got to cuddle with emily and even kiss her again. Now if only I didn''t have to worry about anyone finding out that I am Guan''s daughter, this day would be perfect. At least being with Emily made me forget about it for awhile.


    As soon as Maxine got home, she ate dinner with a smile and told her mother about her day with Emily and Silky. Her mother seemed happy to hear the whole thing, but Maxine omitted the parts about the essence cultivators from another world. Her mother didn''t need to know about that stuff since it would only cause her to worry. Maxine noticed that Silky didn''t seem as hungry tonight as she normally did. Maxine could only assume that Silky had filled up on popcorn.


    After dinner, Maxine went to her room and pulled out all of the iron stage essence cores that her Shadow Wolves had collected. She wondered if her essence core was stable enough to train using these essence cores. She needed to boost her power as quickly as possible to be able to defend herself.


    "Hellen, is my cultivation stable enough to train with these essence cores?" Maxine asked using her spiritual sense.


    "Let me check," Hellen said as she scanned Maxine''s essence core, "You should be able to cultivate using those essence cores right now. However your essence vortex is slightly offbalance, but it should correct itself while you cultivate. The only problem is this would onlyhappenif you had a massive boost in strength in the last few months. Care to explain that?" Maxine quickly explained the reason for it and why she did it. "Maxine that was extremely risky. If your cultivation method were as advanced as it was, you would have died," Hellen reprimanded, "Do not ever even think about doing that again under any circumstance!" It was something Maxine already knew.


    "I know, Hellen," Maxine said, "I am perfectly aware that if I messed up my core would have ruptured and turned me into a bloody mist and I have no intention of ever doing that again."


    "Good," Hellen said, "Now I need to rest some more. I spent a good part of my day watching you and your lover today." Maxine couldn''t help but blush slightly at that comment.


    "Alright, rest well," Maxine said as she checked to seehow many essence cores that her Shadow Wolves had collected today. They had collected only 5 iron and another 203 bronze essence cores. She would send her shadow clone to retrieve them after dark as she did last night.


    Maxine quickly formed a portal to the shadow world and jumped into it. She intended to cultivate, practice the Phantasmal Steps of the Shadow Cat and make more Shadow Wolves. She had neglected that skill for long enough. With essence cultivators at least six times stronger than her, she needed every ounce of speed that she could muster.


    Maxine quickly walked to her usual spot to cultivate and put all but 4 of the iron essence cores back into her dimensional pouch. She was going to see how much essence she could absorb using the method Silky had demonstrated her the other day before she started training in her other skills. However before Maxine started, she wondered how Amanda''s petition was coming and decided to check it either tomorrow or the day after.

 Chapter 56

    Maxine was in an amazingly good mood this morning. Last night she had managed to absorb three of the iron stage essence cores before reaching her limit and had broken through to iron stage rank 2. Twenty of her Shadow Wolves broke into iron stage as well at the same time she increased her strength and ten of her copper stage Shadow Wolves had entered the bronze stage. Even all of her ravens had ranked up to bronze stage. All of which happened last night. She hadn''t truly expected that her creations could actually increase their stage of cultivation until it happened. It had been a wonderful surprise. The wonderful day time that she spent with Emily yesterday is another reason for her good mood as well.


    Maxine decided to check on the video that she posted a few days ago featuring Silky''s physical abilities. She had been trying to help Amanda with her petition when she made it. However once she checked the comments on on that video, she got angry. More than a third of the people that watched it were either internet trolls or wanted to imprison all essence cultivators. Another third of the people had responded that things should stay the way they are. The remaining third actually thought it was a good idea to have a specialized police force. Maxine didn''t knowwhetherthe video helped or not. Maxine checked a news website next, but it didn''t mention anything about the need for a specialized police force for essence cultivators. It seemed like the public just didn''t care. However Maxine knew that they would care as soon as a few essence cultivators decide to use theirincredible abilities for criminal activity in a very public place. Maxine let out a sigh before she called Amanda on her cellphone.


    "Hey, Maxine," Amanda said over the phone, "How was your date with Emily?"


    "What?" Maxine said while feeling surprised since she hadn''t said a thing about it to Amanda, "How did you know we went on a date?"


    "Maxine, you can''t honestly believe that your social life won''t become public knowledge now that you''re a celebrity," Amanda said.


    "I knew that me dating Emily would be found out eventually, but I never thought it would be this fast," Maxine admitted.


    "Well it did," Amanda said, "Now what was the reason why you called me?"


    "I was wondering how your petition was coming," Maxine said, "Did the video I post do any good?"


    "Oh, that," Amanda sounded frustrated, "Your video both helped and hurt my petition. It helped raise people''s awareness of the strengths that essence cultivators could possess and made them see the reasonfor having a specialized police force. The problem is that almost an equal number of people want to make essence cultivators wear a device to mark them, so that they could avoid them."


    "That sounds alot like what Hitler made the Jews do," Maxine said, "And everyone knows how that turned out."


    "I know," Amanda said, "I am trying to keep that from happening for now."


    "Good luck," Maxine said, "Anything I can do to help?"


    "No, there isn''t. Not unless you can make those idiots see reason," Amanda said jokingly.


    "Making a politician see reason when it doesn''t benefit them? I think I will have an easier time turning water to wine," Maxine said and heard Amanda chuckle on the other end of the line.


    "Indeed," Amanda said and she sighs before continuing, "I will try to call you if there is a change."


    "Thanks, Amanda," Maxine said, "Take care of yourself."


    "Will do," Amanda said and she ended the call.


    Maxine went back to her room and froze when she saw a gift box on her bed with a note on top of it. It creeped her out since she hadn''t detected anyone, not even Silky, enter her room. Maxine quickly scanned the note with her spiritual sense rather than approach it. ''Maxine, inside this box is avery special armor called Shadow''s Embrace. It can bond with its user when you first inject your essence into it and from that moment on it will become part of you. When active, it will provide you over four times the defensive capabilitiesthat your essence armor would provide alone and it will work in harmony with your essence armor to provide you with a total of five times your normaldamage resistive abilities without limiting your movement. Outside of battle, it will reside within your body and will not effect your day to day life. To activate it, just use your essence armor and Shadow''s Embrace will equip itself. Once you no longer need it retract your essence armor, and it will be absorbed back into your own body. Do not worry about repairing it. It has a self-repair function when it is not in use. If you have any questions about it that I haven''t answered, just ask your mother. She knows just about as much about these kinds of armors as I do. I know this can''t make up forleaving you with that man or for anything else I have done. I know that you will never treat me as your father.Just know that I only wish for you to be safe and to know that I love you, even if you do not love me. Your father, Guan,'' is what was written on the note. After she had finished reading the last line, the note spontaneously combusted where it sat and Maxine wasn''t surprised the note would combust like that. It fit with the overly cautious personality he had displayed so far.


    Maxine was thoroughly impressed if the armor in the gift box did everything that he mentioned. Her own Steel Silk Vest only provided her an extra layer of defense and it only covered her chest. However from his description it would cover most, if not all, of her body.


    Maxine quickly opened the gift box and saw that the armor is mostly black and grey. She pulled out the top piece of the armor to get a better look at it. It was a hooded leather chest armor with long sleeves and had multiple declorative straps on the lower back and stomach. The hooded portion came with a small face mask that covered everything except the area around her eyes.Seriously? Is he trying to make me a feminine version of himself?She quicklylifted the pants out of the gift box and held it up infront of herself. The pants were quite simple and only had a single strap around the waist to act like a belt. She put the pants on her bed and looked back towards the gift box. She saw a pair of boots and fingerless gloves made of the same material as the rest of the armor and had a set of beautiful grey bracers made of some strange metal. They had exquisitely carved wolves and ravens on them and almost looked like they were made of marble.


    Maxine wondered how it would all look on her and quickly got changed into it. She didn''t want to put on the face mask, but it seemed to be part of the hood. As she got into the clothes, she found that everything fit her quite snuggly and it seemed to have some elasticity to it which would accomadate any of her future growth. Maxine looked at herself with her spiritual sense once she had gotten theShadow''s Embrace armor on.She did a few stretches to see if it inhibited her movements and was happy to find that it didn''t inhibit her movements at all. She was quite satisfied with this armor as it was. She had a hard time imagining how much better it would be with her essence armor added to it. Maxineactivated her essence armor and her jaw dropped when she saw that theShadow''s Embrace armor transformed. Scales that came with her essence armor appeared all over her armor with an exception of her bracers and her white mask formed as usual, but it formed over the face mask of the Midnight Ward armor instead of under it. A faint, almost invisible, shadowy aura emanated off of the armor. She had a feeling that if she were to walk around at night that she just mightbecome invisible. However her attention was drawn to the scales covering herShadow''s Embrace armor. The scales on it were far more defined than her essence armor by itself. They almost looked like they belonged to a snake or dragon.


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    "I see your father''sfashion sense hasn''t changed," Hellen said jokingly using her spiritual sense, "Those bracers are not just decorative by the way. They can store your creations inside of them even when they in their inactive state."


    "That will be useful. How long have you been awake?" Maxine asked since Hellen normally says something as soon as she awakens.


    "I woke up in time to see thenote your father left burst into flames," Hellen said and paused for a moment before continuing, "Guan really went to a lot of work to customize that armor for you. He even made it so that it would combine with your essence armor. That is no small feat especially since that is a skill unique to Earth."


    "I know," Maxine said and started to complain, "But did he have to make it look so much like his own equipment?"


    "Don''t worry about that. It can adjust its shape according to your will. It may even be possible that those scales could disappear too," Hellen said.


    "How?" Maxine asked curiously since she hated how the scales of her essence armor made her look.


    "Concentrate on your armor and think of it as smooth and ridgeless," Hellen replied and Maxine focused her mind. She envisioned the armor she was wearing as smooth as it was before she activated her essence armor. However when she opened her eyes, the scales remained. Nothing. Maybe I am doing something wrong. Let''s try something else.She quicklyenvisioned herself wearing an elegant green dress from the medieval period and the armor shifted into that. However the scales were still there yet they accentuated the beauty of the dress. Each scale was lined with gold.Seems I am stuck with them. At least they''re pretty like this."Were those scales intentional?" Hellen asked, "Because they''re beautiful."


    "No," Maxine answered.


    "That''s... odd," Hellen answered, "Perhaps there is something neither of us are seeing."


    "Maybe," Maxine says while not completely believing Hellen didn''t know what was going on.


    Maxine retracted her essence armor and watched as it literately melt and absorb into her skin. It felt and looked disturbing, but it didn''t seem to hurt her. It took less than a second to completely absorb into her flesh. She knew that it would form the scaled-covered Shadow''s Embrace armor if she activated her essence armor. However Maxine wanted to test first. She coated herself with her essence armor and the scale-covered Shadow''s Embrace armor formed on her body almost instantly.It seems to revert back to that shape by default when I am not specifically controlling it. I am just happy that it forms over my clothes. If it didn''t, I would basically be ripping off my clothes every time I form my essence armor from now on. It would be embaressing. Maxineretracted her essence armor and the process took the same amount of time to dissolve into her skin as before. She stood there in her bra and underwear for a moment before she started getting dressed.


    Afterwards Maxine wandered around the house wondering where Silky was. She hadn''t seen her at all since breakfast and found her in the living room reading a book on tailoring that Maxine had borrowed from the library. Maxine smiled and was about to walk away when she saw countless silken threads come out of Silky''s spinnerettes. Each thread acted like a prism and gave off a different color depending on how the light touched it. It looked like tiny rainbows were weaving themselves together. It was a mesmerizing sight.


    However Maxine couldn''t figure out how Silky was weaving the clothes until she scanned the silken threads with her spiritual sense. Silky was manipulating each silken thread with her essence. It allowed Silky to makejust about whatever she wanted without seams. It was as heavy as normal clothing and quite nearly bullet proof.


    At that moment, Maxine came to a sudden realization. Oh, shit.If anyone knew that she could make clothes like that, the military, or any government agency for that matter, they would try to take Silky away from me. And now that I think about it, my idea to sell Silky''s silk would have been extremely risky as well. What the fuck was I thinking?


    Maxine quickly checked to see if anyone could see Silky weaving the cloth from the windows. Fortunately Silky''s spinnerettes were in a blind spot, which caused Maxine to feel relieved. She quickly knelt down and touched Silky''s shoulder to get her attention. Silky looked at Maxine curiously.


    "Silky, I need you to avoid making silk infront of anyone other than me or grandma Claudia," Maxine said, "Do you understand?"


    "Yes, mama. Grandma Hellen already told me not to," Silky said, "She said people are greedy.They would look at my silk like it''s woven gold and try to take me away."Hellen, you are a life-saver.


    "Then why are you in such an open area of the house making a bolt of silk?" Maxine asked while pointing at the windows one by one.


    "Nobody can see my spinnerettes from any of the windows and my spider friends are watching for anyone as well," Silky said, "And I am making something for Emily, not a bolt of silk." Maxine wondered what Silky could possibly be making and looked behind Silky to see that the silken cloth was actually formed into a circular band.


    "What are you making?" Maxine asked, "And what do you mean ''spider friends?''"


    "I am making her a shirt. Just like the one she wore when we went to practice dodging before she changed," Silky answered and pointed at a spot behind Maxine, "There is one of my spider friends now." Maxine turned around and saw a small spider on the wall near the roof.Silky make various snapping and clicking sounds that were clearly an insectiod language to prove that she could. To Maxine''s surprise, the spider answered back. "Mama, she likes you," Silky said and suddenly she started to lookupset as the spider made a few more noises, "Mama, that spider just said someone asked her alot of questions."


    "What kind of questions?" Maxine asked while feeling alarm rising.


    "Like how you were treating me and if i was happy," Silky answered.


    "Who were they and what did they look like?" Maxine asked while knowing full well that the spider wasn''t likely to remember something of that level of detail.


    Silky made some more of those noises before she answered, "She said they smell like a spider and a human at the same time. Just like I do."If they smell like that, it would mean that they are arachne. But are they from Earth? I doubt it. Looks like I was wrong.I need to talk to Hellen and I need to know if they will try to take Silky away.


    "Thank you for telling me, Silky," Maxine said as she gently hugged Silky, "I will leave you alone so you can get back to your book." Maxine walked to the couch and sat down.


    Maxine sat there thinking for a few moments before contacting Hellen through her spiritual sense, "Mom, can I ask you something?" Maxine had put off calling Hellen mom for long enough.Hellen had already sacrificed her body for the original Maxine and had awoken to find out the daughter that she sacrificed her body for had a fused soul. It could only make things harder on Hellen that Maxine was refusing to call her mom.


    Maxine could sense immense joy eminating from the golden bracelet as Hellen answered, "Of course, Maxine. Is this about the two arachne that have been spying on you and Silky for the past few days?"


    "What?" Maxine replied in surprise, "How did you know?" She really wanted to know since it would be good for future reference.


    "I kept count of the number of spiders in your house ever since I saw Silky. Their numbers have doubled sinceyou came home from the hospital and arachne are known tobe able to commandspiders," Hellen responded, "As for them taking Silky away, they would have done it before you were released at the hospital, if they were going to do it."


    "That''s good news," Maxine said happily with her spiritual sense.


    "Not quite," Hellen said, "I started listening to their conversation a few moments ago. It seems that they are undecided on what to do with Silky."


    "And?" Maxine asked.


    "One is in favor of taking her while the other isn''t," Hellen replied, "They are using the details of the past few days as arguement material, including your date with Emily."


    "What?! Don''t they know the meaning of privacy?" Maxine asked.


    "Nothing is out of bounds when it comes to the safety of another arachne in their minds. The Arachne Sisterhood is rather protective of their own kind," Hellen replied, "Oh? It seems like they will ask their elders to decide for them."


    "Is that good or bad?" Maxine asked.


    "I don''t know," Hellen answered, "Depends on the attitude of their elders."


    "Well, shit," Maxine said, "Thanks for trying to help, Hel... mom." Maxine knew it was going to take some time to get used to calling Hellen mom.


    "It''s alright," Hellen said, "Now go spend some time with Silky while you can. I will join in a moment, but first I will monitor them for a while to see if they get an immediate response. If not, it will be a few days before they get an answer." Maxine stood up and went to spend time with Silky since she could only wait until the arachne came to her.

 Chapter 57

    Maxine had been waiting for a solid week for the arachne to do something to show that they recieved a reply from their elders. During this time, she had cultivated without the use of the iron stage cores due to Hellen telling her to stabilize her cultivation first. Fortunately this gave Maxine plenty of time to stockpile more bronze and iron essence cores. She now had 710 bronze and 26 iron essence cores. Many more of her shadow Wolves had ranked up as well. She now had 90 iron stage, 165 bronze and no copper Shadow Wolves since they ranked up to bronze.


    Maxine had managed to acquire a body scan of the Scarlet Horned Savage Dragon from Guan via spiritual sense over the course of three days to avoid overwhelming Maxine. Apparently, Hellen had told him about Maxine''s ability torecreate essence beasts using her essence and an essence core as long as she had a base to work with. Maxine figured that he did that because he wanted her to have a powerful bodyguard.


    After recieving that scan, Maxine immediately started to scale the beast down to a more manageable size to keep herself from worrying about the arachne. She wondered if it would affect any of its capabilities by shrinking it like that and did simulations in her head since doing it in reality would have unpleasant results ifit were discovered. However for some reason, she knew it would be more powerful than a Terror Bear at the same level. That feeling spurred her on to perfect it. Unfortunately after scaling it down she met with several problems. Every time that she made an adjustment and simulated it in her head while she was scaling it down, the beast either lost the ability to breathe fire, couldn''t fly or couldn''t move at all.It''s not a dragon if it can''t breathe fire or fly!


    Maxine was playing a card game with Silky when she finally gother scaled down dragon to work the way she wanted in a mental simulation. She smiled to herself since she knew all that she needed to do now was to make it in reality to test it out and wondered if Emily would like to fly on the back of a dragon. Maxine could just imagine the look of joy on Emily''s face while riding on it''s back.


    "Mama, why are you smiling?" Silky asked innocently.


    "You know that thing I have been working on?" Maxine asked. She had told Silky that she had been trying to make a dragon using her shadow essence and had run simulations in her head to figure out if it would work.


    "Yeah," Silky said.


    "I think I have figured out how to make it work now," Maxine said and Silky''s eyes widened in excitement, "But first I need to check a few things before I make it. Just wait alittle bit and I promise you will get to see it first. Okay?"


    "Okay, mama," Silky said while bouncing in place due to excitement. Maxine knew the reason for this because Silky had read a few fantasy novels about dragon riders and wanted to ride a dragon ever since.


    Maxine went to the computer and checked her youtube video just in case there was something positive on it. However she found a post with a link to another site and this hadn''t been posted just once either. She clicked it and it showed a website that displayed a long list of why a police force made up of essence cultivators would be pointless. Whoever wrote this made their first point that essence cultivators were mostly good people. Making the need for a police force comprised of them pointless since their population was less than a tenth of a percentile of the total population.Where did thisguy get his information? Essence cultivators are seriously dangerous. One of us could easily kill one hundred normal people even if those people are armed. Although this person is right about our population not being that high. I doubt there areeventwothousand essence cultivators in this state. However that will change very soon.A more recent addition to the website started off by insulting the essence cultivator that defeated the dragon.Whoever wrote this even went so far as to call Guan ''a lazy bastard'' because he wouldn''t fight the essence beasts on Earth.Finally it finished with almost five pages of information stating that the military appeared to have done an amazing job considering that they had next to no notice to prepare a defence and managed to keep the total loss of life undertwenty thousand civilians nation wide. She knew whoever wrote this would change their tune after the next essence beast horde since there would be more places hit than last time. The first time there had only beenthreeplaces attacked by an essence beast horde. Next time there would be five cities attacked and all of them highly populated. Although she had probably prevented one of those five with her Shadow Wolves hunting all of the bronze or higher essence beasts in the area.


    Maxine quickly checked to see what date this webpage was published. It had been made quite literately hours after she posted her youtube video. She closed her eyes and thought for a moment. It was obvious that this was arranged by one of General Jones'' cohorts to make things seem less severe than they were. She just didn''t know who it was since it had been created anonymously. She did a quick internet search and found more than a dozen similar websites in place as well as a few videos as well that were posted by supposed experts.Why would anyone do this? They have seen what essence beasts and essence cultivators can do and how numberous they are. Do they seriously believe that the last essence beast horde wasa one time thing? Or is it that they think that the next essence beast horde willoccur again years later? In either case, that''s wishful thinking.However Maxine suddenly realized that no one besides reincarnators knew how prolific essence beasts were. Even though she had killed over a thousand bronze and thirty iron stage essence beasts in the past week, there was no real sign that their numbers were significantly affected.Maxine knew that drastic measures had to be taken if they still had the same mindset after the next essence beast horde appears, which should happen in roughly a week. Fortunately her Shadow Wolves hadn''t detected the formation of an essence beast horde within the two hundred miles from the spot she was at.


    One of Maxine''s ravens got her attention. She quickly looked through the eyes of that particular raven and saw the twin girls from before. However both of them looked straight at her raven before they opened four previously undetectable eyes on their foreheads and closed them again as if to announce what they were.They''re the arachne?!But they look human! Wait. How did they know my ravens are sentries? They should look like any other bird flying around.


    However Maxine couldn''t contemplate that for long as they started to quickly approach her house. She was still worried that they were going to take Silky away. Unfortunately as long as she was on Earth, running away from them with Silky in tow would only be a temporary solution at best. It was easier to confront the problem head on.


    Maxine started to walk towards the front door and Silky gave her a confused look since they were still in the middle of a game of cards. "We have guests coming," Maxine said to Silky.


    "Will I still get to see your dragon, mama?" Silky asked as if sensing Maxine''s fears.


    "It depends on our guests," Maxine replied and noticed that the twin girls were about to reach the front door, "They are almost here. Let''s go see what they want." She stood up and walked ot the front door. She opened it right as one of the twins was about to knock on the front door.


    "Hello," the twin on the left said, "My name is Mikari. My sister is Kena. I think you know why we are here. May we come in?"


    "Yes, you can," Maxine replied, but internally she was extremely worried.


    "Thank you," Mikari said as she came inside with her sister. Maxine led them to the living room and they all got seated. Silky was looking at the two curiously.


    After sitting in silence for awhile, Maxine got impatient and asked, "Are you two going to tell me why you are here?" Her question seemed to startle them.


    "Sorry, I was lost in thought," Mikari said, "We are here to talk to you about Silky and what''s best for her." Maxine understood at that moment that they were not going to forcibly take Silky away and relaxed internally.


    "I want to stay with mama," Silky blurted out. Maxine wondered why Silky said that out of nowhere, but figured Silky had picked up on something.


    "I want to stay with you too Silky," Maxine said while brushing Silky''s hair with her hand.


    "Wouldn''t you rather play with other kids like yourself?" Mikari asked Silky while gesturing towards Silky''s spider-shaped lower body.


    "No, I like it here," Silky stated.


    "I told you she would say that," Kena said smugly and Mikari let out a sigh.


    "Have you ever felt that humans are afraid of you?," Mikari said.


    "Yes, but they are more afraid of mama," Silky said and Maxine felt shocked at hearing that.People are afraid of me? Why? I have done nothing, but help them.However she could see a strange smile on Mikari''s face.


    "Do you know why they are afraid of you?" Mikari asked.


    "No," Silky answered softly.


    "Would you like to know why?" Mikari asked and Silky nodded her head, "They fear that one day you willrealize how strong you are and decide that you don''t want them around anymore. It is why they are overly friendly towards you and Maxine. They don''t want to give you any reason to hate them." It suddenly all made sense to Maxine why there had been so much resistance in forming a police force made up of essence cultivators. They were afraid that the police force would become something more than it was intended and dethrone these politicians from their place of power when they took over with their overwhelming might. It was the same with General Jones. He turned his fear into aggression and tried to eliminate her before she became a real threat. She had also wondered why reporters were not more agressive in their attempts to get an interview with her. It was because they too were afraid of her on some level.It doesn''t matter if they are afraid of me or not. I am not fighting for popularity or to even be liked.


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    "Then I will be a good girl," Silky answered childishly.If only being a good person was good enough.


    "I know you are a good girl. We have been watching you," Mikari stated, "However your ''mama'' on the other hand, I am not so sure about." All of the sudden, Mikari was giving Maxine a vicious glare.


    "If you have something to say, just say it," Maxine said.


    "Fine. What happened to Silky''s real mother? Did you kill her?" Mikari said with clear hostility, "There is no way that an arachne would ever allow her child to be raised by someone else unless she were dead." Maxine detected that both of them were scanning her with their spiritual sense to ensure that she wasn''t going to lie. However she was rather relaxed since she was going to tell them the truth anyways.


    "I don''t know what happened to her mother," Maxine answered, "But didn''t you know that Silky was still just a Widowmaker Spider when I found her?"


    "What?" Mikari and Kena said at the same timeand both of them looked at Silky in astonishment.


    "Do you mean to tell me Silky evolved from a spider-type essence beast?" Mikari asked.


    "Yes, that is exactly what I am saying," Maxine answered.


    "It isquite rare for that to happen," Mikari explained, "In fact I know of onlyfour within the sisterhood that are like that."I wonder how they would react if I told them there would be more spiders that evolve into arachne later.


    "Will knowing that change anything?" Maxine asked.


    "It wouldn''t have even if we knew before," Mikari said andadded via her spiritual sense, "Your father has already made it quite clear the concequences of abducting any native Earthling by force. Hence we are only here to persuade her and stay to teach and protect her if she doesn''t want to leave. Fortunately, you have already started to teach her how to evade and to defend against attacks." Fear surged through Maxine at that statement since Mikari had indirectly said that she knew that Guan was Maxine''s father.


    "You are mistaken. My father is Johnathan Levings, not this Guan," Maxine replied with her own spiritual sense while hoping that Mikari believed her.


    "There is no mistaking your identity," Mikari stated using her spiritual sense as she leaned in closer and inhaled deeply, "Your scent is similar enough to Poison Emperor Guan to be his child and you have the shadow attribute which is almost exclusively found in the Kavros Clan.But don''t be concerned. I know better than to reveal your ancestry. If I did, both me and my sister would be dead before we knew what happened."What?! The shadow attribute is bloodline related?


    "So, what now?" Maxine asked using her voice.


    "Silky has made it quite clear that she doesn''t want to leave. Myself and Kena shall go over what you have taught Silky already," Mikari said, "After that we can start teaching her the things she needs to know."


    "Alright," Maxine said before she started telling them every tailoring book that Silky has read and every technique that Maxine has taught Silky.


    "You have been quite thorough in her education thus far," Mikari said, "But there are some things she needs to learn fromother arachne such as how to look more human and how to conceal the four eyes on her forehead." Those two techniques made perfect sense to Maxine. If an arachne looked like a human, it wouldbe far more difficult to find an arachne toabduct them and and force them to make arachne silk.


    "Alright. When will you begin Silky''s training?" Maxine asked.


    "Kena already has," Mikari said with a smile, "She was also trying to convince Silky to leave with us for most of our conversation, but Silky is a stubborn one." Maxine felt happy that Silky was so stubborn, but angry that these two went behind her back like that.


    "She is only stubborn when it is something she really doesn''t want to do," Maxine said with a smile, "I will leave you both to it, but if either of you do anything that I don''t like again, I will feed you to my wolves." Mikari appeared confused for a moment before her eyes opened wide.


    "Those things are yours?!" Mikari asked in surprise, "All of them?!"


    "Yes and yes," Maxine said as she leaned back into the couch, "Just ask Silky if you don''t believe me." Mikari turned to Silky for a few moments before she turned back to Maxine with a look of disbelief.


    "I have never heard of a technique that allowed anyone to control that many essence beasts. The most I have ever seen anyone control is twenty," Mikari said, "How were you able to do it?"


    "That''s my secret," Maxine said.Like hell I will tell you. It''s the same as announcing one of my skills and I don''t want anyone to know about my abilities. I can never be too careful with that. Someone might be able to find a weakness in that skill and exploit it."Shouldn''t you be helping teach Silky?" Maxine said while using her tone of voice to hint that Mikari was already pushing Maxine''s bottom line.


    While they were teaching Silky via spiritual sense, Maxine watched them, but was also training using her shadow clones within the shadow world. She had discovered that she was able to do this a few days ago. One was practicing the Phantasmal Steps of the Shadow Cat while the other shadow clone was practicing dual blade techniques. Althoughher shadow clonescould cultivate like Maxine could, they weren''t able to boost Maxine''s cultivation rate at all when they did so and it took up quite a bit of her mental capacity to use them both to train. However the benefits this brought were amazing. She had managed to increase her speed even more through the Phantasmal Steps of the Shadow Cat. She could now move roughly thirty percent faster than she could normally, but even with that boost of speed, she felt that she only had a very basic understanding of the movement skill. Maxine had also managed to unite all of the Crescent Moon Blitz blades into a singular blade wave that had three times her normal striking power, but it used up almost twenty seven times the essence that anormal attack would. She felt that this was inefficient use of her essence, but didn''t know how to reduce the cost without doing alot of trial and error experiments, which one of her her shadow clones was doing at that moment.


    Maxine continued to watch them and tried to listen into their spiritual sense conversation. Hellen had told her how to do it, but it required a very precise use of spiritual sense. She was using them as a means of practice. To avoid being detected, she used an extremely fine thread of spritual sense that was just slightly thicker than a blood cell to make the attempt.


    Unfortunately Silky noticed and used her spiritual sense to tell Maxine, "Mama, you will make them mad if you try to listen in. Theyjust taught me how tochange my legs to look like yours! Watch me, Mama!" As Silky finished speaking with her spiritual sense, her lower body started to glow softly as it shrank and shifted. Her spider abdomen shrank into her lower back and her eight legs started to merge into one as small feet appeared on her front most set of legs. Even the two tiny forelimbs shrank into her body. Her exoskeleton started to turn pinkish as her legs finally fused together. At the end of it, Silky looked like a beautiful little girl albeit with six eyes.


    Maxine immediately stood up and looked at Silky in wonder. Silky smiled as she looked down at her legs and giggled as she flexed her toes. "Now I look like you, mama," Silky announced verbally, but she quickly got pale. Maxine rushed forward to catch Silky as she collasped and after realizing that Silky was unconscious due to draining her essence entirely, she immediately glared angrily at Mikari and Kena.


    "Don''t give me that glare," Kena said, "I warned her to wait until she was stronger, but she wanted to show you how she woud look quite badly."


    "That''s all it better be," Maxine warned them, "I don''t think Silky will be able to learn anything more for now. Why don''t you two come back tomorrow. I won''t see you out." Maxine didn''t even give them a chance to respond as she carried Silky to her bed.


    After gently laying Silky down, Maxine marveled at how Silky had retained her current shape without needing to use essence.This is truly an amazing technique. I wonder who came up with it.However she pushed those thoughts out of her head and slowly ran her hands through Silky''s hair.


    She quickly checked to make sure that the Mikari and Kena had left with her spiritual sense and summoned her shadow clone that was practicing the Phantasmal Step of the Shadow Cat to watch over Silky. She quickly entered the shadow world and walked outside of the cave. With a thought, she retrieved an iron essence core from her dimensional pouch.I hope this works. I really want to ride on a dragon''s back while it is flying.She infused her essence into it and provided it all of the information to form the body of the dragon. It took several times more effort, both from her mind and essence, to form her dragon. Finally the essence core floated off of her hand as silver flesh started to form around the essence core. It grew rapidly as it drew in essence from the surrounding area. It took a full ten minutes before she could even tell that it was a dragon and another fifteen before it fully formed. She felt amazed as it stood up at five feet tall at the shoulder and nearly thirty feet long from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail. Its wing span was sixty feet as well as it flexed open its wings. Its coloring was far different from the Scarlet-Horned Savage Dragon. For one, its horns were dark grey with golden vine-like patterns on them. It''s scales were slightly lighter grey than the horns, but every single one of the scales had a singular golden line running down the center of them. Its beautiful.


    Maxine quickly commanded it to breathe fire into the air and it unleashed silver-colored flames out of it''s mouth skyward.AWESOME!Next, she hopped up onto its back and commanded it to fly. That was a mistake. Its attempt at flying was extremely awkward and nearly lost control and crashed several times.It is still doing better than my first flight.After about the seventh time nearly crashing, it started flying more smoothly and Maxine laughed gleefully. She ordered it to land and she got thrown off as it landed extremely hard.


    Maxine flew through the air and would have eaten a mouthful of dirt had she not gone into a forward roll at the last instant. Maxine stood up and brushed herself off before she engaged her Shadow''s Embrace armor and tried to store her dragon into the bracers. It changed into a massive greyish blob as it flowed into the right bracer.She would show off her dragon to Silky and have her help Maxine come up with a name for it later.


    Maxine quickly returned back to her house and checked on Silky and saw that she was still unconscious. SuddenlyMaxine''sphone rang. She looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Amanda. She quickly answered, "Hey, Amanda. What''s up?"


    "Maxine, your visions of the future were right about the essence beast hordes, but wrong with the number of them. There are four of them appearing separate locations throughout the country and the new commander at the base asked me to convince you to help fight one of them off," Amanda said. This new guys is smart. He knew I wouldat least hear Amanda out. Maxine wouldn''t have given them the time to finish the sentence if it had been a military officer.

 Chapter 58

    "In what universe, do they think that I will ever help them after that assasination attempt?" Maxine asked.


    "I know you are angry, Maxine, but they really need your help," Amanda replied, "General Cullens knew you would still be angry and offered to pay you one hundred thousand dollars to assist them." Only one hundred thousand? Cheap bastard. Right now I could probably take on an essence beast horde with just my Shadow Wolves, but beggars can''t be choosers. Not to mention I can''t be seen controling my Shadow Wolves or I may be viewed as a major threat by the government. Regardless, we really need that money to pay the bills. Let''s see if I can get something else out of this.


    "I will do it with an additional condition," Maxine stated, "They have to give me access to all of the new herbs that they have gathered and don''t tell me they don''t have any. I saw a lot of them in that storage room and I know that was only one of the storage rooms that they had." Maxine had actually been looking for essence empowered herbs, but hadn''t had any luck so far. She had even given her Shadow Wolves orders to look for any herbs giving off very faint traces of essence to no effect. She had done all of that in hopes that Poison Emperor Guan would eventually teach her alchemy, but all she managed to acquire was a seventeen doses of Troll''s Blood Sap and the three aphrodisiacs from the shadow world.


    "I will relay that for you, Maxine," Amanda said, "I already told them that giving you money alone wasn''t going to persuade you to help. So, why do you want those herbs anyways?"


    "I know the medicinal effects of a lot of those herbs, but they are way better when you combine certain ones using a special method," Maxine answered.


    "How do you do that?" Amanda asked.


    "Damned if I know, but I know someone that does," Maxine answered.


    "Oh, alright. Do you mind sharing their name?" Amanda asked.


    "I do mind as a matter of fact," Maxine replied, "Is there anything else?"


    "Just one thing," Amanda said, "How did youarrange forthat meteorite to killGeneral Jones?"


    "I didn''t. It was a freak accident," Maxine responded, "And if you don''t recall, I wasn''t in any condition toarrange anything."


    "That''s not what the top brass think, but they don''t have any real proof. It''s just that the timing of his death was too coincidental and there was a fragment of that meteorite lodged into his spine with traces of essence on it," Amanda stated, "It wasn''t yours, but it had the exact same essence wavelength as the entity that fought that dragon. I felt that there was something else they weren''t telling me, but when I asked, they said it was top secret."I doubt they would. They don''t want you to spread the truth on the off chance that you will tell everyone that he is the reason that Earth has essence in the first place.


    "That''s weird. I wonder why they were keeping it from you," Maxine said while playing dumb. She didn''t think the public would react well if they found out that Guan was the personthat is responsible for the fact that Earth has essence on it in the first place.


    "I have no idea, but at least I have some good news," Amanda said.


    "Really? What is it?" Maxine asked.


    "Those asshat senators finally caved. They nearly soiled themselves when they saw the reports of those essence beast hordes and their estimated numbers," Amanda said, "Apparently they didn''t think the next essence beast hordes wouldn''t appear for a few years due to the losses they suffered during the last one."


    "Essence beasts breed faster than rabbits, but you can''t expect politicians toknow that. Eventhe zoologists got it wrong since they based it off of what they know about normal animals," Maxine stated, "Although theessence beast populations should stabilize in a little less than two years if events play out in the same fashion as before. Assuming we last that long anyways."


    "Why do you say that? What are we going to face in the future?" Amanda asked.


    "Towards the end of those two years, the last two essence beast hordes will have something stronger than an iron stage essence beast leading them," Maxine said as she shivered remembering those things. One was a strange looking Terror Bear that was twice the normal size and had silver colored claws. The other was what could only be described as a wingless green dragon. It took over fifty peak iron stage essence cultivators to take either one of them down and even then they had heavy losses. That was just in the area she had been in. She had no idea about what the other areas of the country had to deal with.


    "Please tell me you are messing with me," Amanda said.


    "I wish I was," Maxine said.


    "Let''s hope we will have more essence cultivators to face them by that point or at least a weapon capable of killing those things," Amanda said hopefully.


    "Agreed," Maxine said and noticed Silky started to stir, "I need to go now unless there is something else you wanted to talk about."


    "Nope," Amanda said, "Talk to you later."


    "Later," Maxine said and she hung up.


    Maxine gently brushed Silky''s hair as Silky opened her six eyes and smiled. "Hey, mama."


    "Don''t ''hey mama'' me. You did something really stupid earlier. You could have easily hurt yourself by overdrawing essence," Maxine reprimanded Silky.


    "I am sorry, mama. I just wanted to look more like you," Silky said and Maxine''s expression softened.


    "I know, Silky, but you shouldn''t risk hurting yourself like that," Maxine said.


    "Alright, mama. I will be more careful from now on," Silky said.


    "Good," Maxine said, "Can you move anything other than your head?"


    "I think so," Silky said as she sat up, and tried to stand. However as soon as Silky put weight onto her feet, it became clear that she was having a great deal of trouble maintaining her balance and quickly widened her stance. She ever so slowly took one step at a time while trying not to fall over while Maxine observed her.Maxinewas prepared to move quickly in case Silky started to fall since this was technically the first time she ever walked withjust two legs. However her fears were unwarranted as Silky''s movements got smoother.It seems Silky''s freakish learning speed applies to this as well.


    Just as Silky reveals a big smile, Maxine praised her, "Good job, Silky. Now let''s go get some lunch."


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    Maxine stood up and walked to the kitchen to make a few sandwiches as she kept an ear out to make certain that Silky didn''t fall down. However while she was making them, Hellen sent her a message with spiritual sense, "Maxine, I don''t think helping out the military this time will be a good idea."


    "Why not?" Maxine responded with her own spiritual sense.


    "You know perfectly well why not," Hellen said, "What do you think will happen ifyou use that armor your father got you while the essence cultivators from other worlds are watching? It would be the same as announcing you have a powerful backer and that could only be Guan. It wouldn''t be too much of a stretch for them to come to the conclusion that you are his daughter."


    "Oh, shit. I never thought about that," Maxine answered, "Couldn''t I just make it look like my normal essence armor?"


    "Thatwould probablywork, but it would be better if you didn''t use it," Hellen said.


    "Alright, but how do I keep my essence armor and the Shadow''s Embrace armor separate?" Maxine asked in disbelief.


    "Just focus on keeping that armor inside of your body. Only use it if you have no other choice," Hellen advised.


    "Alright, I should be able to survive without it," Maxine said confidently.


    "I am not as confident as you are," Hellen stated, "Improving your blade skills would make me feel better about it. They are barely at the beginner level and focus too heavily on attack. Fortunately I know acouple blade techniques that you can use. Just relax your mind and I will transmit them to you."


    "Alright," Maxine replied as she finished up making the last of the sandwiches and did as Hellen asked. Her mind was filled withtwo techniques using a bladed weapon. Flowing Blade was the first technique to be transmitted. It was a very basic technique meant to lay a foundation for future techniques. Fortunately it was easy to learn. The second techniquewas called Yin Yang Blades. Itwas a dual weilding technique and it had just as many attack moves as defensive ones. However this one required her to master the Flowing Blade before it could be used. Regardless the Flowing Blade technique made her own self-taught blade skills look like garbage.


    With a thought, Maxine had her shadow clone train in the Flowing Blade. She wanted it to get the basic movements down before she trained it herself to ingrain it into muscle memory. Afterwards, shequickly brought the sandwiches to the dining table and ate lunch with Silky. After they were done, Maxine recieved another call from Amanda.


    "So, what didGeneral Cullen say?" Maxine asked as soon as she answered her phone.


    "He said he can''t give you access to the herbs in storage," Amanda said, "However hecan offer you essence cores."


    "You should know better than anyone that I can get those myself," Maxine responded.


    "I am well aware," Amanda said, "And I know you are still going to help. You are too kind hearted not to."


    "You''re right," Maxine said.


    "Patrick and the others are going," Amanda said, "By the way, did you know Maxwell''s sister is an essence cultivator?"WHAT?!


    "Alice is an essence cultivator?!" Maxine asked in disbelief, "How strong is she?" Didn''t Patrick tellMaxwell what happened to Alice in theprevious timeline?! Or maybe he did and that is whyMaxwelltaught her how to cultivate. But why would my other self be so stupid as to allow her to go into a battlefield? Does he want her to die?!Maxine felt tears well up in her eyes as the memory of Alice''s death came to the surface of her mind.Alice had gone out with her companions for a simple herb harvestingtask and they had been attacked by another group. By the time Maxine''s group had found Alice, it was too late. Alice''s arms and legs had been cut off and she had been raped repeatedly. The only mercy that had been given to her was that she had been killed afterwards. That one event is why Maxine felt theurgeto murder rapists on sight. It was a way to avenge her sister.


    "Yes, she is and is at copper rank seven," Amanda said, "How did you know her name?"


    "Maxwell talked about her last time I saw him, but he didn''t mention that she was an essence cultivator," Maxine lied while thinking of a way to keep Alice out of the battlefield or definite method to protect her amidst it, "I think I should call Maxwell to try and convince Alice not to go. I don''t think she realizes how nasty an essence beast horde can be."


    "Go ahead. That stubborn girl wouldn''t listen to me at all," Amanda said.


    "Will do," Maxine said, "Bye."


    "Goodbye," Amanda said as she ended the call.


    Maxine sat at the dining table for several more moments while thinking of why Alice wanted to go in the first place. Since Maxine didn''t know what was going on, she shook her head to herself and tried to recall her cellphone number from the previous timeline.I really should have asked him what it was last time I saw him. Fortunately she somehow still remembered it and called Maxwell.


    "Hello. Who is this?" Maxwell asked over the phone.


    "It''s Maxine," Maxine replied and decided she would get some informationfrom Maxwell first before talking to Alice, "Why the fuck is your sister participating in fighting off an essence beast horde? And why haven''t you convinced her not to go in the first place?"


    "She thinks she is invincible now that she is an essence cultivator," Maxwell explained in a panic before he could regain his wits, "Why the fuck do you care? She isn''t your sister."


    "I care because if she dies, you will be in a world of pain and will be useless in a fight," Maxine stated, "Now put her on the damn phone."


    "Alright," Maxwell said, "Shemight listen to you more than me anyways. She only wanted to become an essence cultivator because she wanted to fight beside you. Alice someone wants to talk to you."


    "Hello?" Alice said. Maxine felt joy as soon as she heard Alice''s voice. To her, it had almost been five years since she heard her sister''s voice.


    "Hello, Alice. This is Maxine," Maxine said calmly, "Why do you want to go fight against the essence beast horde? At your level, it''s basically suicide."


    "Maxine? As in Maxine Levings?!" Alice asked excitedly.Maxine got annoyed that Alice ignored her question.


    "Yes, that''s me," Maxine said while trying to remain calm, "Now answer my question."


    "I want to be like you," Alice answered, "You fought and killed over a dozen of those rat things at your middle school, killed that overpowered bear and single handedly killed two more iron stage essence beasts."It seems someone is exaggerating my feats.


    "First off, it was three rats not a dozen and I didn''t battle them. I was running and hiding during the majority of that attack and only fought when I had no other choice. I had a nice high powered rifle and artillery support when I fought the Terror Bear," Maxine corrected Alice, "As for the two iron stage essence beasts, I had alot of help from your brother and my other friends to kill them and if you don''t recall, I was hospitalized afterwards." Alice was stunned into silence from Maxine''s admission. However she didn''t stay silent for very long.


    "I am still going," Alice stated, "You might need my help."


    "I don''t need help. Least of all from a girl with zero combat experience. If anything you will be a distraction for both me and your brother," Maxine told Alice, "Which could get one or both of us killed."


    "But what if I...," Alice tried to say something.However Maxine cut her off, "No, regardless of what you do,You WILL BE in the way. Now call Amanda and tell her that you won''t be participating. That way both me and your brother will be at ease."


    "Fine," Alice said angrily with a hint of defiance before hanging up.I don''t like how Alice sounded defiant. Please don''t let Alice get into one of her stubborn moods.Maxine quickly called Amanda again when she realized that she didn''t know when or where they were going to fight an essence beast horde.


    "Amanda, I am sorry to bother you again," Maxine stated over the phone.


    "It''s alright," Amanda answered, "What is it?"


    "I was wondering when and where the essence beast horde that me and the others will be fighting," Maxine said. For the instant that Maxine waited for Amanda''s reply, she had her shadow clone that was practicing the Phantasmal Steps of the Shadow Cat appear next to her Shadow Wolves through a portal in anticipation of having it lead the Shadow Wolves towards the battlefield. However she would have it combine with an iron stage Shadow Wolf to make it appear that it was a wolf girl rather than Maxine''s shadow clone and have it arrive moments beforethe fighting starts. Unfortunately if it is too far away or is going to happen too soon, not all of her Shadow Wolves will be able to make it. Her bronze stage ones might have to stay behind.


    "I think it''s in Pennsylvania about 40 miles southwest of Pittsburg in a state park," Amanda said happily, "As for the time, we will be starting our attack around two in the afternoon."If my Shadow Wolves and my shadow clone leave right now, they should be able to make it with a few hours to spare. That will make it easier for me and the others to have an easier time fighting the essence beast horde. Now I should practice the Flowing Blade technique and I can show Silky my dragon while I am at it. Hopefully that blade technique won''t be too hard to master.

 Chapter 59

    Maxine was filled withanger as she sat waiting in the crowded warehouse for the briefing to start. There were at leastfive hundred essence cultivators present, but unfortunately alittle more than half were at the copper stage. However that wasn''t the reason why Maxine was angry. It was because Alice was sitting next with Maxine and the rest of the group with a somewhat smug look on her face. Maxwell didn''t look any happier about this situation than Maxine did. The only consolation was that Alice was going to use a bow which would put her alittle further away from the fighting.


    Maxine wanted to throw Alice into a portal to the shadow world until the fighting was over, but stopped herself when she found out that Alice was being paid $7,000 to participated in this battle. If society didn''t crumble, Alice would need that money for her education, if she was going to college. Apparently all of the essence cultivators present were being paid to participate and were being paid based off of theircultivation. She figured out that for everyrank of copper stage that someone had that they would get an additional $1,000 and $10,000 for each rank into bronze. She did some quick math in her head and realized that she should get over $200,000 for being here. Unfortunately when Maxine brought this up, they wouldn''t increase Maxine''s wage even after they confirmed the level of her cultivation. This only added on to her anger.


    Maxine tried some breathing exercises to calm down as she tried to go over the Flowing Blade technique in her head. There had been over nine separate moves. When the user reaches mastery, the individual moves can literately shift fluidly from one move to the next. Maxine had only managed to move fluidly from the first move all the way to the third without any difficulty, but that was her limit. Even so, it was still far superior to her own self-taught blade skills since each following move increased the force of the next strike by an additional 30% of the first strike without heavily draining her essence. It helped her understand how to reduce the drain of essence when using her Crescent Moon Blitz.


    Maxine smiled as she remembered Silky''s reaction to seeing the dragon that Maxine created. Silky had shouted excitedly and ran around the dragon multiple times before trying to climb up onto it''s back. The sound of Silky''s joyful laughter while the dragon was flying her aroundhad been more precious than gold.


    Maxine was pulled out of her own thoughts by the arrival of General Cullen. It was the first time she had actually seen him. He is a balding and somewhat fat man. However Maxine didn''t feel concerned when she saw his eyes sweep over the essence cultivators present since there was no malice in his eyes.


    "Let me start off by thanking you all for coming. I know many of you are not particularly fond of the military at the moment," General Cullen said, "I hate how I am forced to ask so many of you young people to fight, but our options are limited and I will do my best to limit the losses on our side. Now with that out of the way, I will start with our battle plan. It is a simple strategy. To start, artillery and aerial units will bombard the still forming essence beast horde. The essence beast horde should either charge in retaliation at the source of the attack or scatter. If they charge, we will continue to bombard them until they get into range of mounted heavy machineguns. Once they do, the heavy machineguns will unleash a heavy barrage on the charging essence beasts from an elevated position. You essence cultivators are to eliminate any essence beasts that get past the heavy weapons barrage and to work as a group to eliminate the leader of this horde if necessary. However I am confident that action will not be needed. We have recently acquired tanks equiped with railguns to specifically eliminate the foul beast at a distance. Any questions?"


    "What kind of essence beast is the leader of the essence beast horde?" Maxine asked.General Cullen gestured towards one of his subordinates and an image of a red four-tailed fox surrounded by various other essence beasts was projected on the wall beside him.Oh, great. A fox-type. Those things are smarter than most other essence beasts. Strong or fast essence beasts are something that I can deal with, but smart ones are the worst. However against the kind of firepower that General Cullen has brought to bare, it shouldn''t be a problem. Even if it is a problem, my Shadow Wolves can tear it to pieces. Although I have never seen a fox-type essence beast with multiple tails before. I wonder what abilities it has.


    "Did that answer your question, Miss Levings?" General Cullen asked.


    "Yes, thank you," Maxine replied.


    "Now if there is nothing else," General Cullen paused for a few moments to give anyone else a chance to ask a question before he continued, "I suggest that all of you form squads no larger than eight people with those that you are familiar with. Once you have sorted yourselves out, go to Seargent Higgs to get assigned your place in our defensive line. I wish you all luck."


    Maxine quickly got up at the same time as Patrick and the others and went to Seargent Higgs to get assigned their spot in the defensive line and were given a earpeice for communication purposes. They had been assigned to one of the centermost groups and their group had been designated as Red 1. Maxine didn''t like the fact that they were going to face the bulk of any charging essence beasts. However if things went poorly, she could always throw everyone in her group into a portal to the shadow world and use the shadow clone she left at home to return back to her house with everyone.


    They got into a transport truck that had a heavy machinegun mount on the top of it and they were taken to the battleground. When Maxine and the others arrived, Maxine noticed that they were assembling in an open field facing a large forested area. Several watch towers had been constructed and had multiple heavy machineguns mounted onto them. She saw several armored personel carriers lined upe beside what she could only assume were the railgun tanks. The railguns mounted on the tanks weren''t as large as she had anticipated, but still she had a feeling that they would be lethal if one shot a round at her. She saw several mortar teams as well setting up behind the line of armored personel carriers and tanks.


    After admiring the assembled forces for a moment, Maxine and the others got into position. Once they were in position, Maxine could finally estimate how far away the forest was from the front line. It was alittle over 2 miles away, but with how fast some essence beasts were, it would take only a handful to seconds for them to traverse that distance. However the essence beasts were over 10 miles away and that would take the weakest members of the essence beast hored a few minutes to traverse. That would give the artillery, tanks and mortar teams plenty of time to thin out their numbers with a few volleys before the machine guns got to work.


    "Artillery bombardment commencing in T-minus five minutes. If you are not in position,get init now," Sergeant Higgs said through the ear piece.


    Maxine turned to face everyone as she formed her essence armor while focusing on not bringing out her Shadow''s Embrace armor and said, "Meagan please make sure Alice stays next to you at all times. Me and the boys will handling the essence beasts in close quarters combat."


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    Meagan chuckled for a moment before she answered, "Maxwell already asked me to earlier."


    "Good," Maxine said, "If she gets into any danger or injured, Maxwell won''t be able to focus on fighting essence beasts and that could get him killed." However that was just an excuse.


    "I know that," Meagan answered.


    "I can take care of myself," Alice announced, but the looks everyone gave her said they believed otherwise.


    "Guys look alive. We don''t know if the essence beasts will attack us before we have a chance to hit them with artillery," Maxine said as she looked towards the forest. However she wasn''t that conerned about the essence beasts charging at them ahead of time. Her Shadow Woves had already confirmed that the essence beast horde hadn''t moved, but there was no sign of the Four-Tailed Fox. She assumed that it was hiding amongst the essence beasts.


    After what seemed like an hour, Sergeant Higgs said via the ear piece, "Commencing the bombardment in five, four, three, two, one."


    Maxine heard the thundering of heavy artillery cannons firing in the distance behind her as well as the explosions at the impact points and almost immediately, she heard the angry roars of the essence beasts. A few minutes later at the instant that the essence beasts appeared at the tree line, the mortar teams and heavy machine guns rained death towards the essence beasts.


    Maxine immediately noticed that the essence beasts in the lead were copper stage with only a few bronze stage essence beasts mixed in. However she noticed that the number of essence beasts was nowhere near the amount that she had predicted would arrive.Please let it be that the artillery was way more effective than I thought.She extended out her spiritual sense to confirm it. Unfortunately, she was wrong. The bulk of the bronze stage essence beasts were circling around away from the weapons barrage while the copper stage ones were charging forward. Damn it! I was afraid thiswould happen.It was obvious that the Four-Tailed Fox was an intelligent member of it''s species.


    Maxine immediately ordered her Shadow Wolves to intercept those essence beasts and had her wolf girl shadow clone ride on top of one of them on the chance that her Shadow Wolves were seen. She had been surprised that they hadn''t been discovered yet.


    Maxine''s Shadow Wolves quickly caught up to the essence beast horde and started to tear it to pieces, but she could no longer pay attention to that since the first essence beasts managed to get through the heavy weapons barrage. It wasn''t a problem at first as she started to casually hack any essence beasts that got into her range while Meagan and Alice fired steel arrows one after the other. Unfortunately more and more essence beasts got through and Maxine and the others were forced to take it more seriously. After she started using the Flowing Water Blade technique it became much easier.


    "Red group, the last of the essence beast vanguard has broken the treeline. Finish those essence beasts off and redeply to the south. A portion of the essence beast horde is attempting to flank us," Sergeant Higgs said through the ear piece.That isn''t a flanking group. That''s the main force. This ''vanguard'' is nothing but a distraction.However Maxine smiled to herself knowing full well that her Shadow Wolves would tear those essence beasts to pieces.


    After three minutes of killing essence beasts later, Maxine and the others ran towards the south as ordered and got ready to fight the essence beasts. Maxine extended her spiritual sense and discovered that the Four-Tailed Fox had abandoned the rest of the essence beasts to die to Maxine''s Shadow Wolves. Strangely enough, it was charging towards the assembled essence cultivators.Is it suicidal? Unfortunately she was wrong as the Four-Tailed Fox stopped for a moment as it raised it''s four tails. In an instant, four bolts of compressed essence formed at the tips of it''s tails before being launched at four groups of essence cultivators and one of them was headed for Maxine''s group.


    Maxine unleashed the Crescent Moon Blitz and had all of the blades combine together moments before the two attacks made contact. The compressed essence bolt was split in half and the two pieces flew to either side of Maxine''s group. When the two halves hit the ground, they exploded with enough force to easily destroy a tank.I might have survived that, butno one else wouldn''t be able to.Maxine turned her head to look at the other groups that had been targeted. They didn''t make it out as well as Maxine''s had. The poor souls that had survived were missing limbs and were covered in severe burns. She heard someone vomitting behind her and looked to see that it was Alice.


    "All groups stall for time while the railgun tanks get into position to open fire," Sergeant Higgs said through the ear piece, "Do not let it attack using it''s tails again."


    Maxine had already started to charge at the Four-Tailed Fox as Sergeant Higgs was giving the order. However the Four-Tailed Fox had focused it''s eyes on Maxine. It had obviously determined that Maxine was the greatest threat as it started to form more of those compressed bolts of essence at the tips of it''s tails.NOT GOOD!Maxine quickly readied a Crescent Moon Blitz on each of her Twilight Iron Blades. Sergeant Higgs was yelling from what Maxine could tell, but she wasn''t paying attention to him. She had to concentrate on the Four-Tailed Fox to be able to either dodge it''s attack. However to her horror, the four bolts of compressed essence merged together before it launched at her. Even though it drained Maxine''s essence tremendously, she unleashed both of her Crescent Moon Blitz attacks and forced them both to merge together intoa massive Crescent Moon Blade. As the two attacks collided. Maxine prepared to dodge if she had to. Unfortunately that proved impossible when the compressed bolt of essence separated into dozens of smaller bolts on contact with her Crescent Moon Blade. However her attack hadonly weakened slightly as it hurtled towards the Four-Tailed Fox.


    Maxine couldn''t pay attention to the path of her attack as she quickly slashed at the essence bolts that would definitely hit her. When one of her blades hit the closest essence bolt, it exploded and triggered the rest of them to detonate as well. She closed her eyes and screamed in pain as she was hit with the violent force of all of the essence bolts exploding at the same time. Even as she flew backwards, she realized something through the pain.God damn it. I am making a habit of getting injured when fighting essence beasts.


    After hitting the ground and skidding to a stop, Maxine used her spiritual sense to see if her attack hit the Four-Tailed Fox, but she doubted it would be a direct hit. She was right. It had dodge it, but had still lost one of it''s tails. She assessed her injuries and found out that was not as bad as she thought. There was nothing broken, but she had quite a few burns and bruises. It didn''t matter as she quickly got to her feet and charged at it. She couldn''t let it unleash another one of those attacks again. For some reason, the Four-Tailed Fox didn''t try to use that attack again and started to flee.Huh? That''s new. I have never seen an essence beast run before. Wow! It''s fast!She couldn''t keep up with it even though she was using the Phantasmal Steps of the Shadow Cat. It was doubly odd since it was the same level of cultivation as herself.


    Maxine formed essence darts and fired them at the Four-Tailed Fox to force it to stop or slow down rather than injure it. Using this method she was quickly gaining on it. She could see the fear in it''s eyes as it kept glancing back at her. However she nearly missteped and fell down due to surprise when she received a message from it via spiritual sense, "Please, I know my wrongs. Show mercy!"However her surprise quickly turned to rage.


    "You killed too many essence cultivators and weakened our ability to defend ourselves. Even if I spared you, the rest of my race would not," Maxine replied to it coldly. In the next instant, an essence arrow hit it''s hind quarters and exploded rendering it immobile.Nice shot, Meagan.Maxine didn''t waste even an instant as she jumped into the air and slammed both of her Twilight Iron Blades brutally on it''s neck.

 Chapter 60

    An instant before Maxine''s Twilight Iron Blades made contact with the Four-Tailed Fox''s neck, she saw astrange look in it''s eyes at the same time that she felterratic essence fluctuations coming from it. She knew something was wrong, but she was already commited to her attack. Both of Maxine''s blades sliced through it''s neck as if it were made of soft butter rather than the tough flesh of an iron stage essence beast.Something''s wrong here, I shouldn''t have been able to cutthrough it''s flesh and bone that easily.


    "MAXINE! GET AWAY FROM THAT THING NOW!" Hellen roared hurriedlyto Maxine using her spiritual sense and Maxine immediatelyobeyed since Hellen never talked to her during a fight for fear that the distraction would cause her harm. Sheimmediately kicked off of it''s back as hard as she could and curled her body up into a ball as she formed a rubbery ball of shadow essence around herself.


    Maxine knew that she had taken the correct course of action an instant later as a massive explosionhither, but itit wasn''t strongh enoughto get through her defensive ball. However the explosion had put her into a violent spin and it became increasingly more difficult to maintain her defensive ball. The spinning only got worse when she impacted with the ground and bounced back up due to the rubbery properties of her protective ball. She eventually came to a violent stop after several more bounces. The sudden stop had left her dazed and with an urgent need to vomit.


    Maxine dissolved the ball of shadow essence surrounding her and dissolved her essence armor as sne collapsed onto her hands and knees before vomitting onto the ground. After finishing her bout of vomitting, she noticed that she had gotten vomit in her hair and immediately used her essence to clean her hair. Afterwards, Maxine wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and got to her feet before she scanned her surroundings. She was in the middle of the forest with a tall rock face with alot of cracks spiderwebbing out from where she had impacted it behind her.


    Maxine extended her spiritual sense and found out just how far she had been thrown. She was roughly three miles away from the battlefield. Patrick and the others were running in her direction. She knew they were all concerned for her, but Patrick looked the most concerned out of everyone. She reached up to press the talk button on the ear piece to let them know she was alright, but didn''t find it. She assumed that she lost it sometime during the fight with the Four-Tailed Fox and decided to let Patrick know she was still alive via spiritual sense.


    "I''m alive and I can move on my own, Patrick," Maxine said with her spiritual sense and decided to tease Patrick, "You don''t need to carry me like a princess this time." Patrick visibly relaxed, but was still running towards her.


    "If you are up to teasing, you should live," Patrick responded with a small smirk on his face before his face got serious again, "You scared the hell out of everyone. If I hadn''t noticed that you formed a ball around you and flew off into the distance, we would think you were dead."


    "You are acting like I planned this," Maxine said via spirtual sense, "If I knew that essence beast was going to self-destruct, I would have turned around and ran rather than be caught up in the explosion. I am not suicidal."


    "You sure about that? You have done some pretty reckless stuff lately," Patrick responded.


    "Yes, I am sure," Maxine responded angrily, "Now was there anything left of that fox?"


    "Nothing but blood splatters," Patrick answered, "Even the tail you cut off earlier didn''t survive." That''s the second thing that isn''t what I expected. It''s tail should have been far enough away that it shouldn''t have been damaged.Maxine scanned everything in the area of her battle with the Four-Tailed Fox and couldn''t even find a trace of that severed tail.That''s odd. There should at least be some pieces of it. Maybe it got thrown a good distance away like I did.Maxine expanded her search area and was startled as soon as she detected the heavily wounded Four-Tailed Fox stealthily fleeing from the battlefield.What the fuck?! Didn''t that thing self-destruct?! I need to find out what''s going on and the best way is directly from the source. Time to capture it.


    Maxine ordered her Shadow Wolves to capture the fleeing fox. She would have her wolf girl shadow clonerestrain it and bring it to her after she met up with Patrick to let him see that she is alright. However she looked down and saw that her clothes were in tatters and saw second and a few third degreeburns on her exposed skin. Fortunately she had worn her arachne silk bra and panties as well as her Steel Silk Vest. If she hadn''t worn them, she would have alot more burns. Some of which would be in some very tender areas. However her protective garmentswere very badly damaged.I am definitely going to be feeling these burns on my thighs and arms quite a bit once my adrenaline wears off. Thinking of which, why hasn''t my adrenaline worn off yet?As if on cue, her pain levels quickly skyrocketed as searing pain flooded her nervous system. She let out several groans of pain and had nearly collasped on the ground because of it.OH,GOD.THIS HURTS! Still it could be worse. I could have an audience.As if fate was toying with her, Maxine detected that Patrick was almost close enough to see her and she immediatelyher essence armor to temporarily seal up her burns to reduce the pain. As she felt asome relief from the pain, sheleaned up against the rockface and waited forPatrick to avoid causing any more pain.


    A few moments later Patrick appeared in the distance from behind some trees. At the same time, Maxine''s shadow clone notified her that it had captured the fox and it was pleading with her shadow clone to be spared even as it struggled to free itself from the Shadow Wolves. She sent it a message via spiritual sense, "Cooperate with the wolf girl and I promise that you won''t die." Unfortunately that didn''t seem to placate the fox at all and it struggled even more fiercely. "Either do what I say or die now," Maxine said cruelly and it seemed to dispair as it finally gave in, "Good. The wolf girl will take you to aplace where I will pick you up later." Maxine ordered her shadow clone to transport all of her Shadow Wolves and the captive Four-Tailed Fox to the shadow world before going there itself and she gave it an additional order to keep the Four-Tailed Fox in the cave. Maxine would open a portal to the shadow world later in order to interogate the Four-Tailed Fox later.


    Patrick wasn''t running towards her, but his face was filled with concern the moment he appeared to notice that Maxine was very obviously in pain. He jogged towards her and said as soon as he got to her side, "I thought you said you weren''t injured."


    "I never said that. I said I would live and that you wouldn''t need to carry me," Maxine said while trying not to groan in pain, "Although I think I might change my mind on that if this pain gets any worse."


    "You gothit with an attack before that thing exploded in your face afterall," Patrick told her as he glanced down at the state she was in. He took off his shirt and presented it to Maxine while turning his head to look away.Too bad he is wearing that Steel Silk Vest that I gave him. I wanted to see his muscles.Maxine caught herself thinking oddly again and couldn''t help but get enraged. GOD DAMN HORMONES!"You are kind of exposed," Patrick said. Maxine snatched his shirt from his hands and put it on.


    "Thanks," Maxine said. She hadn''t enjoyed the thought of people gawking at her undergarments when she returned to the headquarters. Shewas as Patrick grabbed her hand and slung it over his shoulder while his other hand grabbed Maxine''s left shoulder. She was silently grateful that he was helping since walking on her own sounded like a very unpleasant activity at the moment. However he started moving too quickly and it cause Maxine to be jolted with pain.


    "Careful, you big idiot. I''m covered in burns," Maxine scolded him through grit teeth.


    "Sorry," Patrick replied as he very carefully helped her walk.


    During the walk back, Maxine thought about what to do in the future since it was better than focusing on the pain that she was in. First off, she needed to work on her escape plans since it was literately only a matter of time that someone figures out that she is Guan''s daughter. All someone has to do is look at a picture of Hellen when she was younger and they would have her. She didn''t honestly expect that Hellen hadn''t gotten a single picture taken in her entire life. That would be wishful thinking.


    Maxine had already planned on fleeing to the shadow world for such an eventuallity, but hadn''t done anything yet to establish a living space. A cave was hardly suited for that especially considering she was going to take her mother, Silky and possibly Emily there. That cave was just too small. The village that she had saved on the other hand would be a good choice to liveat least temporarily. However her high cultivation would attract all sorts of attention since she would be the only iron stage essence cultivator there. Maxine wondered if her cultivation method was compatible with the people of the shadow world.It would give the villagers a greater capacity to defend themselves as well as helping Maxine conceal her presence. The only drawback she could see was on the off chance someone was monitoring the cultivation of every individual in the shadow world, but the odds of that are slim to none.


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    Second, Maxine knew that there was a limit to how many shadow creaturesthat she could make and felt like she was close to reaching it ever since she made her dragon. She guessed that she could make three more shadow versions of essence beastss or shadow clones, but not another dragon. It had felt like creating two hundred Shadow Wolves when she had made it and guessed that the dragon-type essence armor would be far superior to the other ones. However first she would have to find out if it was as powerful as she guessed. If it is that much more powerful, it would give her a nice trump card.


    Third, Maxine wanted to set up a school for essence cultivators to acquire income to assist in paying the bills. The biggest problem wasn''t finding students. She know how to do that. It was as simple as making a few posts on multiple social media sites. The problem was that she had no idea where she could teach them. Her backyard was out of the question as it wasn''t that large and the middle of the forest was too dangerous to drag non-cultivators for lessons.Maybe I could ask General McKenzy if he knows of a place that I could use.


    Lastly, Maxine had to do all of those things while training her Phantasmal Steps of the Shadowcat, master the Flowing Water Blade and begin training the Yin Yang Blades technique to increase her battle power. It made Maxinefeel alittle overwhelmed by everything that was demanding her attention. The easiest of the three things she had to work on was testing out the dragon essence armor once her wounds healed up and she could have her shadow clones do most of the weapons training to get a feel for them before engraving it into Maxine''s muscle memory.


    Maxine returned her awareness to her surroundings as Jack came into view. Apparently Meagan and Maxwell had stayed behind to keep an eye on Alice. Surprisingly they didn''t talk much as the two of them escorted Maxine back to the army''s defense line. It was a painful experience for Maxine since every step caused some level of pain due to her burns. She wanted to sit down and cultivate for a couple hours to speed up the healing, but that wasn''t a good idea since there might be some decently powerful essence beasts in the vicinity. Although the chances of that were staggeringly low due to the recent bombardment, it was better safe than sorry.


    As soon as they got past the tree line and were able to see the armed forces, Maxine immediately got angry. There were several medivac helicopters taking the severely wounded to hospitals and one of them was parked on the ground behind the armored vehicles without doing anything at all.Why the fuck couldn''t anyone have sent that thing to come and get me? Instead he had me hike three god damn miles through a forest withsecond AND third degree burns! If it wasn''t for the fact that I am an essence cultivator with far greater mental strength than a normal human, I would have passed out from the pain.Patrick better have one hell of a good reason for this!


    Maxine pointed weakly at the parked medivac helicopter and asked Patrick angrily, "Why didn''t call for one of those to come get me when you found me?"


    "Ask the former General McKenzy," Patrick answered, "He just asked me to make sure you weren''t taken to a hospital if at all possible and if you got picked up by a medivac helicopter, that''s where you would end up going."Why did he do that? Wait! Does he know that I am technically an alien? I better tread lightly if that''s the case.She was nervous about talking with him now. However due to the fact he hasn''t said anything thus far, it was unlikely that he would reveal anything to the public.


    "Fine, just find me a nice safe spot, so that I can start healing myself," Maxine replied. She guessed it would take a total of eight hours of cultivation to heal her burns the smallest of her burns and it was likely to take her a few days to heal up. However she knew that she wouldn''t get that luxury until she got home.


    "I think that might be a problem," Patrick stated as he gestured towards the essence cultivators jogging towards them enmasse.Fuck, I really don''t need to be popular right now. I am injured, tired and in no mood for this shit.


    "Tell them to fuck off," Maxine grumbled, "Can''t they tell that I am injured?"


    "They can and I think they want to help. I think I even seea few carrying a first-aid kits," Patrick answered, "You did savethemfrom suffering alot more casualties by fighting that ''thing'' head on."


    Maxine let out a sigh, before she said, "Fine, but be sure to let themen in that oncoming group not to touch me." She still felt uncomfortable whenever an unfamiliar man touched her. Just the thought of it made her skin crawl.


    "I''m a man and you don''t seem to mind me," Patrick stated.


    "That''s because I trust you," Maxine told him and he immediately trembled.


    "You shouldn''t," Patrick said via spiritual sense, "Every time I see you, I remember what the other Maxine did to me and I have to resist the impulse to kill you. Even now, it takes more effort than you realize to keep myself from doing something to you."


    "I can never begin to understand what she did to you and I won''t even try," Maxine said to him via spiritual sense, "But I am not that person and never will be."


    "Maybe, maybe not," Patrick said before he severed the spiritual sense connection. It was excellent timing since the group of essence cultivators had finally reached them.


    Alice and a few other female essence cultivators surrounded Maxine and Patrick protectively. They were physically blocking all of the others from approaching.Huh? What are they doing that for?Maxine realized very quickly they were keeping all of the men present at a distance and realized as Meagan came closer that her avoidance of physical contact with men had become well known.


    Meagan was taking Patrick''s place to help Maxine walk. While they were switching places, Maxine said, "I will be fine as long as I have a place to rest for awhile."


    "How long is awhile?" Meagan asked while glancing at what was left of Maxine''s scorched clothes, "Because if your skin is in the same condition as your clothes, you might need to go to the hospital."


    "Three days at a minimum," Maxine responded, "And will probably take moretime that."


    "Those burns must be nasty for it to take that long for you to heal from them," Meagan said while looking extremely concerned before she turned her head towards Alice, "Alice! See if any of those guys have any burn treatment kits. We will need them."Meagan and the others took her to a tent and Meagan helped carry her inside. Alice was right behind them with the medical supplies.


    "Alice help me get these clothes off of Maxine," Meagan said and Alice helped her take Maxine''s tattered clothes off as well as the shirt Patrick let her borrow. Fortunately they left Maxine with her bra and panties on. Meagan picked up Patrick''s shirt and handed it to Alice and said, "Take this back to Patrick and stand outside with the others. Unless you want to see, what i am certain, are some pretty gruesome burns." Alice grabbed Patrick''s shirt and looked at Maxine with a concerned expression before she turned around to leave.


    After Alice was out of the tent, Meagan said, "Drop your essence armor. I know you havn''t already because you felt shy with Alice in here."


    "That''s not the reason why my essence armor is still up," Maxine responded, "It hurts more when my essence armor isn''t on."


    "Oh," Meagan said with a surprised expression on her face, "Turn it off anyways. We can''t leave your burns as they are. They might get infected, so I need to clean them to prevent that."


    "Alright," Maxine responded, "Just give me a moment to brace myself." She quickly steeled her will and dropped her essence armor. She just managed to keep herself from groaning loudly in painwhen the air got access to her burns again.


    "Jesus! Those are third degree burns!" Meagan exclaimed and quickly opened up a burn kit to treat Maxine''s burns, "If I didn''t knowessence cultivators heal alot faster than normal, I would drag you to a hospital and consequences be damned." Maxine really didn''t care whatMeagan was saying as she laid there in agony. However one by one, there was a cooling sensation covering each of her many burns. It didn''t allieviate the pain entirely, but it helped.


    However while Meagan worked, Maxine felt something take over a small portion of her essence. Her essence was separating to white and black colored essence and the white essence was being directed towards her burns. It tookMaxine a moment to realize that it was Hellen, whom was controlling some of her essence, as Maxine''s burns started to hurt less and less. After seeing how it was done, Maxine separated her shadow essence into black and white essence herself and began to use the white essence to heal her burns. "Thanks, mom," Maxine sent to Hellen and didn''t expect an answer since Meagan was close enough to detect if it Hellen responded. At this point, Hellen had stopped helping her do the healing.


    "What the hell?" Meagan said softly, "Maxine whatever you are doing, keep doing it. It''s slow, but I can literately see your burns healing." Maxine wanted to keep doing this herself since it was making her burns hurt less, but she was running out of essence extremely fast. She estimated that her essence would run out after she did about five percent of the healing. However it would take her roughly two hours to recover that essence if she meditated and it took around five minutes to drain her essence. She did the math and it would take alittle over thirty eight hours for her to completely heal if she focused completely on healing her burns. It would reduce her recovery time significantly, but Maxine imagined that Emily could do better.


    "Hey, why did you stop?" Meagan asked when Maxine ran out of essence.


    "Ran out of essence," Maxine answered simply, "Give me a couple hours and I will continue."


    "Can I ask you a question while we wait?" Meagan asked.


    "Go for it," Maxine said, "But make it quick. I need to meditate in order to recharge."


    "Why are you helping us so much?" Meagan asked, "I don''t mean humanity in general, but me, Patrick, Maxwell and Jack." Maxine looked Meagan in the eye, and saw a hint of worry like she was afraid of Maxine''s answer.She doesn''t seriously think I am trying to steal Patrick from her, does she?


    "Didn''t Patrick tell you?" Maxine asked Meagan.


    "He told me that you might turn into a violent lunatic if left alone and he wanted to see if it wasn''t too late to keep that from happening," Meagan stated, "And I know that you have seen the future like he has. Now answer my question."So he didn''t tell her everything. I thought he would have.


    "I want to help you because I am helping myself. The more powerful people present the easier it is to ensure the future that I saw won''t happen and making the strong stronger is the easiest way to do that," Maxine explained, but she didn''t add anything else. Maxine didn''t think Meagan would believe her if she said that she was the fused soul of Maxwell Adams from ten years in the future and the broken Maxine Levings. Fortunatelyher explaination seemed to satisfy Meagan.As soon as I heal up, I will go to the shadow world and see if those villagers can use my cultivation technique. I can test out my dragon armor while I am there as well. That way I can take care of two birds with one stone.

 Chapter 61

    Maxine was still in alittle pain from her mostly healed burns when she woke up. Fortunately, it was greatly diminshed from yesterday. She could walk on her own without assistance now. However this was mostly due to Maxine visiting Emily on her way home yesterday.Maxine remembered the look of horror on Emily''s face when she sawMaxine covered in burns. Maxine never wanted to see that look on Emily''s face again. Fortunately, Maxinedidn''t need to visit Emily again in order to heal the rest of the way.


    Maxine quickly got dressed and finally entered the shadow world to interrogate the Four-Tailed Fox. She walked to the spot in the back of the cave where six of her iron stage Shadow Wolves were surrounding it with her shadow clone. The Four-Tailed Fox was still in rough shape, but quite alive as it looked at her in fear.


    "You are going to answermy questions," Maxine said to the Four-Tailed Fox using her spiritual sense, "Afterwards, I will let you go, so long as you promise not to attack humans again."


    "Why should I believe any of your words you foul human? For all I know you wish to torment me with the hope of surival," the Four-Tailed Fox said in return.


    "I already gave you my word. What more do you want?" Maxine said.


    "Your wordis worthlessas are the words of all humans.Human lie and cheat each other. Why would I be fool enough to trust one?" the Four-Tailed Fox said with venom.


    "That''s true, but you should remember that I could have started this with torture. Instead I started off by asking you to cooperate," Maxine said to the Four-Tailed Fox, "Doesn''t that count for something?"


    "It does, but it will never be enough for me to trust you. Not after what your kind has done to mine," the Four-Tailed Fox said, "Your kind kill us forfunand don''t even eat our flesh to satisfy your hunger. You wear our furs like we arethe latest fashion and don''t care one wit that you have caused us to suffer. Most humans are vile and cruel creatures that do not deserve to live."


    "I would agree with you about certain individuals of my race that don''t deserve to live, but we are not all like that," Maxine said, "However that doesn''t give you the right to form a large group of essence beasts to slaughter humans to apease your infintile need for vengeance. Did you ever consider that your actions would only make things worse? If you keep this shit up, the rest of humanity will view all essence beasts as vicious creatures that need to be eliminated."


    "I am not afraid of those weaklings. Their only merit is in their numbers," the Four-Tailed Fox said, "Only a few individuals like yourself give me a reason to think twice. However I don''t understand why you havn''t taken your role as their leader."


    "My society isn''t a strength based one," Maxine told the Four-Tailed Fox.


    "Why not make it that way?" the Four-Tailed Fox askedwith what she thought was a smile on his face, "It seems you humans have forgotten that force trumps all other authorities. You think the world will bow to you if you have enough followers or wealth, but that is sadly not true. Those that are powerful should be in charge. Afterall, why should a mighty tigress, like yourself, be subservient to those insects?" Maxine couldn''t deny what the Four-Tailed Fox was saying had some truth. For an instant, she fantisized about taking over the country, but dismissed it almost immediately after as childish. It would cause a conflict that would weaken humanity as a whole.He is trying to divert my attention from what I really want to ask and at the same time, trying to get me to become a problem for the rest of humanity.


    "Enough!" Maxine roared at the Four-Tailed Fox with her spritual sense and it flinched, "Do not try that again."


    "You can''t blame me for trying," the Four-Tailed Fox.


    "No, I can''t. You are just looking out for the rest of your kind," Maxine responded, "Now will you answer my questions or not?"


    "Very well, ask your questions then, but Ilet you know right now thatif any of your questions could threaten the other essence beasts I won''t answer. No matter what you do to me," the Four-Tailed Fox said.


    "Good," Maxine said, "How did you make a clone of yourself mid-battle using your tail? I have never seen an ability like that before."


    "Oh? That''swhat you wanted to know?" the Four-Tailed Fox said in surprise and started to chuckle before answering, "It''s actually quite simple. I just used my tail as a medium to create a temporary clone and used a special illusion to make myself look like my severed tail. The drawback is that it uses a tremendous ammount of essence to make a clone that quickly. Hence it is the reason why I was so weak when your ''creations'' captured me. Although I have to admit those wolf-things you have made are quite lovely creatures. I wish my own mate was half as beautiful as even one of them."


    "You think they are beautiful?" Maxine said while feeling astonished.


    "Very and all female too," the Four-Tailed Fox said in amusement, "It made my captivity here quite pleasant. I thank you for that." Maxine smiled knowingly.


    "Your welcome," Maxine said half-heartedly before shemoved on to her next question, "You already told me why essence beasts attack, so I want to know if you think the rest of your brethren would be willing to talk things out peacefully."


    "I can try toconvince my fox tribe to agree to talk, but I can''t guarantee that they will. The most I can do is have them consider it," the Four-Tailed Fox said, "However the ones that really matter are the bears. They rule the essence beasts of this continent and they rule purely by strength alone."


    "What would makethe bears listen?" Maxine asked.


    "Absolute strength," the Four-Tailed Fox said, "Or something akin to those dragons in your myths. I don''t imagine the Golden Bear Kingwould listen otherwise."


    "Is that something like a Terror Bear?" Maxine asked.


    "No, Terror Bears are the bear tribe''s foot soldiers, or as you would call it canon fodder," the Four-Tailed Fox said, "The Golden Bear King is half the size of a Terror Bear and hasdouble the durability and strength of a Terror Bearat the same level."That sounds terrifying, but it should still be somewhat weaker than my dragon. I hope.


    "I think I can make him listen to me," Maxine answered with a smile.


    "Oh? You are dragon? You don''t look like one," the Four-Tailed Fox said with an amused tone.


    "Not exactly," Maxine said, "It''s easier to show you rather than tell you so follow me and watch." She walked outside of the cave while the Four-Tailed Fox trailed behind her. However she stopped it before it could exit as she summoned the bracer portion of the Shadow''s Embrace armor. She kicked off her shoes and socks and pulled off her shirt. After putting them in her dimensional pouch, shesummoned her dragon from the bracers. As soon as her dragon appeared, she heard a strangled yelp of fear from the Four-Tailed Fox.


    Maxine formed her essence armor with a smile on her face and ordered her dragon to fuse with it. She figured she might as well gauge the power of her dragon essence armor while giving the Four-Tailed Fox a good reason to accomodate her.


    Unbelieveable strength flooded Maxine''s body the moment her dragon''s essence core combined with her esssence armor. Immediately a long serpentine tail sprouted out of her back just above her butt. It was only slightly thicker than her arms, but it was easily six feet long with a blade at the end of it.Next a pair of bat-like wings formed on either side of her spine on her upper back that just barely avoided destroying her bra. However the wings had a razor sharp edge on them. Silver-colored heavy scales quickly formed on the rest of her body as vicious looking claws formed on her hands and feet. A strange see-through membrane started to form around her head like a helmet. It looked like a dragon''s head with vicious forward facing horns. Finally extremely sharp spines of varying length formeddown the center of her back andalong her newly formed tail. This transformation took less than a second. However a strange energy in her chest had formed during this process and it was demanding to be released. Maxine quicklytiled her head backto roar. The mouth on her helmet opened at the same as she opened her own mouth as she released a roar to release that pent up energy. The roar sounded like a combination of her own roar and that of a dragon''s. A moment after she started roaring, a gout of silver flames erupted fifty feet out of the open jaws of her draconic helmet. It''s all felt amazine to Maxine. After she finished roaring, she looked at herself with her spiritual sense.I looked like what happens when a silver dragon and a human have a baby.


    Maxine turned to the Four-Tailed Fox.His jaw was hanging open and there was a strong smelling puddle beneith him as he trembled in terror.Wow. I didn''t expect him to piss himself. Am I really that scary?


    Maxine tested out the strength of herpunch by hittinga nearby boulder. However she was surprised by the force of her attack since it was many times what she expected as the rock exploded into a cloud of dust.Oh. My. Fucking. God. I just pulverized a 12 ton boulder in one hit! It would have taken me at least six hits to turn a boulder of that size into gravel, but I don''t think I would ever be able to pulverize it into rock dust.Without thinking she used her tail like a whip and heard the sound barrier break at least a dozen times from the pure speed of the attack.Is that even dodgable for anyone in the iron stage? Even if someone blocks it, they are going to loose a limb at the minimum. This overpowered to the extreme. I havn''t even checked to see how durable this dragon essence armor is yet, and it still blows away all of my other essence armors. Isn''t there some higher power out there meant to balancethe living creatures of theuniverse or something? Because I just got the most unfair trump card of all time. It''s too bad that I can''t use it though. Using something this overpowered in public is the same as putting a bullseye on my back. There is no way the government would allow me to live without them either watching my every move or trying to find a way to kill me without being discovered. It would probably be a combination of the two. Not to mention it would be a big god damn red flag to all of the essence cultivators roaming around. I don''t need that headache on top of what I already have to put up with. I guess this essence armor will have to be my last resort move. I wonder though. Do the alien essence cultivators have bullshit abilities like this as well? If they do, I am just leveling the playing field.She checked on the Four Tailed Fox and saw that it had fainted onto the ground. However even when the Four-Tailed Fox was unconscious, he was still trembling in fear.Wait a second. The Four-Tailed Fox shouldn''t be that afraid of the raw power that my dragon essence armor puts out. At most, he should be fearfully shocked. Unless... Could Dragon Fear be a thing?Maxine pushed that out of her mind as she noticed how quickly both her essence core and her dragon''s essence core were being drained.It seems I have a time limit while wearing this thing. I am guessing it would drain me completely after five minutes if I have already drained most of my essence before activating it and fight. Triple that ifIactivate it at full strength and that''s assuming I don''t use any powerful attacks.


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    Maxineshrugged and spread her wings in preparation for flight when Hellen contacted her via spiritual sense, "Maxine, ... turn... it... off... quickly." Hellen had sounded extremely weak as if she were straining to talk to Maxine. Maxine immediately removed her dragon''s essence core and returned it to her bracers. "Thank you. That new type of essence armor that you just used can suppress and induce fear in the souls of others in the immediate vicinity. It is whythat fox colasped in a puddle of his own urine. Iwouldn''t have been quite so concerned if it hadn''taccelerated the awakening of your bloodline as well," Hellen said with a gradually strengthening tone with her spiritual sense.


    "Bloodline? You mean the Kavros bloodline?" Maxine asked and felt the spiritual equivalent of a flinch coming from Hellen, "What are you not telling me?"


    "Maxine do you remember when you fought that Tempest Weasel and felt your essence surge throughout your body?" Hellen asked and Maxine nodded her head, "That was the initial awakening of your bloodline. Normally it happens after you reach silver stage, but it was triggered early due to combination of the threat to your life and your anger. I thought you would have enough time to make another breakthrough before the next part of the awakening process began."


    "Wait. Wouldn''t it be better if I awakened my bloodline sooner?" Maxine asked while basing her question off of a couple eastern fantasy novels that she had read. Bloodlines were always beneficial as far as she knew.


    "Maxine, do not base this off of fantasy novels. Any benefit that emerges from your bloodline comes with a cost attached. Sometimes it''s as mild as a headache and others are torturous," Hellen reprimanded, "And the earlierany bloodline awakens, the harsherthe price that you have to pay is. The price of our bloodline is pain whileyour body is being restructured. Fortunately it started with your essence pathways and you shouldn''t be paralyzed again."


    "Wait, what do you mean restructure my body? Will my appearance change?" Maxine asked in a slight panic.


    "Possibly," Hellen answered and Maxine detected increasing levels of concern eminating from Hellen, "But that normally doesn''t happen unless your bloodline has mutated, which is extremely rare.Your bloodlineshould only restructure the interior of your body to increase your overall battle power and affinity for the shadow attribute."


    "What the hell is my bloodline called and what does it give me?" Maxine asked while dreading the pain that is to come.


    "It is called the Shadow Lord bloodline and it is the source ofour shadow attribute," Hellen said with alittle sadness, "We don''t have the time to go overall of the benefits of our bloodline. You need to brace yourself. Right now."


    "What do you mean brace my... ARGH!" Maxine was hit with searing pain as she tried to ask Hellen a question and struggled not to scream. The pain was mind numbing. Fortunately it was still less severe than when she absorbed all of those essence cores to reach iron stage. Maxine gave a series of orders to her shadow as she curled up into a ball on the ground. The first order was to carry her and the Four-Tailed Fox deep into the cave. Afterwards it was to go back to her house and wait for her mother to tell her that Maxine was occupied with training. Next she ordered her Shadow Wolves to keep the Four-Tailed Fox in his corner and away from Maxine.


    While Maxine''s shadow clone and Shadow Wolves went to fulfill their orders, Maxine could quite literately felt her bones and muscles snap and pop as they restructured themselves. It was anextremely bizzare and disturbing sensation. At least it would be if she wasn''t in so much pain.


    "I am sorry for not telling you about this sooner. I was silently hoping that this wouldn''t happen since not everyone in that has our bloodline experiences this. This pain that you are feeling is actually a test.It is something that our bloodline does to determine if you are worthy of it. For those it deems completely unworthy, it won''t even offer them this test," Hellen said helplessly and almost sounded like she was on the verge of tears, "Be strong, my baby girl. It won''t shouldn''t take more than a day."


    Maxine couldn''t answer even if she wanted to as the pain wracked her body and made concentrating on her spiritual sense a nearly impossible task.She rolled around on her back after her shadow clone set her on the ground and she realized to her horror that the pain was slowly increasing. She started to sweat profusely after what she thought was half an hour.


    Maxine couldn''t even open her eyes. However after awhile she vaguely hearda masuline voicesay, "So there was a price to that power. Woah, easy ladies. Iam haven''t left my spot so there is no need togrowl at me."


    However Maxine couldn''t care less about that voice as she struggled to handle the pain coursing through her body. She wan''t certain how long she laid on the ground, but her shadow clone contacted her. It only took a thought to see what was going on since her shadow clone initiated the contact. Emily had come to her house. Silky had called her on the phone because she had sensed that Maxine was in immense pain.


    "Open up one of those portals and send me to Maxine," Emily demanded. Even while feeling such intense pain, Maxine felt happy that Emily was so concerned about her. However she felt Hellen piggyback through the connection to Maxine''s shadow clone.


    "Silky has impressive instincts. Somehow she just knew that Emily''s divine essence can help you," Hellen said to Maxine via spiritual sense. Maxinestruggled to focus her mind enough to order her shadow clone to open up a portal to the shadow world. She managed it to do it after nearly a minute of struggling and Emily went through the shadow portal.


    "MAXINE!" Emily shouted in horror as soon as she saw Maxine laying on the ground in pain and rushed to Maxine''s side, "What happened? Did your wounds get infected?"


    "Maxine''sgenetic code has mutated and this mutation is causing her body to begin restructuring itself to be more powerful at a cellular level," Hellen answered Emily for Maxine through spiritual sense and had allowed Maxine to listen into the conversation, "Unfortunatelyher body is restructuringtoo quickly and it''s causing Maxine immense amounts of pain."Maxine was grateful that Hellen explained it, but she doubted that Emily would believe it. She was quite smart afterall and Maxine didn''t have the mental focus at the moments to come up with a more believable lie.


    "Is there anything I can do to help her?" Emily asked in a half-panicked voice.


    "Coat Maxine''s entire body with your divine essence. That should help her to some degree," Hellen answered, but for some reason, Maxine sensed some deception from Hellen. Within moment''s the pain coursing through Maxine''s body lessened considerably.


    Maxine felt a tender touch brush some of her hair off of her face and heard Emily say, "Why didn''tshe have Silky call me sooner?"


    "This mutation happened spontaneously. There was no time for Maxine to let Silky know," Hellen answered again for Maxine, "And she wasn''t in any condition to use one of her shadow clones todo it either." Just as Maxine was finally adjusting to the reduced level of pain, it surged back up again.


    "I thought you said my divine essence would help!" Emily shouted angrily.


    "It is. It''s hastening the restructuring process," Hellen said, "This way she won''t suffer from pain for nearly as long."


    "How much are my efforts reducing it by?" Emily asked.


    "You are reducing the time in half," Hellen answered.


    However Maxine heard them talking, but didn''t have the capability to join in the conversation. It took every fiber of her being just to withstand the pain. She could no longer tell if they were talking anymore as she endured. She had lost track of how long she simply laid there. Eventually this torment seemed to be ending as her pain levels began to decrease. When her pain finally vanished, Maxine felt incredibly weary and was struggling to stay conscious due to the mental drain.


    "Thank you, Emily," Maxine said as she opened her eyes, "I don''t think I could have handled that without you speeding it along." Emily looked pale and like she was about to collapse. Even without using her spiritual sense, Maxine knew that Emily had used up all of her essence. However Emily started smiling brilliantly when sheheard Maxine speaking.


    "I would do this any time for you," Emily said weakly, "Do you have any idea what triggered this?"


    "Yes, but I can''t explain right now," Maxine said, "If I don''t get us back home, the both of us will be sleeping here for the night." To emphasize her point, Maxine yawned.


    "Alright then," Emily said and immediately after sent a message via spiritual sense, "You are going to tell me what''s really going on later. I don''t believe Hellen''s excuse for a second that your genes just ''suddenly'' mutated and started a violent change in your body."


    Maxine was too tired toargue about it. However she knew that Hellen had intercepted that spiritual sense message that Emily had sent Maxine, yet hadn''t tried to explain anything. I guess Hellen is going to leavethe explaining to me then. This sucks. I don''t want to lie to Emily, but I can''t tell her the truth either. At least not for now.


    Maxine''s consciousness was slipping asEmily went with her through the portal back to Maxine''s house. Emily helped Maxine walk to her bed and she feltthe softness of her bed on her cheek before she realized it. However before she dozed off to sleep, she felt something soft land on top of her. She was vaguely aware that it was Emily collasping due to exhaustion as sleep finally claimed her.

 Chapter 62

    As Maxine slowly woke up, she felt weight on her breasts and someone''s very soft snore. She opened her eyes and saw that Emily''s head was resting on top of them. So, that part wasn''t a dream. I wonder why General McKenzy didn''t come to get her, but I am really happy that he didn''t.Maxine lifted up her right arm and started to brush Emily''s hair with her fingers. She thorougly enjoyed this situation. Unfortunately this experiencewas short lived as Emily started to stir after only a few moments.


    Right before Emily''s eyes opened, Maxine decided to tease her, "I didn''t think my boobs were big enough to be considered pillows." At hearing that, Emily bolted upright while blushing fiercely. However after Emily recovered, Maxine saw a mischievous sparkle in Emily''s eye as she smiled.


    "You''re right, they are too small. Now I have a crick in my neck," Emily said teasingly.Maxine smiled wickedly as she laughed lightly.She is finally teasing me back. This is great!Emily started laughing as well a moment following Maxine.


    "Now if you two are done flirting, come to the table. Breakfast is ready," Maxine''s mother said from the bedroom door with a smile on her face. Maxine joined Emily in blushing. She hadn''t been aware her mother had heard what Maxine had said. After Maxine''s mother left, Silky poked her head into the doorway and had a smile on her face before she scurried off towards the kitchen.


    "Grandma Claudia, I am gonna have two mamas," Silky announced happily from down the hall, which caused Maxine and Emily to blush an even deeper red.


    "Well, unless you want to see me change clothes, you best give me some privacy," Maxine said to Emily.


    "Alright, but you better tell me what is really going on," Emily said while smiling, but paused a moment later with a confused look on her face, "Maxine, did you always have those golden specks in your eyes?" At hearing Emily''s question, Maxine became too alarmed to answer as she quickly got out of bed. She looked at her eyes in the mirror attached to her dresser. Her eyesdid have golden specks in them and in the same pattern as in Poison Emperor Guan''s eyes.FUCK ME! It lookes like my bloodline mutated, but why did only affect my eyes? It doesn''t matter. What does matter is that my eyes have that pattern and it basically marks me as Guan''s daughter.Even though her eyes effectively marked her, Maxine couldn''t help admire the inheirent beauty of her eyes.


    "Maxine?!" Emily asked while sounding alarmed, "Did your genes really mutate?"


    "Yes, but not in the way that you think," Maxine said while trying to figure out the best way to tell Emily that she is an alien while simultaneously fending off her own fears at revealing everything.


    "Then explain it to me," Emily demanded.


    "Emily, I don''t know how to tell you gently so I will just say it," Maxine said with her spiritual sense and hesitated for an instant while confronting her fears before continuing, "I am an alien with a wierd bloodline."


    "What?!" Emily exclaimed in surprise.


    "I didn''t take it that well either when I found out," Maxine admitted, "Although I was more angry at my real dad for not saving me from that child-abusing asshole, but I could never be mad at my real mom."


    "What do you mean your real mom and dad?" Emily asked with a confused look on her face, "And why don''t you hate your real mother? She abandoned you on Earth didn''t she?"


    "She didn''t have much aof a choicein the matter. She died protecting me," Maxine said, "My real dad is the one that put me here on Earth. He is the one that abandoned me." Maxine still felt angry over that. If he hadn''t meddled with Earth, she would still be in her original body and would have lived a peaceful life. It was even possible that she could have met up with Emily and had a family. However that isn''t what had happened.


    Maxine noticed that Emily wasn''t as surprised as she should have been by Maxine''s confession. "You knew," Maxine said softly.


    "Grandpa told me that it was likely that you weren''t from Earth," Emily said softly, "I just never thought it would be true. Do you at least know the names of your biological parents?"


    "Yes," Maxine smiled as she said that and held up her right arm with the golden bracelet on it, "You have already met mom. You and her have already talked. As for my biological father, his name is Guan and I do not want to talk about him."


    Emily''s eyes locked onto the golden bracelet on Maxine''s wrist before she asked, "Your mom is Hellen? I thought she was an ancient essence cultivator whose soul got bound to that bracelet."


    "Yes, and you are partly right. However she is definitely older than any person on Earth," Maxine said as calmly as she could, "So am I for that matter."


    "What?" Emily asked in a confused tone, "I don''t understand. Your mom has baby pictures of you and said that your birth had been a rough one. How is that possible?"


    "I hadn''t technically been born yet. I was a one month old fetus when I was put into stasis by my real mother until Guan could find me. Afterwards, he waited nearly a hundred years before coming to Earth and implanting me into my mother''s womb," Maxine answered, "Don''t ask me how. I don''t know myself."


    "That''salot to take in," Emily said.


    "Tell me about it," Maxine agreed with Emily, "But can you keep this to yourself? It would cause alot of trouble for me and everyone close to me if you didn''t."


    "I can try, Maxine," Emily responded, "But I can''t guarantee that I won''t slip up by accident."With your essence enhanced brain, that is unlikely.


    "I hate to interrupt you two, but we may have a serious problem in the future," Hellen announced, "I have founda couple ant queens that are beginning to change into an essence beasts. The good news is that it is a very slow process and should take close to ten years before it can become even a copper stage essence beast. I have no idea how powerful they will be once they do." Maxine imagined what such a thing would be like and instantly began to sweat. The mere thought of a huge swarm of foot-long ants blackening the landscape made her feel terrified.


    "Can''t we just exterminatethem and solve that problem here and now?" Emily asked. Maxine gave her a look as if she thought Emily was being stupid.


    "Emily, essence beasts are like cockroaches. If you find one, there are probably ten or more that are out there unseen," Maxine told Emily.


    "Then is there no way to stop them from appearing?" Emily asked.


    "Not really," Maxine replied, "The only way slow them down is to wipe out each ant colony that is absorbing essence as we find them. It''s best to get rid of the ones inside cities first before they gather too much essence. The easiest way is to tell General Cullen about it later on today and let him handle it. But for now, let''s get some breakfast. Mom is probably wondering why we haven''t come to the table yet."


    "Sounds like a decent enough plan to me," Emily said and nodded as she walked out of the room, so that Maxine could get changed.


    Maxine quickly got changed and headed to the kitchen table to get breakfast. Breakfast consisted of bacon and eggs. Emily was already finishing up with her plate and Silky was eyeing Maxine''s breakfast. Maxine knew that her mother had put enough food on Silky''s plate for three people, but Silky seemed to be every bit the glutton that she was from when she was in her arachne form.


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    After eating breakfast, Maxine decided it was necessary to talk to General McKenzy today. He knew that she wasn''t from Earth and has supressed it. She wanted to know why he did that and she didn''t believe it was just an attempt to keep Emily safe by keeping her away from Maxine. He is far too professional for that.


    "Emily, let''s head over to your place. I bet your grandpa is worried about you," Maxine said, "I also have a few things to talk to him about when we get there."


    "That''s fine by me," Emily said as she got up and put her plate in the sink. Maxine did the same as well. However she also washed both dishes before she left the sink.


    "Mama, can I come with you?" Silky asked innocently.


    "Certainly," Maxine said as she ruffled Silky''s hair, "Just be sure you wear your panties. I know you are getting used to them, but you need to wear them."


    "I know, mama," Silky said with a smile on her face as she ran to her room to put on her shoes. Shoes were another new thing for Silky, but for some reason she understood the need to wear shoes and socks far more easily than the need to maintain her modesty.


    Once Silky was ready, the three of them headed to Emily''s house at a run. Maxine kept their pace slow, so that Silky could get used to running. However she realized that it was unnecessary after seeing how quickly Silky was adapting to running with two legs. It didn''t take them long to reach Emily''s house in any case.When they got there, General McKenzy gave Maxine a flat glare.Maxine knew that he wasn''t happy.


    "Hey, grandpa," Emily said to General McKenzy.


    "Welcome home, Emily," General McKenzy said with a smile. Silky smiled back at him while flanking Maxine.


    "Hey, Howard," Maxine said to General McKenzy and his face went back to being neutral.


    "Maxine," General McKenzy said flatly, "How are you injuries?" Huh? I wasn''t injured. Oh, wait. Silky called Emily after realizing that I was in pain. He must have heard a bit of that conversation or Emily told him.


    "I am fine now," Maxine said, "Thanks for asking. Umm, can I talk to you about a few things?"


    "Oh? About what exactly?" General McKenzy asked with only half-hearted curiosity.


    "Well, I was wondering if you knew of a place that I could teach others to be essence cultivators," Maxine said calmly, "But what I want to talk about first with you is my parents." General McKenzy''s eyes narrowed. Maxine never talked about her parents around him in the past.


    "Very well. We can talk about them, but let''s do it in my study," General McKenzy said calmly and turned his head to Emily, "Emily, why don''t you go get changed? You were wearing those clothes yesterday and no doubt they need to be cleaned." Maxine knew he was sending Emily away on purpose. He clearly wanted to talk with Maxine in private.


    "Silky, why don''t you go sit on the couch for a moment while I talk to Emily''s grandpa," Maxine told Silky.


    "Okay, mama," Silky said as she sat down on the couch.


    As a precaution before speaking, Maxine scanned the whole room for any listening devices while Emily walked to her room to get changed. She found twenty different listening devices just in the room they were in.Damn. I didn''t think they would be watching General McKenzy.


    "Follow me to my study, young lady," General McKenzy said as he walked towards his study.Once they were in his study, Maxine scanned this room as well, but noticed that there were no such listening devices in his study. I wonder how he managed to avoid getting this room bugged.


    Maxine got her answer when she found a strange device hidden in a book that appeared to be jamming all radio signals, but it had a very short range. She quickly expanded her spiritual sense to see if anyone was using one of those advanced listening devices that could be used at a distance. Fortunately there were none.


    "Why did you send Emily away?" Maxine asked, "I already told her everything that I was going to talk to you about anyways."


    "It''s not wise to talk about things like that, even in my home," General McKenzy said, "Now how much do you know about your ancestry?"


    "Enough. And why is it not wise to talk about those things? There are no listening devices in this room, nor is anyone aiming an antena listening device at this room," Maxine said.


    General McKenzy looked surprised for a moment before he smiled to himself and shook his head before saying, "I forgot that you could scan your surroundings like that. It appears that my age is catching up with me."


    "Doesn''t that catch up with everyone?" Maxine asked without expecting an answer as she continued, "Now for my real question. Who else beside me, you and Emily know that I am an alien?"


    "The scientist that ran the DNA testing does, but I made certain he would retain his silence. Other than that no one else knows," General McKenzy said calmly, "I am quite surprised that you are so calm after finding out your origins. May I ask how long you have known?"


    "A bit more than a month," Maxine responded.


    "May I ask how you found out?" General McKenzy said with a hint of anger in his voice.So he thinks that scientist told me.


    "Imet bothof my biological parents. That''s how," Maxine said.


    General McKenzy looked shocked for a moment and something seemed to dawn on him as he asked, "Was it during the event that you battled that Tempest Weasel?"


    "I met my real fatherduring that, but I met my real mom much sooner than that," Maxine admitted.


    "Interesting," General McKenzy said while rubbing his chin, "May I talk to either one of them?"


    "Technically, my real mom has been listening in this whole time," Maxine said with a smile.


    "Oh? In that case, madam, do you mind joining our conversation?" General McKenzy said while looking around, "I would appreciate seeing you in the flesh as well."


    "That may be a problem," Hellen announced with her spiritual sense, "My body has long since perished. However in a way, I am still physically present. Just look at the golden bracelet on my daughter''s wrist. That is where my soul resides. Don''t bother trying to damage it. Your race doesn''t have the means to."General McKenzy''s face slackened in disbelief as he stared at the golden bracelet on Maxine''s wrist. This was the first time that Maxine has seen him have such an expression.


    After waiting a few moments, Maxine realized that General McKenzy was speechless. "Mom, I think you broke him," Maxine said to Hellen. She couldn''t blame General McKenzy for being struck speechless. It''s not every day that an inaminate object starts talking to you with a beautiful feminine voice.


    "It seems so," Hellen said after chuckling and those words seemed to snap General McKenzy out of his stupor.


    "How is this possible?" General McKenzy asked while looking at Maxine''s golden bracelet.


    "It is too difficult to explain to a non-cultivator. Let''s just say that my soul was bound to this bracelet a moment before my death," Hellen said calmly.


    "Can oridnary people have their souls bound in a similar fashion?" General McKenzy asked with a hint of avarice in his eyes. Maxine didn''t blame him for asking. Having your soul bound to an object would essentially guarantee eternal life as long as the conditions were right.


    "No," Hellen said flatly, "The souls ofnon-cultivators are too weak to withstand it.Even my daughter would require the assistance of ahalf-step immortal essence cultivatorin order to bindher soul to an object. It''s just not possible for an ordinary person to have their soul imbued into an object."


    "I see," General McKenzy said in a disappointed tone, but quickly recovered as he seemed to remember the other reason Maxine had come here as he changed the subject, "Maxine, there are several places that are suitable to teach people to cultivate. I can help you arrange for you to be able to rent one of those locations, but you will have to pay for it yourself."


    "That''s fine. I already knew thatwould be the case," Maxine saidand knew that she would be able to pay for it herself. She still had that one hundred thousand dollars that she was going to be awarded for assisting in fending off the essence beasts.


    "Good," General McKenzy said, "If there is nothing else, we should go back to the living room. Emily will no doubt be finishing up any moment."


    "There isn''t," Maxine said, "Let''s go." Maxine turned and left General McKenzy''s study. When she opened the door, she saw that Emily was walking towards General McKenzy''s study.


    "So, did you two finish up your talk?" Emily asked.


    "Yeah, we did," Maxine said, "Let''s go watch some TV." Maxine really enjoyed watching television with Emily. Mostly because she got to sit next to Emily and cuddle. She had never really appreciated cuddling in the past when she was still a man, but now she absolutely loved it.


    "Sure," Emily said as she walked with Maxine and both of them sat down next to the very patient Silky.


    As they sat down, Maxine remembered that the Four-Tailed Fox was still in the shadow world and sent one of her shadow clones at a run towards the area that she captured the Four-Tailed Fox in. She felt annoyed with herself that she hadn''t thought that she would need to release it later. However she knew that the Four-Tailed Fox couldn''t be happy about loosing one of it''s tails.


    Maxine gota single dose of Troll''s Blood Sap out of her dimensional pouch. She created a tiny portal to the shadow world and dropped it into it. She had the shadow clone that was watching the Four-Tailed Fox administer the Troll''s Blood Sap to it. "Take this. It will help your tail regrow," Maxine said through her shadow clone. The Four-Tailed Fox looked at it skeptically before wolfing it down.


    Maxine brought her mind back to her surroundings and began to enjoy her time with Emily and Silky. She had no idea how much longer she can enjoy such things with the threat of essence beasts looming, so she wanted to take advantage of it as much as possible. Unfortunately she knew she would eventually have to go home with Silky andgive General Cullen a call to let him know about the ants absorbing essence.

 Chapter 63

    Maxine was going through school registrations at her new middle school with her mother. The only reason they were there physically was because her mother didn''t want to do it online.Maxine hadn''t thought this was necessary to even go to school since she could quite literately go to a library and in mere hours study all the way up to the twelfth grade. However her mother insisted that Maxine have as normal of a life outside of her activities as an essence cultivator. It was a pain, but Maxine indulged her mother as she reviewed the events of the last week.


    After she had given General Cullens a call last week that some ant colonies were in the process of becoming essence beasts, Maxinegot recruited by General Cullens to track down those ant colonies since her spiritual sense was far more accurate and sensitive than any of the essence detectors that the military had. She had found over twenty ant colonies within two hundred miles of her house that were showing signs of absorbing essence and eliminated them.Fortunately, they paid her two thousand dollars per ant colony that she discovered and destroyed, which was much a much appreciated source of income. However she had to use one of their handheld devices to confirm the fact that they were absorbing essence as proofbefore she actually destroyed the ant colony.


    Maxine had scanned each of the ant queens that were absorbing essence for future reference. She never knew when such information might be useful. Unfortunately, ants weren''t the only insects absorbing essence. She had found a wild bee hive that was doing it as well. It had nearly made her jump out of her skin in fright. Ants could at least be manageable with napalm if they became essence beasts, but bees couldn''t since they could fly. However she had left that bee hive alone and didn''t tell anyone about it, but she destroyed four other bee hives before she notified General Cullens about them. She had wanted to control the bee hive through it''s queen.


    Maxine had also released the Four-Tailed Fox back into the area that she caught it in. It had given an oath that it would try to convince as many of the beast tribes that it could to play nice with humans for now as a sign of good faith while Four-Tailed Fox negotiated peaceful terms. Maxine knew that the Four-Tailed Fox didn''t need her totranslate duringthose negotiations since she heard it speak. Although she had warnedthe Four-Tailed Fox that a speaking fox might take humans awhile to adjust to. However she still knew that the apex predators like the bears would need a more forceful hand.


    Maxine pulled herself out of her own thoughts and decided to ask Hellen a question yet again because she still had trouble believing that it was possible, "Are you sure that I cancontrol that Queen Bee before it becomes an essence beast?" Hellen had warned her that it would take a seal-type spiritual mark to do it. Maxine had been trying to master it this entire time with little success since it had to be so small. The biggest problem was that if she used too much strength to her spritual mark, it would kill the Queen Bee.


    "Yes, it is theoretically possible, but you must have near perfect control of your spiritual sense for that," Hellen responded, "I expect that you should be able to master that spiritual mark within the next week or so."


    "If you say so, mom," Maxine said to Hellen, "But this is way harder than anything else that I have ever done. That includes those blade techniques from before." It wasn''t a lie. Maxine had already mastered the Flowing Water Blade and was in the process of imprinting it onto her muscle memory.


    "That''s not surprising since those blade techniques were bronze and iron ranked respectively," Hellen said, "The spiritual mark that you are trying to learn is at the very limit of what an iron stage cultivator can handle and borders on silver stage in difficulty. However your soul is stronger than normal so, it should still be within your means to learn."


    "Well it doesn''t feel that way," Maxine said.


    "It shouldn''t, but remember the most difficult trials can result in the greatest reward," Hellen advised, "If you cancultivate that bee hive sufficiently, it could very easily be another ultimate trump card, like your dragon essence armor." Hellen wasn''t wrong. A swarm of copper stage bees would be dangerous even to Maxine since their stingers could potentially pierce her essence armor and poison her.


    "I know. That is why I am trying so hard to learn this spiritual mark," Maxine responded, "I want every capability to defend myself."


    "I know, Maxine," Hellen agreed, "It doesn''t look like we can talk anymore for now. Claudia has finished up your pointless school registration."


    "Don''t be like that," Maxine said, "She only wants me to live a normal life."


    "That isn''t possible and you know it," Hellen said before she cut the spiritual sense connection between them.I know that all too well, but it still gives her a sense of normalcy.


    "We''re all set for your classes," Maxine''s mother said and handed Maxine a sheet of paper, "They said to go to the website on this sheet of paper to get your class schedule."


    "Alright, mom," Maxine said, "I will look it up when we get home." She knew it would be a pain once she got into classes. She is a celebrity and would make most of the teachers nervous with her presence. She wouldn''t blame them either. It was a rather scary prospect to teach a student who could rip apart a tank with her bare hands.


    "Good," Maxine''s mother said, "Let''s go get Silky and head home." Maxine followed her mother out of the school. She was secretly thankful that she wasn''t being sent to her former middle school. If she went there again, she knew thatit would bring memories of herhalf-eaten classmates'' bodies littering the ground.


    As they got outside, Maxine saw the blonde pretty boy watching her with a pleased smile on his face from the other side of the street. This is the second time this week that I have seen him. I want to know why he is following me and why the hell does he have that smile on his face? It''s creeping me out.Maxine used her spiritual sense to see if he had anything on him that could reveal why he was following her, but to her surprise, she couldnt detect him with her spiritual sense.What the hell?!She didn''t understand what was going on, but for some reason, she felt a resonance in her blood while she looked at him.


    "Mom,I can barely sense thatblonde pretty boy across the street," Maxine said to Hellen using her spiritual sense, "Do you know any techniques capable of doing that?"


    "Yes, it is used by the Shadow Lords. It is similar tothemasking ability that you use, but it is far more advanced. I am surprised you were able to detect him at all," Hellen responded and felt some concern eminating from Hellen, "They do not teach that technique to outsiders."


    "Any idea why a Shadow Lord is watching me?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, actually," Hellen responded, but hertonecontained a hint of anger as she continued, "He is watching us to see ifhis race''slong-term experiment is successful. One of those beings forced our ancestor to be his mate in order to see if they could spawn something that their entire racedesired."


    "And what is that?" Maxine asked curiously, but felt angry that a Shadow Lord in her ancestry was a rapist.


    "An entity capable of becoming their ruler," Hellen responded, "Don''t worry too much about it. When I was around your age, theyobserved me as well. He won''t interfer with your life and should stop observing you after you breakthrough into silver stage. Supposedly there is some kind of sign that is going to happen during the breakthrough from iron to silver when that person is their ruler, but it hasn''t happened in all the generations since our founder. However I am curious how he knew that you have the Shadow Lord bloodline."


    "I think I know the answer tothat," Maxine said and she felt that she had Hellen''s attention, "I could feel a resonance in my blood when I looked at him. He probably felt the same when he saw me for the first time. But that''s only a guess of mine."


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    "Possible, but I will ask your father to see if he has any ideas. I will let you know as soon as I do," Hellen saidcalmly, but Maxine felt something akin to worry.


    "Alright," Maxine replied and sat down in the front seat of her mother''s car before they drove to Emily''s house to go pick up Silky. Her mother had done that to keep Silky from being bored while they got Maxine registered for school.


    Maxine felt that traveling in a car was unbearably slow. However she tolerated it since her mother didn''t have Maxine''s ability to run at super sonic running speed. It simply gave her more time to practice in forming the seal-type spiritual mark.If this were only the size of a coin, it would be so much easier, but because it has to be on an insect, this seal has to fit on the head of a small needle. I can''t use too much spiritual sense either and it''s really complicated as well.She had only managed to make itonce by the time she got home with her mother, but she knew that she hadimbued too much spiritual sense into it.Damn it. I either use too much or not enough. Too much will kill the queen bee and too little results in the seal unraveling.


    Maxine got out of the car once they got to Emily''s house. She went up to the front door and knocked. Silky immediately opened the front door with a happy smile on her face.


    "Hey, mama," Silky said cheerfully.


    "Hey, sweetie," Maxine said as she knelt down and hugged Silky. Silky returned it happily.


    "Mama, Mr. McKenzy has essence," Silky said after they separated. Silky''s statement had confused Maxine since the older someone starts to cultivate the harder it was to do it. In theory, he shouldn''t be able tocultivate at all considering his age.


    Maxine extended her spiritual sense and scanned General McKenzy. Silky was right. He had two strands of essence in his body. It wasn''t enough to enhance his strength, but it would make him feel healthier and more energetic. However she was still amazed. He must have possessed an immense talent for it to be able to absorb any essence at all. If he were still in his youth, his strength may have already surpassed her own without the use of essence cores.


    Maxine guessed that Emily had taught him. It didn''t bother Maxine at all that Emily did that. She would have done the same in Emily''s place. In fact, Maxine had already determined her mother''s talent in essence cultivation and her mother had absolutely no talent at all. It would take at a minimum of one hundred copper essence cores for her mother just enter copper stage.Maxine had no idea how much it would take her mother to actually reach bronze stage, so that Maxine could extend her life. That was assuming that her mother could cultivate at all.


    Emily appeared behind Silky. However she looked alittle angry as she looked at Silky. "Silky, you know that you are not supposed to open the door when you are at my house," Emily said in an annoyed tone.


    Silky shrank alittle as she replied, "I am sorry. I just wanted to see my mama."


    "I know Silky, but you were with Emily right?" Maxine asked Silky.


    "I guess," Silky said, "But I rather stay with mama."


    Maxine thought Silky''s behavior was adorable as she hugged Silky again and said, "I know."


    "She doesn''t like it when she is separated from you," Emily said, "She kept looking out the window to see if you had gotten back."


    "I know it upsets her, but I don''t want to be swarmed by overzealous reporters any more than necessary," Maxine said, "A few of them harrassed me while I was getting registered for school." It wasn''t a lie either. However there wasn''t a mob of reporters like she had expected when she went to get registered for school. Instead there were two reporters asking her if she intended to finish school. She didn''t mind answering those questions since they appeared to be harmless in nature. It also gave her free opportunity to tell everyone that she was going to teach others to cultivate. Unfortunately they weren''t on live television, but she doubted that the newscasters could resist putting it on the air. So she expected to get contacted soon through email address that she provided. She had made that email just for that purpose.


    "Just don''t do this too often," Emily stated, "What will you be doing about Silky while you are at school?"


    "I will be leaving one of my shadow clones to keep her company," Maxine answered.


    "Why didn''t you do that today?" Emily asked.


    "Both of my shadow clones are a bit occupied," Maxine said, "But one of them should be available when I am at school." One of her shadow clones was in the process of teaching the villagers in the shadow world how to cultivate and the other one was in the process of gathering herbs in the surrounding forests with a few of her Shadow Wolves since Guan had finally agreed to give her a beginner''s book on alchemy. He was in the process of writing it in english to make it easier for Maxine to understand it.


    "Good because grandpa said he would be busy while we are at school," Emily stated, "Although I don''t know what he is planning on doing though."


    "It''s his business in any case," Maxine said and heard her mother honk the horn to her car, "It seems mom is getting impatient. See you later, Emily."


    "Bye, Emily," Silky said sweetly as the both of them started to walk to the car.


    "See you two later," Emily said as she waved to them from the doorway.


    Maxine and Silky got into her mother''s car and they headed home. On the way home, Maxine started to fiddle with the seal-type spiritual mark some more, but she didn''t make much progress.


    Once they were home, Maxine went straight to her room and Silky followed her. She made certain that no one was watching as she used one of her Shadow Wolves as medium to form a portal to the shadow world. She wanted to check on the progress that the villagers were making with her own eyes instead of through her shadow clone.


    Maxine walked out of the cave and gazed apon the familiar black and white landscape as she jogged to the village. It took her only moments to reach the edge of the village. When she got there, she observed as her shadow clone was teaching all of the children and teenagers in the village how to cultivate. This whole thing was an experiment to see if they could use the same cultivation techniquie that humans could. So far, it seemed to be working and the cultivation of the young villagers was increasing quite rapidly with no obvious side-effects. But that was just on the short term. Maxine had no idea what any long term side-effects would be.


    Maxine knew that the villagers were extremely grateful to her since she had protected them from the bandits and had shown instances of devotion in their eyes in recent days. Talia, the girl she saved from being raped, was an especially good student and gave Maxine a gaze of worship on more than one ocassion.


    Maxinehad a feeling that they would do nearly anything to appease her if she were just to ask.Maybe I can have them grow medicinal herbs for me. The growth rate of thoseherbs would definitely befasterin such an essence rich enviromentand I don''t think that I will even have to be insistent about it either.


    As if on cue, the village elder, Canis, approached Maxine''s shadow clone. He appeared to be in a good mood. She decided to broach the subject of establishing a medicinal garden near the village and ask them to tend to it while she wasn''t available.


    "Greeting, my lady," Canis said respectfully, "Do the young ones still meet up to your requirements?"


    "Yes, they do," Maxine replied through her shadow clone and was slightly annoyed since he had asked that same question for the past few days, "And I don''t need them for anything in particular at the moment. I am simply teaching them to do this so that theyhave the strength needed to defend themselves." Maxine planned on teaching them fundemental spear, sword andbow usage after they mastered her cultivation technique.


    "Your generosity knows no bounds," Canis complimented, "Are you certain there is nothing that our humble village can assist you with?"


    "Actually, there is," Maxine responded, "I sent one of mycomes to go collect herbs and their seeds. I wish to use the seeds to establish a medicinal garden near your village. Would you and the other villagers be willing to tend to it while I am away?"


    Canis'' eyes lit up with a strange light as he answered, "It would be our pleasure, my lady."


    "Good," Maxine answered, "My main body is nearby. Bring the crippled villagers here. I can give them medicine in a few moments to regrow their missing limbs. Just be certain to providethose villagers ample meals afterwards. That will speed up the regrowing process." She had enough of the Troll''s Blood Sap to give to all of the villagers that lost limbs since there were only five of them. She had a constant supply of one dose every few days since she discovered that tree.


    "Thank you again, my lady," Canis said as he bowed his body at the waist towards her before he left at a jog to get the crippled villagers.


    Maxine stopped focusing as much on her shadow clone and she approached her shadow clone to wait for the crippled villagers to approach. For her the village youths, it was a confusing scene to see both Maxine and her shadow clone standing side by side.


    Maxine noticed movement coming from deeper within the village and saw the maimed bodies of the crippled villagers. Most of them were missing one arm, but there were a few missing a leg. Maxine felt a trace of guilt that she couldn''t suppress when she saw them. If only I came to their rescue faster, they may not have had to loose their limbs, but I can still make it right by healing them. After they reached her, she went to each one of them and fed them a dose of Troll''s Blood Sap. Not one of them hesitated or refused to take it once it was offered. It was an immense sign of trust on their part.


    Just asMaxine gave the last crippled villager a dose of Troll''s Blood Sap, one of her Shadow Wolves had spotted a group of fifty soldiers of some kindwith an average of bronze rank 8 strength approaching the village. They were all mounted on some kind of strange horse with three horns and six legs. It was obvious that this was some kind of patrol, but they didn''t display any kind of heraldry or markings to reveal who they were affiliated with.

 Chapter 64

    "Canis, there are some soldiers approaching," Maxine said calmly, "I don''t see any thing to indicate if they are friendly to your village or not."


    "Do not concern yourself with them, my lady," Canis replied, "They are probably the bi-yearly patrol sent by Lord Mikael Kenta. They are only in this area to root out bandits and any beasts that may become a threat as well ascollect taxes. However they often take bribes from bandits to look the other way." Maxine got rather angry at that last part. Those soldiers should protect the villagers. Not let them suffer under the cruelty of bandits.


    Maxine felt her bloodlust rising, but suppressed it immediately. She wanted to kill them for derelection of duty, but it would most likely anger the local lord if he ever found out about the murder of his soldiers. That would make using this world as a hideaway much less feasible since she didn''t know if he had an army of iron stage essence cultivators or not. She also didn''t want to cause any trouble for the villagers.


    "Will my presence cause any trouble?" Maxine asked Canis.


    "Only if they see you, my lady," Canis said nervously, "Most of them are young men afterall and your beauty may cause a problem."


    "Understood," Maxine said calmly, "I will leave the village with my clone until they leave. However if they cause trouble, I will come to protect you."


    "There is no need for that, my lady," Canis said, "They will at most ask for additional taxes since the size of our village has increased before theycontinue with their patrol."


    "Regardless, I will still keep an eye on them," Maxine said as she noticed that the guards were almost in visual range, "Take care. Remember I will still be nearby if you need me." Canis nodded to her respectfully as she turn around and disappeared from Canis'' sight into the dense forests surrounding the village. Her shadow clone followed suite an instant later.


    Maxine watched the encounter between the villagers and the soldiers using her spiritual sense once she felt that she was far enough away not to be spotted. The mounted soldiers rode up to Canis and their leader dismounted. He took off his helmet as he approached Canis and Canis revealed a happy smile as he embraced the leader of the soldiers.Huh?


    They began talking a few moments later. Maxine listened in to their conversation and found out that the leader was infact Canis'' son, Makin. She left them to talk privately since she would want the same curtesy if she hadn''t seen her mother in some time. However Maxine didn''t like how Makin kept looking at the youths of the village. It wasn''t a look of hostility, but one of curiosity and confusion.Can he sense that they are stronger than they are supposed to be?Maxine continued to watch them for awhile longer, but it seemed that they were just catching up.


    While they talked, it gave Maxine a few minutes to think about the possibility of being discovered.That idiotic Shadow Lord keeps watching me and is a huge liability. If anyone knows that Shadow Lords tend to watch the younger generation of the Kavros Clan, I am in deep shit. I need something to draw their attention away from me.Maxine rememberd that she could make another shadow clone if she wanted.Hmm, that gives me an idea.She thought about it carefully. If she could craft a male version of herself and have it use everything that she didn''t dare to, it would definitely draw a great deal of everyone''s attention away from herself. To add credence to it, she could give it the same color pattern that recently appeared in her eyes. She envisioned it in her head and knew that it would make an excellent decoy. However Maxine had no idea if the essence cultivators had a means to determine if it was her shadow clone or not. She needed to talk to Hellen about it later.


    Maxine returned her focus back towards the village when she noticed that Canis and his son seemed to have finished catching up. Makin went back to his men and continued with his patrol. Howeverbefore he left he looked straight at Maxine and smiled. She could see the gratitude in his eyes. She had no idea how he had noticed her presence since no one in the shadow world had shown that they could use spiritual sense aside from her students.


    Maxine nodded to him reflexively andMakin returned it before putting his helmet back on. He mounted his strange horse and led his men away. Maxine stayed in the forest for a short while to make sure that they were not going to return and walked towards Canis.


    "Did you enjoy talking with your son?" Maxine said.


    "Yes, I did," Canis replied, "It was an unexpected delight, my lady."


    "I didn''t see them takeany taxes. Will they be back later to collect it?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, they will return in a few days to collect the taxes after they check on the other villages," Canis replied.


    "Makes sense," Maxine said, "By the way, it shouldn''t take another day or two before the young ones fully understand my technique. I will leave for a few days afterwards."


    "Understood, my lady," Canis said.


    "One last thing, did you tell him I was here?" Maxine asked.


    "I did not, my lady, but he seemed to be aware of your presence," Canis stated and started to look nervous, "Are you going to silence my son?"


    "No," Maxine said, "Just be certain that he knows that he shouldn''t tell anyone that I am here. It may draw unwanted attention to your village."


    "My son is not an idiot," Canis replied, "He knows better than to reveal your presence here. It would be quite ingratious of him to do so and it would cause harm to the village if he does. Afterall which lord wouldn''t want to possess the daughter of a goddess as his wife?" Maxine''s skin crawled at the thought of being forcibly married toa lord in this world. However she doubted that would ever happen even if word got out. Her Shadow Wolves could tear apart almost any essence cultivator in the iron stage.


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    "Good," Maxine said, "I will head out then. I will leave my clone here tofinish teaching the young ones my technique."


    "Very well, my lady," Canis said with a slight bow.


    Maxine walked away from him and headed towards the cave. The Shadow Wolve maintaining her portal didn''t seem to be having any trouble.Maybe I should use them for that more often. It would free up my shadow clones to do other things.


    Maxine jumped into the portal to head back home. Once she was in the comfort of her room, Maxine contacted Hellen via spiritual sense, "Mom,if I made a shadow clone to act as a decoy, would it fool the essence cultivators observing me?"


    "Depends on how much effort you put into it," Hellen responded, "Your current ones are completely lacking in that regard. Even Claudia can tell the difference."


    "How do I make a convincing one then?" Maxine asked.


    "You need to construct it cell by cell and infuse it with some of your blood," Hellen responded, "That should fool your current observers into believing that it is genuine, but if it gets captured, they will quickly discover that it is a decoy."So, I should self-destruct it if I can''t prevent it from being captured.


    "Understood," Maxine said to Hellen.


    "What did you have in mind when you asked that question?" Hellen asked.


    "I was thinking of making a male version of myself and haveit save people from the essence beasts while using my Shadow Wolves and shadow essence to attack," Maxine answered.


    "That''s a good start," Hellen said, "However it might be a good idea for it to use a war scyth as it''s main weapon. That''s your father''s weapon of choice. It would only make sense for your father to pass down his combat skills to his ''son.''"


    "That''s a good idea," Maxine said, "Thanks, mom." Just as Maxine was thanking Hellen, a mental image appeared inside of her head. It was a polearm with ascythe blade pointing upright rather than out at an angle. She had no idea how to wield it properly.


    "That is what your father''s weapon looks like. Although he may have gotten a new one. It has been more than one hundred years since I have seen him use it," Hellen explained.


    "Alright," Maxine said, "Do you know any techniques for using it?" She knew the chances of her mother knowing a technique to use it was slim, but had asked it anyways.


    "I''m afraid not," Hellen said, "My fighting style relies heavily on one-handed weapons."


    "It''s alright," Maxine said, "I can always look up on the internet for videos of people using polearms and make my own technique."


    "That will have to suffice," Hellen said, "I will leave you to it." Maxine felt Hellen disconnect from their spiritual sense contact as she went silent.


    Maxine knew whatever technique she developed would be crude at best regadless of how much energy she put into it. However when she checked the internet, there were no demonstration videos for war scythes. This made her a bit frustrated, but based on it''s overall design, she looked up weapon styles for a similar weapon: the glaive. Most of the demonstrations with a glaive were clumsy and awkward. However when she looked up the eastern version of the glaive, she got quite the treat. There were several martial arts demonstrations using one. Unfortunately the fighting techniques were simpler than she had expected but they were still better than the ones for the glaive.


    After watching a dozen of the weapon demonstration videos, Maxine had a good idea of how to use a war scythe before she decided to check the email she set up to recieve students. She didn''t really expect anything in it, but when she opened it up, her jaw dropped. There were already over two hundred emails and all of them were asking to be her students.That''s a lot faster than I thought. The evening news hasn''t aired yet. How did they find out about this?In the moment she was stunned, another two hundred emails were recieved by that same email account.This could take awhile to look through.


    However before Maxine could start going through them, her mother touched Maxine''s shoulder. Maxine turned her head and asked, "What is it, mom?"


    "Thank you, sweetie," Maxine''s mother said.


    "What for?" Maxine asked curiously.


    "For becoming a teacher, rather than continueing as a fighter," her mother said with an appreciative smile on her face.


    "I didn''t do it just for you, mom. Although I will admit that I won''t teach others for free," Maxine admitted, "But I also did it, so that more people are able to fight against essence beasts. I really don''t like fighting in the limited numbers that we have." Maxine saw a sparkle of appreciation in her mother''s eyes. However her mother quickly took on a confused look as she grabbed Maxine''s jaw and moved closer to look into her eyes.


    "Are you wearing contact lenses?" her mother askedas she seemed to study Maxine''s eyes.


    "No, I am not wearing any contact lenses," Maxine said calmly.


    "Strange," her mother said as she released Maxine''s jaw, "I could have sworn that I saw a glimmer of gold in your eyes. Well, I will go work on dinner before Silky decides to raid the fridge."What?! How the hell did she see that?!


    Maxine waited patiently until her mother got to the kitchen before she bolted to the bathroom to look in the mirror. She carefully examined the eyes of her reflection. Maxine saw an extremely faint golden glimmer in her eyes.Shit!She concentrated more essence into her eyes in an attempt to keep that faint glimmer from showing up. However it still remained.FUCK!Why won''t it vanish?! I know I am camoflauging it properly with my essence. At least it is faint and no one will notice it unless they get in real close.Maxine started to relax until she remembered that essence cultvators had far better eyesight than normal humans. Maxine was on the verge of panicking.Got to remain calm. Maybe, Hellen knows what is going on and how I can fix it.


    "Mom, I need some help," Maxine said via spiritual sense while trying to remain calm.


    "Oh? Do you need advice on cosmetics?" Hellen asked.


    "NO!" Maxine replied while revealing her fear, "Look at my eyes! I can see a golden glimmer."


    "Is that all?" Hellen replied calmly, "You have nothing to worry about. I have noticed at least five people with that golden glimmer in their eyes in the past week. I doubt any of the one looking for you have paid it any more attention to it than I have."


    "Really?" Maxine asked disbelievingly before she got irratated with herself, "So you''re telling me that I got exicted over nothing?"


    "More or less," Hellen said.


    "God damn it," Maxine said.


    "Don''t get too upset about it. You were only being extremely careful," Hellen said comfortingly, "Regardless, Zephyr would have warned you if theother investigators had noticed your eyes."


    "I still feel like an idiot for over reacting," Maxine said.


    "Anyways, when do you intend to make that decoy?" Hellen asked.


    "After dinner," Maxine replied.


    "Good," Hellen said, "The sooner that decoy is running around the more effective of a decoy it will be and I suggest making it in the shadow world to avoid being seen making it."


    "Way ahead of you, mom," Maxine said and detected the aroma emanating from the kitchen, "Smells like dinner is almost ready. Thanks again for the advise."


    "Any time," Hellen said, "Enjoy your dinner."


    "Will do," Maxine replied before retracting her spiritual sense and heading to the kitchen. As soon as she got there, she saw Silky sitting at the table and was already digging into her food.Maxine sat and joined her.


    It was rather quiet at the table while they ate and Maxine went back to her room after she had finished eating. She entered a portal to the shadow world and retrieved an iron essence core from her dimensional pouch.Now let''s see. What should my decoy look like?On another note, how do I even make it a male? The Four-Tailed Fox mentioned that all of my Shadow Wolves are girls andI didn''t even do that intentionally. This is going to be interesting to say the least.

 Chapter 65

    Maxine felt mentally and physically exhausted. She had no idea how long it had been since she started working on her decoy and had only taken a break to cultivate. All she knew was that Hellen hadn''t told her how much blood her decoy would require. It had drained two liters of her blood and that blood loss made her feel woozy. However it was her own fault for modifying Hellen''s clone method, so that she wouldn''t have to spend days creating her decoy. She had created the decoy cell by cell in the form of an infant and fed it her essence in a steady stream to grow it at an accelerated rate while stimulating it''s muscles to ensure proper muscle tone.


    However during this process, Maxine discovered the trick to making her decoy male. While it grew, she adjusted the hormone levels, so that there was more testosterone in it than estrogen. It had been a trial to maintain that since the hormonal levels kept trying to switch back on it''s own to make it a female. I guess all of my creations are predisposed to be girls.


    Maxine had completed the frame of her decoy after what seemed like a long time. It towered over her at nearly six feet tall, but she still hadn''t decided on what to make it look like yet. In her head, she tried to make changes to her own face to make it look more masculine and failed horribly. Every attempt ended up looking like a very masculine girl. She needed more data to work with and decided to ask Hellen what Guan looked like.


    "Mom, what does Guan look like?" Maxine asked Hellen via spiritual sense.


    "I was wondering when you were going to ask that. Let me send you a mental image," Hellen replied and Maxine recieved a image of him in her mind. She found it jarring. His face neck were covered in skin colored serpentine scales. The only area that she could see that wasn''t covered in scales was around his eyes. So, that''s where the scales on my essence armor came from. I hope I don''t have any of those pop up on my skin. However if she concentrated, she could envision his face without the scales. Without those scales, he looked like an ordinary man with a gentle smile. Why did I think he looked gentle? I know for a fact that he is quite vicious to those that try to control him.


    "So, that''s what he looks like," Maxine said more to herself than anything else, "Now I can make a more believeable decoy."


    "Glad I could help, sweetie," Hellen said.


    Maxine went back to creating a better mental image of her decoy by using Guan''s appearance as a base. She kept on adjusting it''s appeareance, so that it would almost look like it was her sibling. After she was done adjusting it in her mind, she felt something was off. She sat down to think for awhile and realized what it was. Ithas no scars. In order to remain hidden for this long, it would have needed to live in the wilds and itis nearly impossible to avoid getting injured by essence beasts while living in that kind of enviroment.


    Maxine started adding scars onto the frame of her decoy. She put a eight inch long scar on the right side of it''s chest, a claw marked scar on the left shoulder and a few other small nicks across the rest of the frame. However she quickly noticed that she had essentially given her decoy the same scars that she had on her body when she was still a man. She had even added the small notch on the left ear that a Blade-Tail Cat had given her in her past life.


    Maxine unconsciously reached up to touch her left ear as she remembered how she had earned that particular injury. In any case, that should be enough.She shook her head and started to finish up the smaller details of her decoy. Once she was done, she smiled to herself and took a few steps back to admire her work.


    Maxine had made it so that it had an athletic build. She examined each muscle group to make sure that they were properly formed, but her faceheat up when she noticed that it was anatomically correct. This was an unexpected scenario since she hadn''t made male genitalia on her decoy when it was at it''s infant stage. She had thought that it would have been as well endowed as a Ken doll, but that isn''t what happened.


    "Hmm, I woke up at an interesting time," Hellen teased and Maxine felt her her embaressment surge uncontrollably.


    "How long have you been awake?" Maxine asked.


    "Long enough to see you staring at your decoy''smanhood for a full minute," Hellen said, "You could have just put a fleshy bulge there instead of that. I never imagined that you were such a perfectionist."


    "It wasn''t intentional!" Maxine exclaimed.


    "Sure it was," Hellen teased in an amused tone, "It actually makes some sense as to why you would make it that way as long as you were planning on having a baby with Emily. If it survives, this creation of yours would suit that purpose quite nicely. Although your father would probably insist that you modify it''s so that it has his Y chromosone, but that can wait until you are silver stage."


    "Seriously? It can be used like that?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, it can," Hellen replied, "But if you are going to have a baby of your own, I suggest you do it before you reach gold stage."


    "Why is that?" Maxine asked.I have a feeling she is going to say something that I won''t like.


    "Because your ability to reproduce decreases as you become more powerful. It''s nature''s way of balancing things out an essence cultivator''s might and it can''t be done via artifical means. The odds of artifical insemination are even lower with essence cultivators than it is with normal humans," Hellen explained, "For example, if you were ovulating right now, the chances that you would become pregnant is less than fifty percent. It would be closer to twenty percent once you reach silver stage and less than one percent when you reach gold stage. Using artificial means would be less than one fourth those odds."


    "Why didn''t you tell me this earlier?" Maxine demanded.This could be a serious problem. With my current rate of progression, I might reach silver stage before I am even fifteen and gold before I am thirty. I seriously doubt that I will ever get comfortable with the idea of having sex with a man in that time frame. Not unless I can find a technique that would enable Emily make a male clone in that time frame.


    "Because there are ways around this problem such as fertility potions," Hellen answered.


    "Oh, I was scared there for a moment," Maxine replied, "I guess that I will need some of those when I decide to have kids."


    "Alright," Hellen said, "Just keep in mind that the herbs for those potions are rare enough that it may take you awhile to find them."


    "Understood, mom," Maxine said, "I need to get my decoy clothed and armed now, so I will be a bit occupied for awhile."


    "Okay, sweetie," Hellen said, "Don''t over do it."


    "I won''t," Maxine replied.


    After Hellen retracted her spiritual sense, Maxine ordered her decoy to form clothing that looked identical to the Shadow''s Embrace Armor. Unfortunately it only looked that way. In truth, it had roughly the same defensive ability as her essence armor.Now all I need to do is make a glaive and it has to be something comparable to my Twilight Iron Blades. Maybe there is still some Twilight Iron ore in the Shadow Cat''s cave, but I will need more of it than I needed for my blades. I am not sure there is enough left in that cave to satisfy even half of what I need to make a glaive.


    Maxine turned her head to look at the clock on her bedside nightstand and saw that it was six in the morning.Damn, I started working on my decoy at seven o''clock last night. I didn''t think that it would take me eleven hours to make my decoy, but it did. I hopemom isn''t too angry that I was gone all night.


    Maxine was aware that she couldn''t go to the Shadow Cat''s cave and mine anymore twilight iron until after her mother woke up. It would only make her mother even more upset than she, most likely already, was. So, she decided to get on the computer to wait until her mother got up.


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    Maxine began to go through all of the student application emails on the computer. Due to her enhanced cognitive ability, she only needed to look at each email for a couple seconds to read through them. However there were well over five thousand applications to look through and it would take her awhile to look through them all. She had expected more, but she guessed that most people were skeptical about her ability to teach others.


    However when Maxine started reading the emails, very few of the emails had the details that she asked for such as their age of the student and home address. For those emails, she decided to write a response that she would consider teaching them in one month.She had asked for their address in order toobserve her potential student for that one month to ensure the character of her potential students. She did not want a student that might become a monster that kills normal humans.


    AsMaxine continued to read the emails, one person asked how much she was going to charge. That was a legitimate question and it was one she hadn''t even thought about. It was a problem. She knew that she couldn''t charge too much or the vast majority of people wouldn''t be able to afford it.On the other hand, if she charged too little, no one would believe her cultivation technique would work.


    After a few minutes of thinking, Maxine came up with three means of learning her techniques. The first method was through one large payment of five to twenty thousand dollars. The price depended on how far they want her to help them progress and she would assist them by using whatever resources that she could procure. Not to mention she would help them develop a basic fighting style, but she wouldn''t help them any further after that. The second method would be bare bones and she would only charge one thousand dollars in total, but she would teach them her cultivation technique as well as ensuring a stable formation of their essence core.Beyond that, they were on their own. The last method wouldn''t involve an immediate payment, but instead she would have go under contract with her school. Their training and any resources that she would use on them would come out of her pocket, but they would have to give her a small percentage out of any income that they gain from any missions that they participate in for the government. She intended for this method to be similar to joining a guild and for everyone in her school to look out for one another. Maxine expected that most of her students would take this method of learning her techniques and would make a precedent for other groups to form. That would help humanity as a whole to ensure a greater chance at survival.


    Even with the payment method taken care of, there was still the issue involving the rules for Maxine''s martial school. She had to make them clear and simple enough for a child to understand and at the same time, she needed to make the punishments for violating those rules harsh.I guess the first rule would be if any of my students are involved in any form of criminal activity, I would eliminate their ability to cultivate any further and turn them into the authorities.Damagine their essence core should do the trick for thatsince any damage to a person''s essence core is extremely difficult to repair and once an essence core is damaged, it will constantly leak essence.She decided to write up a list of rules and a few templates for replying to application emails.


    Right as Maxine was about to start writing those things, she heard her mother moving around and got off the computer. Maxine went to the kitchen to start working on breakfast since Silky was going to wake up soon and she wanted to get on the good side of her mother.


    Maxine had warmed up the skillet to cook bacon and eggs when her mother walked into the kitchen. Maxine''s mother put her hand over her heart and seemed to be relieved before she got angry. "Maxine! Where have you been?" Maxine''s mother demanded.


    "I got caught up in an experiment using my abilities in that place that I told you about and lost track of time," Maxine answered honestly.


    "You still could have used one of your clones, or whatever you call them, to let me know," her mother said, "I was worried sick."


    "I wasn''t gone for that long," Maxine said.


    "Maxine, I don''t care how powerful that you think you are. I will still worry if you don''t let me know where you are," her mother said.


    "I am sorry, mom," Maxine said sincerely, "I really did loose track of time."


    "I know that now, but that doesn''t mean you get off scott free," her mother said, "I want you to do a deep cleaning of the whole house."That could take me at least a few hours even with using my shadow essence.


    "Alright, mom," Maxine said resignedly as she continued with making breakfast. Sometime during Maxine''s talk with her mother, Silky had come into the kitchen and sat down at the table to wait for breakfast to be ready. It didn''t take Maxine long to finish cooking breakfast and served a plate for her mother, Silky and herself.


    After breakfast was eaten, Maxine''s mother left the house to go to work and Maxine waited for five minutes after her mother left to create over a dozen shadow tendrils out of her own shadow.Mom never said that I couldn''t use my essence to speed things up. I willjust treat this as training to gain greater controlover my essence and spiritual sense.


    After Maxine made certain that Silky was busy reading, she went to work cleaning the house.Each of her shadow tendrils did a different task. A few of her those tendrils were pulling dishes and other items out of the cabinets towipe down the shelves underneith them and at the same time some of the other tendrils were washng the dishes. Maxine didn''t have to do any of those things herself. She only had to stand in one place and control each of the shadow tendrils with extreme care in order not to break anything while she cleaned in this fashion. It had only taken Maxine half an hour to clean everything from the ceiling to the floorboads.


    As Maxine moved to clean another room, she heard someone knocking on the front door. She went to the front door and scanned outside to see who it was. It was Emily.


    Maxine quickly opened the front door and gave Emily swift hug. Maxine''s action had startled Emily and it took a moment for Emily to return the hug.


    After they parted from their embrace, Maxine asked, "Not that I am complaining, but why are you here?"


    "I called your mom earlier and she told me that you disappeared last night," Emily said, "She also told me that you were cleaning the whole house as a punishment, so I came to help out." Maxine felt touched that Emily was so thoughtful.


    "You didn''t have to come, but thank you anyways," Maxine replied with a smile on her face, "I already got the kitchen cleaned and I was about to start working on the TV room when you showed up. How about you join me?"


    "Alright," Emily said as she followed Maxine into the house and greeted Silky when she came into the TV room. However Silky was too engrossed in her bookand hadn''t even noticed that Emily was there.


    "Watch this," Maxine said while feeling like showing off as she created over a dozen shadow tendrils and created feather dusters at the ends of some of them.


    "That''s amazing," Emily said with wonder in her eyes, "I didn''t know essence had practical uses like that."


    "Yeah, it does," Maxine answered as she started to clean the room using them, "You could probably do the same thing with your divine essence, but it might be harder to make it manifest into something physical like mine."


    "Oh, I didn''t know that," Emily responded, "Is controling those tendrils of yours hard?"


    "Individually, no they are not, but as a group, it is alittlechallenging while talking with you," Maxine said calmly, "Infact, the most that I can do is talk while I manipulate them."


    "Really?" Emily asked while a mischievous smile appeared on her face, "What if I were to distract you?"


    "Depends on the distraction," Maxine said while smiling back.


    "Letme test your concentration then," Emily said as she hugged Maxine''s neck and kissed her on the cheek.


    "That isn''t nearly enough to distract me," Maxine said confidently, but nearly faltered slightly when Emily started to nibble on Maxine''s ear, "Nice attempt."


    "I am not done yet," Emily said into Maxine''s ear before moving back and giving Maxine a deep kiss. Maxine froze in shock and so did her shadow tendrils.That''s completely unfair and unexpected. Time to retaliate.


    Maxine grabbed Emily around her waist as she kissed Emily back with vigor. Some of Emily''s divine essence leaked into Maxine''s body through their kiss and it seemed to trigger something within Maxine''s blood. Maxine felt her blood start to churn inside of her veins whenEmily''sdivine essence reached it.Maxine''s skin began to heat up and she felt a strange sensation on her ears and forehead while she enjoyed the kiss with Emily. This continued for a few blissful seconds as their tongues entwined before Hellen rudely interrupted them.


    "Maxine!" Hellen roared at Maxine via spiritual sense.


    "Can''t you let me enjoy this for just a few more second without being interrupted?" Maxine asked without breaking her kiss with Emily.


    "Use your spiritual sense to look at yourself!" Hellen exclaimed and Maxine rolled her eyes as she scanned herself with her spiritual sense.. She nearly backed away from Emily in shock at what she saw.Maxine''s ears had become pointed like an elf''s, her skin transformed to a pearlescent grey and n egg-shaped golden jewel the size of a marble appeared to have grown on her forehead with two matching pea-sized ones to either side of it.What the fuck?!


    "What the hell is going on?" Maxine asked Hellen.


    "You need to calm down first and stop the release of your bloodline energy," Hellen said, "It is the reason you look like this now. You should revert back if you can stop it from being released."


    Maxine attempted to control the churning sensation in her blood. However Emily had clearly detected Maxine''s bewilderment as she started to back away from the kiss.Well, Emily already knows that I am an alien, but I doubt she would expect my appearance to change. If nothing else, I will just have some explaining to do, but I can''t let any of the essence cultivators in the area see me like this.Maxine focused all of her will as she struggled to control the bloodline energy coursing through her body as her shadow tendrils vanished into a greyish mist. Fortunately she managed to control the bloodline energy and retracted it back into her blood. However it had taken her nearly ten seconds to do it. That had been plenty of time for Emily to get a good look at Maxine''s transformed state.

 Chapter 66

    Emily was looking at Maxine with fascination as she asked, "Is that what you really look like?"


    "Not exactly," Maxine answered while scratching the back of her head, "I think it has something to do with my bloodline or at least I gathered as much from whatmom just told me."


    "You mean Hellen told you?" Emily asked to clarify.


    "Yeah," Maxine answered before she switch to spiritual sense and allowed Emily to listen in as she sent the message to Hellen, "I think you owe me an explaination."


    "Unfortunately I don''t have one," Hellen replied, "All I know is that our bloodlinehas an ability that allows us to enter a bloodline form temporarily, and it has only appeared only a dozen times in the past. As for whatbenefits this transformed state provides, I haven''t the slightest clue. I never looked into the family records since I didn''t have that ability."


    "Would uncle Zephyr have access to those records?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes he would," Hellen answered, "But if you ask, he will know that you have that ability and I don''t want anyone to know the full extent of what you can do."


    "I know that," Maxine said, "However he is still the only one that can get that information."


    "You could always experiment with that form," Hellen offered, "You seem quite adept at figuring things out on your own."


    "That may be the case, but I have a feeling that I will only scratch the surface of what that form can do without something to point me in the right direction," Maxine answered.


    "Very well," Hellen said, "However I suggest you ask him about the abilities that appear in the Kavros clan. That way he will know you will have one of them, but not which one."


    "Sounds good to me," Maxine answered and looked up to Emily, "Do youmind if I talk tomy uncle?"


    "Sure, but shouldn''t we finish cleaning your house first?" Emily asked.


    "We can do that after I talk to him using this," Maxine said as she retrieved the communication disk from her dimensional pouch and pointed at the jewel in the center of it, "This thing will project a holographic image of the person you are talking to. Although I haven''t used this yet, I fairly certain that I can figure it out."


    "That sounds amazing," Emily said, "When are you going to contact him?"


    "Right now," Maxine answered as she fed her essence and spiritual sense into the communication disk and attempted to contact Zephyr.


    After a few moments, Zephyr''s face appeared over the communication disk with a concerned look on his face as he asked, "Maxine, what''s wrong? Did one of the others figure out who your are?!"


    "No, nothing like that," Maxine said to soothe Zephyr, "I was just wondering about a few things about our bloodline."


    Zephyr relaxed visibly and said, "That''s a relief. What did you want to know?"


    "Does our bloodline have any special abilities that I should be aware of?" Maxine asked, "Mom has some pieces to her memory missing."


    "That''s to be expected since she has been bound to that bracelet. As for your question, I knowabout mostof our clan''s abilities andI have some books on howto use them.I was given them in preparation to teach you in the event that you had any of them," Zephyr answered before he squinted his eyes slightly, "Is there someone there with you?"


    "Yes, it''s my beloved, Emily," Maxine answered happily, "Sheaware that I am not technically from earth."


    "Why did you tell her?" Zephyr said angrily.


    "I didn''t. Her grandfather did," Maxine answered with a half-truth, "But don''t worry he is not the kind of guy to go around telling people that I am an alien."


    "Good," Zephyr said, "The fewer people that know about your origins the better."


    "I know," Maxine responded, "Umm, weren''t you going to tell me about the bloodline abilities?"


    "Yes," Zephyr said as he hesitated for a few moments, "Can Emily leave the room?"Maxine looked to Emily and Emily nodded her head to Maxine before she walked to the kitchen. After it was clear that Emily had left the room, Zephyr began, "I will start with what we call them first starting with the most common to the most rare. They are the Shadow Constructs, Shadow Manifestation, Shadow Warp, Elemental Mimicry, and finally the rarest Shadow Lord Form. There are some other abilities. However they are either easily mastered even without a book or are nearly impossible to learn without a teacher."Holy shit, I think that I can use all of them. At least based off of the names anyways.


    "I have already confirmed that you can use Shadow Manifestestion and Shadow Constructs.Do you have any other abilities that you haven''t displayed yet?" Zephyr asked, "If you don''t know what they are called, just describe them. It''s not unheard of to possess more than two abilities."


    "I can travel really far using by creating portals out of my shadows," Maxine admitted to Zephyr, "However I can''t travel to places that I haven''t marked in some manner." However she wasn''t going to admit to being able to use the others.


    "Only those three?" Zephyr probed, but when Maxine remained calm, he continued, "That''s fine. At least you can flee through your shadow if things go bad. Do you need any of the manuals for those abilities?"


    "It would be nice, but could you send them all?" Maxine asked, "I don''t want anyone to figure out which abilities I have so that they can plan aroundthem."


    "It''s not a problem. I was going to send them to you in aday or two anyways," Zephyr said in an amused tone, "You will have descendants of your own eventually and they will need that knowledge."


    "If you say so," Maxine said half-heartedly and remembered Zephyr''s concern earlier, "By the way, why were you worried that I was discovered?"


    "Some of the others sent by the Alliance noticed how much you look like Hellen. They have a theory that you are either his daughter, Hellen''s reincarnation or an innocent bystander," Zephyr said calmly, "Regardless they won''t do anything violent like kidnap you until they can confirm which one you are. Hence the most they will do is to persuade you to leave this planet with them."


    "That won''t happen. This is my home and I won''tleave it it," Maxine stated, "Just out of curiosity, what would it take to make them believe that I am an innocent bystander?"


    "Not much, unless you have a twin running around," Zephyr answered.


    Maxine just smiled internally as she said, "I think I can arrange that."


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    "What?" Zephyr said while looking confused.


    "Trust me. It''s better if you don''t know. That way your reaction will be natural," Maxine said.


    "Alright," Zephyr said with an unsure tone, "Regardless, I can''t talk anymore. Talk to you when I can."


    "Bye. OH! Wait," Maxine started to say, but was cut off as the communication disk died down. She had wanted to ask him how he was going to deliver the manuals to her.


    Maxine felt something was off when she looked at the time.Shouldn''t the arachne twins be showing up aroundthis time to teach Silky? Maybe they got held up by something.


    Maxine stood went to find Emily and found her cleaning the bathrooms. "Sorry for taking so long," Maxine said, "Uncle Zephyr didn''t want anyone to know about things involving my bloodline."


    "That''s fine," Emily said, "Did you learn anything about your abilities from him?"


    "No, I didn''t, butZephyr will send some books on them," Maxine said, "I just don''t know when or how he will do that."


    "Well, no point in thinking about it now," Emily said, "Let''s just get this house clean in the meantime."


    Maxine smiled as she replied, "Alright."


    Maxine walked back to the living room and after recreating her shadow tendrils went back to cleaning. As with the kitchen, cleaning the living room with her shadow tendrils went quite quickly and smoothly. The more she used her essence and spiritual sense in this fashion the sharper and more precise both became.Hmm, performing cleaning using essence would be a good exercise for my students.


    After cleaning the living room, Maxine moved to her own room, but before she could start, the doorbell rang.Oh! that must be the arachne twins.She quickly went to the front door and confirmed that it was Kena and Mikari.


    "You two are alittle late," Maxine said.


    "We were held up by someone that insisted we deliver something to you," Mikari said as she patted the dimensional pouch at her hip, "May we come inside?"


    "Yes, certainly," Maxine said and as they came in, she turned her head towards Silky, "Silky, Kena and Mikari are here."


    "Alright, mama," Silky said as she put away her book.


    After Maxine closed the door, Mikary touched her dimensional pouch and retrievedfive strange crystals. "I was asked to deliver these to you," Mikari said as she put them in Maxine''s hands.


    "Uhh, how do I use these?" Maxine asked while looking at the crystals curiously..


    "Just inject your spiritual sense into them toaccess the knowledge within," Mikari said and she walked towards the couch where Silky and Kena were waiting.


    Maxine walked to the kitchen table and fiddled with the crystals for a few moments before she injected her spiritual sense into one of them. Her vision blacked out for an instant before a huge book appeared in her mind. The title on that book read ''Shadow Constructs.''This is new. I wonder what they call these crystals. I will ask the twins later.


    Maxine quickly opened up the book within her mind and started to read it. The first page was an outline describing the necessary skillsets to form a proper construct. Biology of essence beasts and humoid beings was a required reading to create constructs that mimicked life such as clones. This is awesome. It has diagrams of the calcium matrixes and muscle fiber configurations of different essence beasts. I might be able to make a chimera-type construct soon.However when she got the the part about creating constructs, it made no mention of using an essence core to create one. This method required that Maxine form the core within her constructs. A process which could take a few minutes to days, but their strength was fixed once they were created. It wasn''t until she was almost done with it that it mentioned the pinnacle of Shadow Constructs. Constructs that could grow more powerful over time. It listed a whole bunch of material and lengthy ritual that had to be performed in order to create one.This manual started off great, but why do they have to go through all that trouble just to make a construct? I didn''t even have to try that hard to make my Shadow Wolves and their strength grows. Maybe I amgenius at makingShadow Constructs. Let''s try a different one.


    Maxine cut off her spiritual sense from the Shadow Constructs crystal and grabbed another one as she injected her spiritual sense into it. This crystal contained information on Elemental Mimicry. She had only read the first chapter before her face blanched.Submerging myself in water for a week to understand how water behaves! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?And this method only has 25% as much essence efficiency as someone with the water attribute! Mine is easily double that!She continued to read. Although the methods described were horribly inefficient essence wise, it did give her some inspiriation on how to minimize the wastage of her essence when mimicking elemental attributes.


    Maxine quickly checked the other crystals for information and was annoyed each time by how complex that they made everything. Each of the training methods required weeks to months of practice to even start producing results. Maxine could get near instant results with almost no difficulty at all. She didn''t understand it at all. However she did get a useful technique out of the Shadow Warp manual called Shadow Step. It was essentially a short-range teleport. It''s only limitations were the range of her spiritual sense and that the shadow she teleports to and from had accomodate her frame within them. Anything not in the shadow when she teleported would be, quite literately, severed from her body.


    WhenMaxineinjected her spiritual sense into the crystalwith the manual for the Shadow Lord Form, she discovered that it wasn''t a manual, but a letter. "If you are reading this, that means that you possess the Shadow Lord Form. The manual that the others see is nothing more than a ruse. The use of this form should come to you as naturally as breathing. Your Shadow Lord Form''s strengths are derived from theshape of jewels that form on your forehead as they signify which bloodline is most dominant in your body. Now as for the gifts that the jewels bring, each one is different. For instance, Marquise-shaped jewels have a amplifying effect on your intellect and doubles the range of your spiritual sense. With that greater intellect, those that have this jewel type find that most of the other manuals are next to useless as they can effortlessly create simplified versions of those bloodline skills that no one else can use. This intelligence typically manifests even in their normal state. However the range of their spiritual sense is only doubled when in the Shadow Lord Form.Square jewels grant you greater multi-tasking ability and allow you to control far more constructs than normal. Most of the clans construct users possess this bloodline and have armies of constructs to do battle for them while they remain hidden. Thus far the upper limit of the constructs that they can control at one time is roughly five to six hundred. However their enhanced multi-tasking ability is restricted to half strength outside of the Shadow Lord Form. Finally, the triangular jewels grant greater muscle control and raw physical ability. For reference on how much physical ability they gain in Shadow Lord form, their bodies are comparable to that of a high grade essence beast. If you have a jewel type that I hasn''t been mentioned, you have a unique mutation of your bloodline and I don''t know what it does. If you are lucky, it could be a combination of two or even all three bloodlines. Regardless of anything else heed this warning: do not trust the Shadow Lords that are watching you. I simply can''t believe those arrogant bastards are just searching for their ruler. It just doesn''t fit with personality of those that I have encountered."I don''t trust them either. One of those pricks raped my ancestor. In any case, my bloodlineis a mutated one and I am not surprised that they don''t have it listed. From the looks of it so far, it''s a combination of two bloodlines, but I should still test my physical abilities tonight just to be certain.


    Maxine brought her awareness way from the crystals and noticed Emily was sitting infront of her with her chin resting on her hands.


    "What?" Maxine asked curiously, "Is there something on my face?"


    "No, I was just wondering how long you would be absorbed looking at those crystals," Emily asked, "What are they anyways?"


    "These crystals somehow contain the books that Zephyr was going to send," Maxine replied, "The knowledge can be accessed using spiritual sense. Although I don''t think that any of the information inside of them will be of any help to you."


    "Oh, cool. Can I take a peek inside them anyways?" Emily asked as she reached over to grab one of them without waiting for Maxine to answer and yelped in pain when she tried to read them with her spiritual sense.


    "Are you okay?" Maxine asked with concern.


    "I think so," Emily answered, "I think they are rigged to only let you read them."


    "That would make sense," Maxine said, "They wouldn''t want anyone besides clan members to get access to clan manuals."


    "Now that you mention it, what is the name of your clan?" Emily asked.


    "Kavros and it''s not my clan," Maxine said angrily, "They kicked Hellen out of it when she eloped with Guan. Second, they haven''t done a thing to raise or help me before uncle Zephyr showed up. He is the only one of them that has shown that he gives a damn. I refuse to think of the rest of them as my family."


    Emily frowned at hearing Maxine''s rant and said, "I see."


    "I don''t want to talk about them anymore. Can we get back to cleaning?" Maxine said in a more relaxed tone, "As long as we don''t slack off too much more, we should be able to finish it alittle while after lunch."


    "Alright," Emily nodded as she went to fetch a mop.After we are done with the house, I can go find some more Twilight Iron and hopefully make that war scythe for my decoy. Later on tonight, I will see what I can do in this ''Shadow Lord Form'' in the shadow world.

 Chapter 67

    Maxine was staring at the landscape of the shadow world while contemplating what she had done after she had finished cleaning. She was alittle disappointed that Emily had to leave earlier to do something. Emily hadn''t been very forthcoming about what it was. Silky had reverted to her arachne form. Mikari had said it had something to do with Silky''s upcoming breakingthrough into iron stage. However both Kena and Mikari cautioned that Silky should avoid using essence cores for a minimum of a month after breakingthrough to ensure the stability of her essence core.


    After seeing them off, Maxine had gone out of the house to search for more Twilight Iron in the Shadow Cat''s den and discovereda large vein ofit buried a few feet in the rocky walls of the Shadow Cat''s lair. She hadn''t discovered it before because it had been too deep at the time for her spiritual sense to detect it through five feet of rock. After mining and collecting it all, she estimated that she had acquired enough to makea dozen war scythes.I will use the extra to make a few weapons for my school''s armory. I could make some money selling them too. Although I best keep the sales to the military or my students that will actually use them. If not the weapons that I sell could very well end up as a display pieces and that would be a complete waste..


    Maxine shrugged to herself as she shoved those thoughts aside andchecked on the village with her spiritual sense. The villagers were practicing using spears at the moment. Although their weapon usage was crude, it would suffice for them to defend themselves. She had thoughts about making them her personal fighting force, but got angry at herself for even considering it. The villagers were peaceful and she didn''t want to involve them in matters that didn''t directly affect them.


    Maxine noticed a group of villagers building a stone fence around an acre of land She knew that what that land was set aside for her medicinal garden. She had mentioned that she needed a large space for it before, but never thought that they would set aside a full acre of land for it. Regardless it gave her plenty of space to plant more herbs that she may find. It even had plenty of space for the Troll''s Blood Sap tree to be transplanted to it, if she had the mind to. However she had no intention of doing that for the time being.


    Maxine shook her head and reminded herself that she was here to test the limits of her Shadow Lord Form. After clearing her mind, she attempted to activate her Shadow Lord Form. Unfortunately it wasn''t as easy as she had thought since she had no idea how totrigger her transformation without some of Emily''s divine essence. She tried looking for the bloodline energy inside herself with her spiritual sense and wasn''t able to detect it.This is frustrating.Next she injected her essence directly into her bloodstream, but it didn''t work.What am I doing wrong?


    Maxine tried to remember the sensations and feelings that she had when she changed originally. She relived the wonderful kiss with Emily. A smile slowly spread across Maxine''s lips as she recalled the sweet taste of Emily''s lips and the silky texture of her tongue. It was at that moment that she remembered exactly how Emily''s divine essence reacted to her blood. Unfortunately she didn''t know how to cause that same reaction without Emily''s essence.Can I mimic Emily''s divine essence? Only one way to find out.


    Maxine visualized the behavior and feel of Emily''s essence and tried to mimic it with her own essence. She formed a strand of essence within her blood as she adjusted it and felt a slight tremor in her blood that she recognized as bloodline energy. Maxine''s mind instantly sharpened.That''s it!She immediately found the source of her bloodline energy. It was eminating from her marrow and she used both her spiritual sense and essence to completely activate it.If I can do this again without mimicking Emily''s divine essence, I will be able to do this quite easily.


    Immediately, Maxine felt warmth that she had associated with the transformation to the Shadow Lord Form moving across her skin and enveloped herself in her spiritual sense to watchher transformationunfold. This time she actually got to watch as her skin changed to a pearlescent silver, her ears took on their pointed elven version and the three golden jewels formed on her forehead .I definitely look like an elf of some kind.


    Maxine smiled and reverted back to normal. She sent her spiritual sense and essence into her bone marrow once again and felt that same warmth from before as she transformed. It works! Awesome.Now to test my abilities.


    Maxine created as many shadow tendrils as she could whilemaintaining her ability to control them individually. She could control nearly fifty of them while each one picked up stones of varying sizes and juggled them.Okay, I have the multitasking ability and I can control the equivalent of five hundred constructs. That is if my dragon counts as two hundredconstructs that is. And I know that I have the enhanced intellect. I should check to see if the range of my spiritual sense is doubled as well just to get my bases covered.


    Maxine extended her spiritual sense in a every direction around herself. Normally she could cover just under four miles using this method. However her spiritual sense extended to eight miles in her Shadow Lord Form.Oh? It seems the detail that I can gather without concentrating has gone up as well. I can detect the sweat running down the faces of the villagers as they train. I normally just see their basic shapes when I spiritual sense out like this. This is great!


    Maxine retracted her spiritual sense and jumped straight up. It was thesimplest and easiest means that she knew of to test her strength other than smashing things and there wasn''t an over abundance of boulders in the area. Normally, She could jump two hundred feet into the air. However once she was airborne, she didn''t notice that much of a boost to her strength while in her Shadow Lord Form. From what she could tell, she got roughly twenty feet higher into the air than in her normal state.Hmm, looks like a ten percent boost. Looks like most of my mutated bloodline focuses more on my mental acumen. Still, ten percent isn''t that bad. I wonder if it applies to my speed as well.


    As soon as Maxine landed on the ground, she sprinted into the forested area around the cave and the village.She quickly noticed that her speed had increased as well as her reaction time.Very nice. I doubt that I have a body comparable to a high grade essence beast. Hmm, I wonder what qualifies as a high grade essence beast anyways. I know there are weak ones and strong ones. I think asking Hellen would be best way to find out.


    "Hey, mom," Maxine said via spiritual sense to Hellen, "Are you there?"


    "Yes, I have been for some time," Hellen answered, "How do you like your Shadow Lord Form?"


    "It''s amazing," Maxine admitted, "By the way, which grade would I be if I were an essence beast as of right now?"


    "Based on physical ability alone, I would say you are at the bottom end of medium grade," Hellen said honestly, "However if I include all of your other abilities, you would be equivalent to a very powerful high grade essence beast, but that is only if you use all of your abilities. Is that what you wanted to know?"


    "Yes. Also I was curious as to the grade of a Terror Bear?" Maxine asked.


    "Do you mean those strange bears with the black fur and red eyes?" Hellen asked in return.


    "Yes, those things," Maxine answered.


    "Those things barely qualify as a high grade essence beast. However the golden variety of that essence beast is very close to being a topgrade essence beast," Hellen said.


    "Do you mean to tell me there are things that are more powerful than that golden bear?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, there are. In fact,this world already has a top grade essence beasts in what you call the Pacific Ocean. Luckily for your mariners, that overgrown serpent prefers deep waters and hasn''t come near the surface," Hellen answered.


    "Howpowerful and bigis it exactly?" Maxine asked.


    "Oh about fivehundred and fifty feet long and the last time I checked, itwas silver stage rank one," Hellen said, "That''s quite impressive considering how long Earth has had essence."


    "That''s a little disconcerting," Maxine said, "Well I need to check one more thing before I head back to make a war scythe for my decoy."


    "Alright," Hellen said.


    Maxine remotely controlled her shadow clone that was collecting medicinal herbs and their seeds to send Maxine''s Twilight Iron Blades to her through a portal. As soon as the handles to them appeared, she grabbed them and sent her shadow clone back to it''s duties. She wanted to see if her attacking power had gone up proportionately as she took a fighting stance.


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    Maxine readied a Crescent Moon Blitz and unleashed it. She watched as the attack landed on a nearby tree. However Maxine couldn''t care less about the attack as the woodchips were throw into the air when she realized how quickly her essence was recovering. It took her a moment to realize that the large jewel on her forehead was passively drawing in essence and refining it to suppliment her essence reserves.


    Before Maxine got too excited at this find, she waited to see how quickly itactually recharged her essence that consumed to unleash the Crescent Moon Blitz.She waitedroughlytwo and a half minutes for her essence to fully recharge.I can throw around twenty of those attacks before I run out of essence. So that means I have around a two percentper minute recharge rate. Not good for duels, but it would be great for large scale battles. That is IF I could use it without being seen, which is never. It''s good enough just to know that I have it.


    Maxine turned back towards the cave, but stopped as she realized something. "Mom, what is Guan planning to do if I get discovered?" Maxine asked, "I mean I have been making preventative measures to ensure that I am not discovered, so I want to know what he has up his sleeve in case I am."


    "If you get discovered, he willdo something that will give you an opportunity to flee to the shadow world. At least that is what he told me. He wasn''t real big on the specifics though," Hellen said, "Although it would be better if everyone thought you were dead that would almost be a certainty that they would never look for you again."I have no idea how to fake my death infront of people that have spiritual sense. It''s practically impossible.


    "Why doesn''tGuan just ascend?" Maxine asked, "That would solve the dilemma of the Alliance searching for me."


    "He can''t," Hellen said.


    "What do you mean he can''t?" Maxine demanded.


    "If you havn''t figured it out from seeing Guan''s face, he has a unique bloodline. It''s the bloodline of the Twelve-Headed Hydra King," Hellen said calmly, "It''s an extremely powerful bloodline and the laws of the universe are preventing him from ascending due to it. You see the stronger your bloodline is the more difficult it is to breach certain levels of strength in the form of bottlenecks. There are ways around bottlenecks, but he is an orphan. He doesn''t have anything like a clan to help him figure that out and has broken through each of his bottlenecks on his own." Wait, isn''t the Shadow Lord bloodline fairly powerful as well?


    "Mom, does our bloodline have bottlenecks?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes," Hellen answered after hesitating for a moment.


    "Where is the first bottleneck typically appear?" Maxine asked.


    "The first major bottleneck iswhen you try to go from silver to gold stage. The next one is gold to immortal stage. There are other bottlenecks, but I don''t know when you will encounter them. Only the clan elders know that, "Hellen answered, "And there is one other spot of bad news, each bottleneck that you encounter will be harder to breakthrough than the last."Shit.


    "Why didn''t you tell me before now?" Maxine asked with as much calm as she could muster.


    "Because I didn''t think that it would be a problem," Hellen answered, "Your father can provide you with the resources necessary to breakthrough each bottleneck. The only reason he hadn''t helped me breakthrough to immortal stage is that I wanted to give birth to you first."


    "You mean to tell me that bottlenecks don''t exist if you have enough wealth?" Maxine asked.


    "That isn''t entirely accurate," Hellen said, "Our bloodline requires a very specific potion in order for us to breakthrough without difficulty and each bottleneck requires potions of increasing potency. Most alchemists wouldn''t even consider crafting such a specilized item without being paid an exoribitant fee and they wouldn''t even guarantee that they would be able to make it either."


    "In that case, I should be happy that I am Guan''s daughter," Maxine said.


    "Indeed," Hellen said.


    "Well, I should really make that war scythe for my decoy before it gets too much later," Maxine said, "After I am done, I willget ready for bed."


    "Alright, Maxine," Hellen said, "Try to sleep well. Even though essence cultivators don''t need much sleep, we still need some."


    Maxine retracted her spiritual sense from the golden bracelet and reverted back to her normal state before she ran towards the cave. Once she was there, she walked past her decoy and went straight to the Twighlight Iron ores that she stashed inside of the cave earlier. She picked upjust enough Twighlight Iron ores to make the scythe. She went through the same refinement process as she did with her blades and formed the mass of Twighlight Iron into a war scythe as quickly as she could.


    Maxine picked up the war scythe and checked it''s balance and weight with a few casual swings. It was considerably heavier than both of her blades put together. Once she was satisfied that no flaw was present, she tookher newly made warscythe to her decoy and handed the war scythe to it. Afterwards she ordered it to go outside and practice with the weapon for some time while she got ready for bed. It took additional concentration on her part to maintain her decoy''s movements while managing her other clones, but it was necessaryto become familiar with it''s movements since her decoy''s frame was so different from her own. She needed it to be as believeable as possible.A few weeks of practice and I should be able to make my decoy move naturally.


    Maxine entered the portal back to her room that she left open earlier. Once there, she saw a dimensional pouch on her bed with a note beside of it. She quickly picked up the note and began to read it, "Maxine, I was surprised when your mother said you were interested in alchemy. You can''t imagine how happy that made me. I just wish I could guide you on that path myself. Unfortunately I can''t. I can''t even send you medicinal ingredients to practice with. I can only send you a detailed list of all of the medicinal ingredients that I know of, so that you can find them more easily. You need to memorize the appearance and effects of each medicinal ingredient before you try to perform your first attempt at alchemy. Trust me. It will be easier if you do. Afterwards familiarize yourself with the various alchemical techniques. I have included my own among them. However it would be best if you developed a method unique to yourself to perform alchemy. No one can use your own technique better than you can. This alchemical knowledge that I have given you is everything that I have gathered in my entire life. It is my life''s work. Please, use it wisely." Maxine paused from reading the letter as she realized the enormity of what Guan had just given her because she asked for alchemy for beginners.He is giving me his life''s work?! I didn''t ask for him to do this. I just wanted a starter to alchemy, not this. It''s too much ... Once she calmed down, she realized that she wasn''t able to hate him as fiercely as before.


    Maxine paused for another moment before she continued to read, "On another note,your mother told me that you have the Shadow Lord form. By now you most likely know the benefits that form brings. I know it must be quite the temptation to use it publicly, but you must not, especially where the Kavros Clan can see. This has been a concern of mine ever sinceI had an interesting conversation with one of the immortal level cultivators that was checking on the disciples from his martial school. He mentioned that not two months ago a young man in the Kavros Clan had been confined to the clan because he possessed the Shadow Lord Formand they are searching for a suitable wife for him. I doubt they will ever let him leave the clan and I have a feeling they would try to forcibly marry you to him in orderto increase the chances of your children having that ability. I know you do not wish to be controlled anymore than I do, Maxine. I care about you and want you to live happy and free. Be careful. Your father, Guan."Eugenics? Seriously? Well upside is it''s just a feeling of his and not an actual fact. Well just to confirm I will talk to Hellen.


    "Mom, you read this note as well I take it," Maxine said, "What do you think about the end of it?"


    "I can''t read it. Your father rigged it so that only you could read it," Hellen answered, "Just tell me the part of the letter that is bothering you." Maxine relayed what was on the latter half of the letter. "It''s not unheard of for that sort of thing to happen in the Kavros Clan, but it hasn''t been done in nearly a millenia," Hellen said, "However your fears are unwarranted. When I was still in the clan, there was a rule that required the express permission of the parents from both children in order for that to be allowed. So don''t be worried. I would never give permission. I don''t think your father is aware of that rule."Oh, thank goodness. I don''t think Guan would never agree to that, especially since he probably knows that I don''t like men. At least I think he does.


    "Thanks for clearing that up for me, mom," Maxine said.


    "Your welcome, sweetie," Hellen said, "I know your father sent youhis wealth of alchemical knowledge. Why don''t you start studying it a bit before you go to sleep? No one becomes an alchemist over night."


    "Alright, mom," Maxine said as she set down the note from Guan and turning back to the bed.


    Maxine picked up and scanned the interior of the dimensional pouch on her bed. There were several Knowledge Crystals of different colors inside of it. She retrieved the green one from the dimensional pouch and injected her spiritual sense into it. She was hit with an instant headache as she saw literately over a million different plants within a void. Each of them had a small book underneith them with the title being their name. She reached out with her mind to a familiar looking medicinal herb, Heart Protection Grass. She found it odd that the name of the medicinal herb was called the same thing as the herb she knew. She hadn''t expected that. She opened up the small book beneath it and started to read.It preferred growing at the entrance of a den that belonged to a fox-type essence beast. It had the same effects as what she knew of, but what she didn''t know is that it also can repair heart damage even without refinement. Guan isquite thorough.I never expected that there would be a 3D image of each medicinal ingredient. He probably knows how much I appreciate it.If he hadn''t included it, I would have a hell of a time telling some of these medicinal ingredients apart with just descriptions and a basic drawing. Unfortunately, I have no idea how long it will take me to memorize the appearance and effects of each of these things.At least, I have plenty of time to mess with it if my decoy works as planned. Now time for bed. School starts on Monday and I have a lot of preparations to do before it starts.

 Chapter 68

    Maxine was alittle depressed as she arrived at school. Emily had been reluctant to talk to her ever since she left Maxine''s house last friday.Maxine was guessing that Emilywas trying to deal with the fact that Maxine had transformed infront of her.Emily''s reaction was exactly what Maxine expected would happen when she originally told Emily that she was an alien in the first place. Maxine''s transformation had most likely cemented that idea in Emily''s mind. Due to Maxine''s lack of experience inromanticmatters, she didn''t know what to do and decided to give Emily space to let Emily decide how she felt about it.


    After Maxine entered the school, she noticed an announcement on a poster and wondered what the announcement was. She stopped and started to read it. The top-half of the poster contained a notice that some of the janitorial staff had been replaced with veterans that couldn''t get work anywhere else and that they were all armed to fight off any essence beasts that may appear on the school grounds. On the lower half of the poster, it showed a newspaper clipping of a story from earlier this year. It described the heroic actions of a janitor that happened to be a former marine. He fought off a dozen essence beasts while wielding a broken broom handle to protect a group of students.That guy must have been one hell of a badass to pull that off, especially since he didn''t have a proper weapon.Hell, if I was in his shoes, I would have had no choice but to run.That guy has my respect.


    Maxine checked the time and noticed that it wasroughly ten minutes until class started. She made her way to the first period classroom. Even though she knew that she would be bored to tears, she would still pay attention in class, but that isn''t all that she was going to do. She intended to practice the seal-type spiritual mark during class.This multi-tasking ability definitely makes things more interesting. With my current abilities, I can control three clones, listen to my lessons at school, and practice this spiritual mark all at the same time with mental capacity to spare. It''s too bad that I can''t access the information in Knowledge Crystals without dedicating my entire mind to it. Otherwise I would be studying the stuff in it as well.


    It was still roughly five minutes before the bell rang when Maxine walked into her classroom. As expected, her teacher was looking at her fearfully.Poor guy is looking at me like I am terrorist threatening him with an AK-47.Fortunately her classmates had a much widerrange of emotions displayed on their faces. She tried to ignore them when theygave her greetings while making her way to an empty seat.


    After sitting at the desk, Maxine pulled out a notebook and pencil and placedthem on top of the desk. Even though she had near perfect memory due to her cultivation, she was still going to take notes to practice fine muscle control with hercurrent strength. She hadn''t found a reason to work on it before now and it seemed like a good time as any to practice it now. When the bell was about to ring, she readied her pencil to take notes and it snapped in half.Oops, I used too much strength. I need to be more careful and my teacher looks even more nervous now. Damn it. I guess he will just have to get used to having me in class. I hope after a week of classes he will figure out that I am just here to learn.


    As Maxine expected, her morning classes were boring and she wasn''t able to participate in the physical education class. It was mostly because the teacher there was worried that Maxine would use too much strength in the heat of the moment and accidentally injure one of the other students.I expected this, but it is still irratating.To add to Maxine''s aggrivation, Emily didn''t share the same lunch period as Maxine. Although if she wanted to she could find out where Emily was and seeher usingspiritual sense, but it wasn''t the same as seeing Emily with her own eyes.


    After lunch, Maxine made her way to her next class. Once she was seated, she started to come up with plausible ways to fake her death to keep her mind occupied. She was doing this in preparation for the possible event that both her decoy is seen through, she is discovered and Guan isn''t able cause a suffcient distraction to allow her to flee. It was infinitely harder to pull it off in a universe with spiritual sense. She didn''t like the idea to begin with since it would upset her mother and Emily a great deal to think she was dead. Would using a poison to put myself in aDeath-like state work? No, that can be seen through as soon as someone notices my soul is still in my body. Using a portal to the shadow world right before an explosion is out of the question as well. I would need a powerful nuke in orderfor it to not leave a body. Not only would it cause too much collateral damage, I don''t even know how to get ahold of one. What about switching out with one of my shadow clones mid-battle? No, that wouldn''t work. Mom can tell those things are not me and she is an ordinary person and anyone sent to find me probably has pretty good perception. ARGH! I can''t think of anything. If only I could duplicate myself perfectly.Wait, didn''t Hellen already teach me how to make something like that already?


    Maxine felt like smacking herself over the head for not thinking about that sooner. All she had to do was let it form as it wanted to andhide in the shadow world while her clone performed her day to day activities.She would just have to keep a small portal open at all times in order to maintain the link to it but since she already did that to keep in constant contact with her shadow clone in the shadow world, it wouldn''t be that much of an issue.


    Maxine was confident that every possible scenario was covered with a decent countermeasure. The only glaring hole in her preparatoryplans was that she had no idea if anyone from the Alliance, or any other group for that matter, had discovered her while she was in the shadow world. However she was confident that no one aside from the shadow world''s residents had seen her. Sheendured the remainder of the day as patiently as she could, so that she could make a clone of herself once she got home in a similar fashion to her decoy.


    Once classes were over, Maxine went outside and saw that Emily was waiting outside. Maxine showed a huge grin and happily trotted to her. Maxine carefully gave Emily a hug once they were close enough.


    "I missed you," Maxine whispered into Emily''s ear before parting from her.


    "You just saw me last friday," Emily repliedand she turned to walk down the street,"Sorry for not talking to you much over the weekend." Much? Try not at all.Maxinetook up positionbeside Emily as they walked to her house.


    "I don''t really blame you for that though," Maxine said and added with her spiritual sense, "It''s not every day that your girlfriend morphs into a type of elf while kissing you. I figured you needed some space."


    "You were right, but all I really needed to do was remind myself that you are still the same person inside. You know I am alittle curious about something. What exactly are you? A human, space elf or something else?" Emily asked with spiritual sense.


    "I don''t really know," Maxine answered, "Well if I think about it, my physiology is practically identical to a humans. So I guess I ammostly human with something else mixed in."


    "That''s correct, but it''s two things not just one," Hellen added without any hint that she had been listening in.


    "Thanks, mom," Maxine said to Hellen.


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    "What are the two things?" Emily asked.


    "Twelve-Headed Hydra King and Shadow Lord," Maxine answered. As soon as she said it, she wondered what kind of pervert would have sex with a hydra enough times for an unlikely child to be conceived.On second thought, I don''t want to know. Thinking about it too hard might give me nightmares.


    "Iam guessing that a Shadow Lord is something like a space elf, but how does it work in the case of the hydra?" Emily asked, "One is a mammal and the other is a reptile. I don''t see how they could ever have a child together."That is a good point.


    "Maxine''s father wasn''t born with that bloodline. He absorbed it after killing a Twelve-Headed Hydra King by refining it''s blood through a clever use of alchemy," Hellen answered, "As for how he poisoned it to death, I havn''t the the slightest clue since that beast was immune to all poison. However, he rightfully earned the title Poison Emperor after slaying it in that manner. However he is still a formidable warrior even without his poisons."


    "That''s amazing," Emily said and suddenly had a confused look on her face, "But if he is as powerful as I am led to believe, why wasn''t he able to raiseMaxine himself? And why the fuck did he let that bastard beather for so long?"


    "He didn''t know I was being beaten until recently," Maxne answered, "And if he attempted raise me, he would havebeen constantly worrying that I would be kidnapped by those that want to control him."


    "I forgot about that," Emily said, "But he still should have watched over you properly."


    "And doing so would have giventhose assholes enough to be suspicious and I would end up being kidnapped because of it," Maxine reasoned, "Anyways, I have you and your grandpa to thank for putting that child-beating asshole in prison."


    "That''s true," Emily said and looked around for a moment with a confused expression on her face, "That''s wierd. I would have though you would have been swarmed with people wanting to learn how to cultivate long before now."


    "I noticed that myself. I wonder where they are," Maxine replied and had her shadow clone at the house take a small peek out of a window on a hunch, "Crap. They are camping out around my house."


    "That makes sense," Emily said, "Since you would probably run away to avoid talking to them, right?"


    "Yeah," Maxine admitted and asked something that was mildly concerning her to change the subject, "Did you tell your grandpa about my transformation?"


    "Yes," Emily replied calmly and Maxine tensed up before Emily added, "Don''t worry, he would never tell anyone your secret. I think he is afraid of how people would react to finding out that you are an alien."


    "That isn''t what I am worried about," Maxine said, "What if someone listened in using spiritual sense?"


    "I don''t think that happened," Emily answered, "Grandpa turned on a strange device after I mentioned that I wanted to talk about you. That thing gave me a headache when I tried to use my spiritual sense."


    "A spiritual sense jammer? He has one?" Hellen asked, "That''s amazing. Your government must have put in alot of effort into countering essence cultivators to have developed something like that this soon."


    "Well,the US does throw a large chunk of it''s income to the military," Maxine said, "It only makes sense that a chunk of that would go to researching essence cultivators."


    "That''s true," Emily agreed, "Well, I best head home quickly. Grandpa was a bit angry at me earlier when I snuck out to help you clean. Later."


    "Later, Emily," Maxine said as Emily turned around and ran full speed back to her house.


    Maxine watched Emily until she was out of sight and readied herself to head home herself. However the blonde prettyboy appeared in her path before she could start running.Huh? Isn''t he only supposed to observe me?


    "Hello, Ms. Levings," the prettyboy said, "I apologize for approaching you, but Ineed to know something." Maxine was taken aback by his polite behavior. It was nothing like the arrogance that she was expecting after reading that note hidden in the knowledge crystals she got from the Kavros Clan.


    "Shouldn''t you introduce yourself before you ask questions?" Maxine asked and she saw a twitch at the corner of his left eye. I think I made him alittle angry just now.


    "Forgive me. I seem to have forgotten my manners," the pretty boy said, "My name is Turan. Pleased to meet you."


    "Nice to meet you too, Turan," Maxine answered politely on reflex and decided to show her displeasurefor being watched all this time, "Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, what the fuck do you, a piece of shit stalker, want to know?" Turan''s expression soured immediately and it looked like he wanted to retort in kind.


    However Turan didn''t react like she had expected and answered with his spiritual sense, "I am sorry that you feel that I am a ''stalker,'' but I was ordered to observe you by the elders of my race. However I am only approaching you to get an answer to a question since observing you hasproven to be fruitless thus far. Let me start by saying that I know you are hiding your abilities. I want to know which abilities you have. It is important to my race."


    "Constructs, manipulation of shadows and Shadow Warp," Maxine answered coldly. I am not giving any more detail about my abilities than I have already given to Zephyr.


    "Don''t lie to me," Turan warned angrily and calmed down before continuing, "I am fully aware that isn''t the extent of what you can do. I only saw a glimpse of it, but I know you have the Shadow Lord Form. What shape is the gemstone in your forehead and does it have any black markings or shapes in the center of the primary jewel?" What the fuck? Hellen didn''t mention that anyone had seen me with spiritual sense when I transformed. Is he bluffing?


    "I don''t know what you are talking about," Maxine answered as she walked past Turan, "I''m leaving."


    "Fine, play it that way," Turan said and a sinister tone was added as he continued, "But I wonder how hard it will makeyour life if I let it slip to someone that you arehis child."


    "I don''t believe you are that stupid," Maxine retorted, "Since the instant that you do, the chances of my survival will drop sharply. After all, there are bound to be people that simply want to hurtGuan rather than control him and IF I am captured, I WILL self-destruct to avoid being violated by some idiot that is too horny to think straight. But know this, I have already let daddy dearest know who might let it ''slip'' that I was his daughter and I sincerely doubt that your elders will shield you from his wrath because you were too inept and impatient to figure out if I am this ''ruler of shadow'' or not that you assholes are looking for." Maxine revealed a vicious grin to Turan, but he didn''t seem to be disturbed by her threat at all. He simply gave her a thoughtful look.


    "Responding to threats with threats of your own. Interesting. If nothing else it proves that you are smarter than normal. It seems that the jewel of your transformed state is most likely is a marquise jewel," Turan answered calmly, but his tone seemed to have a hint of anticipation as he continued, "Fortunately, there is still a chance for it to evolvewhen you reach silver stage. Until then I will do my best to divert those looking for you as best as I can. I bid you farewell." Holy shit, he counted how many Shadow Wolves, shadow clones and ravens that I have. It''s a good thing he doesn''t know about my dragon. And what did he mean by evolve? It doesn''t matter anyways. I am not breakingthrough to silver stage in a place that he, or anyone else for that matter, can see me.


    Maxine started to run home,and an odd thought cropped up in her head when she was about halfway home. Wait, Hellen said I have the Twelve-Headed Hydra King and the Shadow Lord bloodlines. Why has only my Shadow Lord bloodline manifested? One second thought, I think it''s better that the Twelve-Headed Hydra King bloodline hasn''t manifested. I could get scales all over my face and body like Guan or something even creepier could happen. I could sprout multiple heads! Although I would really enjoy having the absurd regeneration powers of a hydra, I don''t think my relationship with Emily could take another shock if my appearance changed. I am pushing it as is.


    Maxine''s face slackened slightlyandimmediately after abig grin appeared on her face as she changed her destination. She had finally formed the sealing-type spiritual mark perfectly and is going to put it on the queen bee in the bee hive that she found earlier. She was going to do it now since she didn''t know how much longer it would take her to duplicate it.After Itame that queen bee with this spiritual mark, I will put a few essence cores inside of the hive so the queen can slowly absorb their essence. Thatmight speed up the process of it becoming an essence beast. If it doesn''t, I will try something else. I wonder what essence honey tastes like. It was considered a luxury good a couple months before I died in the previous timeline and I never gotto taste it.

 Chapter 69

    Maxine was remotely controlling her clonefrom the shadow world and was patiently waiting for the end of school bell to go off.It had been a month since she started school. She had a few issues when her teachers kept asking her to pay attention in class, but that quickly ceased when she kept giving a perfect answer to every question that she was asked in class. During that entire time, only Silkyhad noticed that it was her clone moving around and Maxine guessed that it was due to the spiritual mark that acted like a two way road between them. Otherwise, her clone seemed to be working perfectly as her double.


    As for the bee hive, Maxine had taken control of the queen bee and was currently trying to raise it properly into an essence beast. The queen bee had doubled in size from absorbing essence eminated from a bronze essence core that she placed inside of the bee hive. Due to the increased size of the queen bee, the hive had nearly doubled in size as well. However this growth was still far too slow for Maxine''s tastes. The queen bee needed to be at least six inches long in order to house an essence core and it was currently slightly overtwo inches long after a month of raising it.In the meantime, Maxine decided to run alittle experiment with the bees. She ordered the queen bee to attempt breeding a warrior type bee. It was going to be twice the size of a normal bee and it wouldn''t have a barbed stinger like theotherbees. She didn''t want these warrior bees todie after a single sting like theirdroneor workercounterparts. However she knew that if this worked, it would be the limit to modifying them until the queen becomes an essence beast.


    In the shadow world, the village had increased in size. There were numerous immigrants from the surrounding villages that had been too badly damaged by the bandits and Maxine had to help them with planning on where to build houses. Unfortunately, city management wasn''t her strong suite but she helped where she could by offering the modern grid pattern for housing. However most of her time outside of cultivation within the shadow world was spent studying the various kinds of medicinal ingredients, but to change things up, she studied the alchemical techniques as well as a fewalchemical recipes. She foundsome that would be suitable to help her students to progress more swiftly with the medicinal ingredients that she had managed to acquire.


    As for Maxine''s school, she was going to start up classes tomorrow. She had selected individuals from wealthy families for her first batch of students,and insisted that her students go through a thorough psychoanalysis performed by a psychiatrist if they wantedthe opportunity to be taught first. She was making use of the factthat theycould pay for the psychoanalysis themselves and have them send her the results to ensure none of her students had sociopathic or psychotic tendancies. As for the other potential students that left her an address, she sent a few of her ravens to monitor them one at a time while she trained her first batch. However she knew that her precautions were not perfect and a dangerous student could still slip into her essence cultivation classes. So she called General Cullens to help her resolve that issue. His idea involved that she sign a contract with them stating that she would assist them in bringing in any of her students that became involved in criminal activity while they monitored her students in return. She was more than willing to do that for them if it helped prevent a disaster, and she signed it after making sure there were no unfair clauses inside of the contract. She framed a copy of that contract and a simplified version of itand mounted both of them on a wall where her students could see them.


    However for today, Maxine intended to hang out with Emily and Amandaonceschool was over. Amanda was stressed since not many essence cultivators hadjoinedthe police force that she hadspenta great deal of effort to make happen. In response to this, Maxine wanted to give Amanda a day that she could have fun and relax. The best way she knew how was to spend some time with her doing things she found relaxing.


    Maxine looked up at the wall mounted clock in the classroom once more impatiently and was literately watching as the final seconds of the day counted down. Finally the end of schoo bell sounded and she was dismissed with the rest of her class. Once she was outside, she quickly met up with Emily and waited for Amanda to arrive.


    "Hey," Maxine said to Emily while smiling.


    "Hey, Maxine," Emily said in return, "I still think it''s great that you want to take Amanda out to have some fun. She needs this."


    "I thought so too," Maxine answered, "By the way, will our outting make itdifficult for youto do your homework?"


    "No, it shouldn''t be a problem," Emily replied, "It''s amazing how easy it is to do all of it. It''s like my brain got upgraded along with my strength ever since I started cultivating."


    "That is just one of the gifts that essence cultivators receive," Maxine stated, "Although there are limits to it. Only your ability to store and analyze informationare improved while your creativity and problem solving skills remain the same."


    "That''s great!" Emily said happily and looked down the street, "Isn''t that Amanda''s car?" Maxine looked and it was indeed Amanda''s car down the street.


    "Yes, it is," Maxine answered, "I wonder if she realizes that she can run faster than her car."


    "Probably not," Emily replied, "I didn''t realize it until you pointed it."


    "I think you are right," Maxine said as Amanda pulled up to their school, "We can talk to her about it later. For now, let''s just enjoy the day with her."


    "Agreed," Emily said and the both of them got into the backseat of Amanda''s car.


    Amanda smiled and ask, "Where to first?"


    "This is your day to relax. You decide," Maxine answered.


    "Alright," Amanda said as she drove off torwards the shopping district. To no one''s surprise, they went to a clothing store. It seemed Amanda liked to go shopping.


    Once they were inside, Amanda went straight to the lingerie section and Emily browsed through various outfits.MaybeAmanda needs a new bra or two. Never hurts to have a few extras. Huh? Why is she looking at the sexy variety rather than the practical ones? Does she have a boyfriend now? My curiosity is burning to find out.


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    Maxinesneaked up behind Amanda and said teasingly, "So, who''s the lucky guy?"


    Amanda froze for an instant before she turned around while blushing every so slightly beforeshe said, "Don''t sneak up on me. You nearly gave me a heart attack."


    "If you were using your spiritual sense, I wouldn''t have been able to," Maxine said, "Now about my question."


    "You will meet him later," Amanda answered.


    "Cool. Has he been treating you good?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, he is an absolute sweet heart," Amanda answered as a fond smile spread across her lips, "He cooks these delicious meals for me every night and does other little things to let me know he cares."


    "That sounds awesome," Maxine said, "So how did the two of you meet?"


    "Well, I met him while I was on the job actually," Amanda answered, "When I found him, he was wreathed in flames standing in the center of an abandoned parking lot and he wasn''t able to properly control his fire attribute essence. It took some doing, but I managed to talk him through on how to control it. Although we were both embaressed at .. umm..his state of dress afterwards." I bet you both were. Those flames probably burned off every bit of clothing that he was wearing.


    "I bet," Maxine said and remembered a certain fire-attribute essence cultivator that had a thing for red heads in the previous timeline, "Is his name Chris Maze by any chance?"


    "Now how did you know that?" Amanda asked in return.


    "I saw the future, remember?" Maxine reminded Amanda, "That big softie wouldn''t shut up about his red headed lady."Now that I think about it, Amanda does match up with the woman that Chris described.Is is just a coincidence or is something else going on here?


    "That sounds like a similar complaint I heard from the few essence cultivators that have worked with him," Amanda admitted.


    "The fact that he does that should prove that he thinks the world of you," Maxine stated, "Anyways, Emily looks like she wants my opinion on some clothes, so I will be off." In truth, Maxine just wanted an excuse to get away from Amanda to avoid revealing any more of the future that she came from. She didn''t want to messing up any potential romance between Amanda and Chris anymore than she already had. It was especially important since in the previous timeline Chris'' beloved had been brutally murdered in such a method that made Maxine sick to her stomach to even think about it. The only clue to who did it was a single strand of silver hair.HUH!? Why did I just now remember that?! If the future Maxine did that and Chris is a reincarnator, it might be bad. He may try to ''stop me'' before I can hurt anyone. But certainly he has seen me helping people on TV and realize that I am nota bad person, right? Regardless, he wasn''t able to contorl his essence so the chances of him being a reincarnator are practically zero.


    "Maxine, are you okay?" Emily asked while touching Maxine''s shoulder, "You got pale for a second there."


    "Yes, I am," Maxine answered softly, "I just remembered something horrible frommy visions."


    "It''s okay," Emily said comfortingtly as she hugged Maxine, "That future shouldn''t happen anymore."


    "You''re wrong," Maxine said, "It could still happen if there are not enough essence cultivators."


    "Is that the real reason why you are starting that school?" Emily asked.


    "Mostly," Maxine admitted, "If I only wanted money, I wouldn''t have givenanyone the opportunity to join my school."


    "Actually, I thought that was an effective way to get as much money out of someone as you could," Emily said.


    "Making money that way is the same as gambling.It''s almost like betting with someone''s life rather than with money since any job that is taken from the government is likely to be hazardous to their health," Maxine answered, "It''s upsetting to know that some of them could die, but it is necessary."


    "I know you don''t want anyone to die. You are agood person," Emily said softly and continued as if she didn''t realize that she was thinking out loud, "I wonder what you would do if I got hurt doing a job for them."


    "I''m not sure," Maxine answered vaguely, "But I know it won''t be pretty."I would killevery last bastard that was involved in hurting you in the most agonizingly brutal fashion that I can think of,especially the dumb son of a bitch that gave you the job in the first place.


    "I see," Emily said andpulled out a red dress that would reveal too much cleavage for a thirteen year old girl to wear, "How do you think this would look on me?" Maxine knew that Emily was changing the subject to put her at ease and appreciated the thought.


    "Not something I would let your grandpa see you in," Maxine commented, "I think this one here would suite you better anyways." The dress had a similar color, buthad a far more conservative style.


    "Mhmm," Emilyappraised itandglanced pastMaxine, "Looks like Amanda picked out what she wanted. Shall we go?"


    "Sure," Maxine said as she put the dress back and the two of them joined up with Amanda.


    Their next stop was a hair salon. Maxine didn''t even bother letting them try to cut her hair. It was on the level of trying to cutting hair made of of steel.Neither did Emily for that matter. The hair stylist was working up enough of a sweat just working on Amanda''s hair with a pair of scissors.


    While Maxine and Emily waited for Amanda to get her hair done, a very attractive, maybe sixteen year old,girl walked in and took a seat just across from Maxine. Thegirl had raven black hair and sterling blue eyes. She picked up a magazine to read, but every once in awhile she glanced at Maxine with a flirtatious smile. However Maxine wasn''t fooled by this act. She could sense the woman was an iron rank six essence cultivator and it wasalmost a certainty that the girl was not from Earth.I knew someone would approach me in an attempt to persuade me to leave Earth, but I never thought they would use an approach just to get my attention. I guess it makes sense that they would send a girl first. It''spublicly knownthat I am a lesbian. Although it is really insulting that they would think I am dumb enough to fall for something so childish. I will just use this as an excuse to flirt with Emily and let this stupid bitch know that she is nothing in my eyes.


    Maxine ignored the woman''s further attempts and turned to Emily while showing a big smile. Emily quickly noticed Maxine and appeared to be somewhat uncomfortable. "What''s that look for?" Emily asked.


    "No real reason," Maxine answered, "Ijust get really happy when I lookat to girl I love." Emily immediately blushed.


    "Maxine," Emily sounded very uncomfortable, "Not in public. It''s embaressing."


    "But you look even cuter when you blush like that," Maxine teased while retaining her smile.


    "Maxine, please," Emily said while her face turned a deeper crimson.


    "Okay, I''ll stop," Maxine said and she deftly planted a kiss on Emily''s cheek.Maxine leaned back into her seat and was satisfied when the raven-haired young woman seemed to loose interest.


    After a few moments, Emily whispered, "I love you too, Maxine." A huge smiled spread across Maxine''s face as she hugged Emily impulsively and resisted giving Emily a kiss. It would only embaress Emily further..Regardless, she couldn''t be happier.


    "Ahem," Amanda said from beside of them. Maxine was blushing faintly but had a huge smile on her face. Emily on the other hand revealed a shy smile as her face burned scarlet.


    "So, where to next?" Maxine asked both of them shamelessly.


    "We are going to eat at my favorite restraunt. My boyfriend will meet us there," Amanda announced, "Let''s head out. I need to take you both home after we are done eating. Chris is going to take me out to watch a movie."

 Chapter 70

    Maxine was somewhat nervous as they drove up to a mexican-themed restraunt. Amanda had talked about how wonderful her boyfriend was the whole drive thereand it quickly became obvious that sheloved him. However Maxine was too nervous for some inexplicable reason to feel happy for Amanda.No, time tothink about that now. We have arrived.


    After getting out of the car, Maxine scanned the interior of the restraunt and instantly realized why shehad been so nervous. Red and orange was dancing in his eyes like burning embers. It was something Amanda hadn''t mentioned about him. It was possible he asked her not to since she had virtually mentioned everything else about him, including how well-muscled he was. This effect in his eyes was a physical manifestation of his skill in using his fire attribute and was only visible when the user wanted it to be orduring combat.That level of skill can''t be attained with a few months of practice. Fully mastering anattribute like that takes years of training to achieve. Is he trying to find other reincarnators by showing off? He has to be. There is no other reason to reveal his prowess. That must also mean his encounter with Amanda was staged! He wanted her to find him.


    Unfortunately, Maxine could no longerget out of eating at the restraunt by saying that her mother wanted her home for dinner, so she reluctantly entered the restraunt with Emily and Amanda. However she wasn''t as nervous as before since she discovered that Chris'' cultivation was only at bronze rank nine. He wasn''t asbig of a threat as she had feared.


    As soon as they entered the restraunt, Chris gave Amanda a loving gaze. It wasn''t until after Amanda and Chris hugged each other that Chris noticed Maxine. At that instant, Maxine expected to feel killing intent coming from him, but instead all that she detected from him was oddly pity and overwhelming curiosity. She barely noticed that Emily was giving Chris a curious look.


    After Chris and Amanda parted from their hug, Chris asked, "My love, how has your day been?"


    "It has been great," Amanda responded happily and leaned in to kiss Chris, "And it just got even better." He revealed a huge grin.


    "Good," Chris said he extended his hand torwards Maxine, "I take it you are Maxine. Amanda has told me quite a bit about you and showed me a few of your fan websites."


    Maxinestared at the hand like it was a viper. She still hadn''t gotten over her fear of men entirely, but she was still able to force herself to shake his extended handbefore saying, "Thanks, but a lot of those pictures were taken by ametures and are not all that flattering." She had seen enough on the fan websites to know the truth of that.


    "Completely the opposite," Chris corrected with a slight smile, "Although the skill of the photographers was lacking, there is no mistaking the beauty that you possess."


    "You are quite the charmer. I can see why Amanda is so fond of you," Maxine said honestly, but she started to feel uncomfortable since more than half of the restraunt''s occupants were staring at them, "Could we get seated now? Having a bunch of people watching us is beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable."


    "That''s fine by me," Chris said and the four of them quickly sat down at a table.


    After making their respective orders, Amanda and Chrisbeganflirting with each other. Maxine did her best not to listen in, but still heard a few parts about their planned evening activites.It was as if they wanted to have an audience.Or he could be distracting Amanda, but I have no idea why he would want to do that.Maxine shrugged to herself and continued to wait on their dinner.


    However after a few minutes of listening to them flirt, Maxine felt Chris contact her with spiritual sense, "Hello, I wanted to have a private chat with you."So, he was trying to distract Amanda.However he didn''t cease flirting with Amanda.


    "Why?" Maxine asked with her spiritual sense.


    "Your actions are strange for someone with your history," Chris answered.


    "How so?" Maxine asked.


    "For starters, you didn''t ask or comment about my eyes nor did you act in a way that revealed that you found them odd. But your girlfriend did. I am guessing by your inaction that know what they signify," Chris stated.


    "I just figured they were part of your abilities," Maxine countered, "Everyone is different afterall."


    "But that isn''t the only thing that I found odd about you," Chris continued as if Maxine hadn''t responded, "I admit that I am not a very intelligent man, butI have either witnessed or heard of your actions to defend others on multiple occassions in the past few months. You are even willing to teach others how to defend themselves.Thoseactions have prove one simple fact. That is that you are a genuinely noble-spirited girl and have no evil tendancies in the slightest bit."


    "Of course, I am not evil," Maxine responded, "I am a thirteen year old girl."


    "A thirteen year old girl whom by all rights should beterrified of every man she meets after the five years of abuse administered by her drunken father," Chris amended.How the fuck did he know that?! I know for a fact that incident where dad went to prison didn''t go on the news. On second thought, it is possible that a few of my more obsessive fans know and told him.


    "Your point?" Maxine asked.


    "My point is that there is no way that you shouldhave been able to do the things that you have done," Chris calmly stated, "Not with the psychological damage that you should have sustained from that bastard. It led me to belive that you are like me. Someone that has had their mind send back in time from a distant future. Originally after I discovered this, I was intent on finding you to prevent whatever caused your mind to break in the original timeline." He must have met Maxine in the previous timeline. Seriously, how fucked up in the head was she to ellicit pity from the man whose lover she killed.


    "So are you saying that you are from the future?" Maxine asked in a disbelieving tone.


    "You could say that," Chris answered, "But so are you."He has to be guessing. There is no way anyone that knew about my ''visions'' would have told anyone without the proper security clearance.


    "Why do you say that?" Maxine asked.


    "I read the surface thoughts of a few officers on the base," Chris answered, "Although most of what I learned was from listening to the thoughts of General Cullen complaining to himself that youshould be in some undisclosed location for safe keeping and not running around risking your life in combat. Clearly he believes you are a prophet, but the both of us know better."And there is a perfect example of unethical use of spiritual sense. Why didn''t I think of that? In any case, he might know how I described my visions. That is probably how he figured it out..


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "Fine, you got me," Maxine said in defeat through her spiritual sense, "I am a reincarnator. Happy now?"


    "Very," Chris answered with his own spiritual sense, "Although I would be a lot happier if I knew who is really in there." Of course he would ask that. He probably encountered the Maxine in the other timeline andis guessing that I am not her reincarnation.


    "Maxine Levings," Maxine answered flatly, "Pleased to meet you."


    "That isn''t what I meant and you know it," Chris said.


    "Your right. I do know that,and I refuse to answer." Maxineanswered that way because she really didn''t want Chris to know. It was humiliating enough that Patrick and Jack knew.


    "Why not?" Chris asked.


    "Because that isn''t who I am anymore and I have accepted that fact," Maxine responded.


    "If that''s the case, it shouldn''t be a problem since that is no longer you," Chris reasoned. What kind of fucking logic is that?!


    "Stop pestering me, hothead!" Maxine snapped in anger without thinking and flinched internally immediately after at her own mistake. Hothead was the nickname she gave to Chris in the previous timeline and she was the only one that called him that consistently.


    "Hothead?" Chris asked in a confused manner with his spiritual sense.An instant later, Chris paused while flirting with Amanda and started to snicker as he appeared to realize something. Finally, he could no longer resist and started laughing uproarously.


    "Chris,what''s so funny?" Amanda asked curiously.


    "Oh, I just remembered something hilarious, but it''s the kind of joke that isn''t appropriate for these two girls to hear," Chris answered while wiping his eyes,and he told Maxine via spiritual sense, "Amanda noticed that we were chatting, but thinks I just wanted to get to know you. I will contact you at a later date,Maxwell."


    "I see," Amanda said with a smile and glanced off ot the side, "It seems our dinner is here."


    The waiter gave Maxine the chicken enchilada nachos that she ordered and Emily got a fajita. However Chris and Amanda were sharing what Maxine could only describe as a huge burrito that took up most of a dinner plate. It was framed by chopped lettuce, tomatoes and avacado slices. Those two love birds began feeding each other as soon as their plate was placed on the table. Maxine ignored the two of them as she dug into her own meal, but used a small portal in her mouth to switch between eating with her main body and her clone. She wanted to savor the taste with two bodies at once.


    After watchingof Amanda and Chris feed each other, Emily seemingly became inspired to feed Maxine some of her fajita in the same manner. Maxine was only too happy to play along and fed some of Emily her dinner in return. While they fed each other, Maxine could feel several curious stares sent their way, but she didn''t care as long as this made Emily happy. However it still bothered her somewhat when she heard the clicking of cellphone cameras. No doubt this scene will be posted on one or several of the fan websites dedicated to me and if there is a reporter present, it will be on celebrity news. I have almost no privacy. It''s theprice of being a celebrity.


    "You two look adorable," Amanda said happily, "Don''t you agree, Chris?" Maxine felt a light blushgrace her cheeks as she turned back to face to her own meal. Emily was blushing lightly as well.


    "Yes, they do," Chris agreed while nodding his head, "At least, they did until you said something."


    "True enough," Amanda said to Chris before she asked Emily and Maxine, "So what are you two going to do after I take you home?"


    "I was going to visit the hospital and heal some of the people there," Emily said cheerfully before Maxine could say anything. At hearing that, Maxine revealed a knowing smile.Emilyalways did like to help people when she could. I am glad that trait of hers is still there.


    "What about you, Maxine?" Amanda asked.


    "I willaccompany Emily to the hospital," Maxine announced which made Emily smile, "After that, I guess I will go home, do my homework and train for awhile before I go to bed."


    "You are going to train more?!" Emily exclaimed, "Don''t you have enough strength as it is?"


    "Not really," Maxine answered, "Or do you expect the essence beasts'' strength to stagnate while humans get stronger?"


    "I see your point," Emily answered.


    "Good," Maxine said with a small smile, "Now let''s finish up eating and get you to the hospital. Ibelieverecipients of your healing would appreciate yourarrival sooner rather than later. I know I would."


    "Alright," Emily said as she started to dig into her meal eagerlyand Maxine did the same. However Amanda and Chris went back to feeding each other playfully.


    After finishing their respective meals, Maxine decided to pay for everyone''s food. It was her idea to take Amanda out today anyways and she had alot of cash to spare since she took on so many students. It amazed her that Chris didn''t say anything when she offered to do that. He normally wasn''t the one to shirk on paying for what was owed.


    Once the meal was paid for, Maxine and Emily bid farewell to Amanda and Chris and took off to the hospital to give the two lovebirds some more time alone. It made no sense to have Amanda drive them around when they could run faster than her car. Once they arrived, the nurses greeted Emily and mentioned that a few people in the Intensive Care Unit could use her healing powers.


    Maxine followed Emily to the Intensive Care Unit and watched her heal some poor man that had multliple castes and bandages covering his body. Maxine scanned him with her spiritual sense and found that he had several broken bones and a few lacerations.However Emily effortelessly began mending his bones back together andclosing the lacerationswith her essence. She didn''theal the wounds all the way for some reason, but Maxine guess it was becauseEmily couldn''t sense the injuries that clearly using her spiritual sense.The rest of the people in the ICU had undergone an extremely invasive surgery. However Emily was still able to heal the majority of their injuries beautifully, but it did drain her quite a bit to heal so many people at once.


    Once Emily was out of essence, Maxine watched as the patients and staff thanked her for helping them. Emily smiled happily through it all.However Maxine was startled when some of the staff offered to pay Emily and she declined it.


    After the nurses went back to their duties, Emily pulled out her phone to check the time and came up to Maxine before to say, "Maxine, we really need to head back home now. Grandpa will start to get worried if I stay out too much longer and I think your mom might start to worry as well."


    "Alright," Maxine answered as they started to make their way out of the hospital, "I think it''s alittle silly for them to worry about us. We can completely deal with anyone that might want to mess with us."


    "Maybe, they are just worried that we might accidentally hurt someone while defending ourselves," Emilysaid as the two of the exited the hospital.


    You may be right about that," Maxine agreed, "Do you need me to walk you home?"


    "No, I should be fine," Emily answered and took the initiative to give Maxine a kiss on the cheek, "See you at school tomorrow." Emily started to trot off torwards her house.


    "Bye," Maxine said happily as she touched the cheek Emily kissed while smiling fondly. Maxine simply stood there as she watched Emily head home and made certain she was out of sight before heading home herself.


    Once Maxine got home, she noticed that her mother wasn''t there.That''s odd. It''s six thrity. She should be home by now. Maybe she is visiting dad again.I don''t understand why she even visits that asshole, but I guess love has blinded her long ago to what kind of man he really is. In any case, I shouldn''t worry until it gets much later at night. Might as well go to the shadow world to cultivate and experiment.


    Maxine went straight to her room and widened the portal to the shadow world before jumping into it. Once there, she turned to face her main body that was sitting cross-legged infront of her before shifting her focus back to her main body.


    Maxine opened her eyes and started at her clone before sheactivatedher Shadow Lord form. The transformation occured very smoothly. Her mastery of this had improved to the point where it was as easy as flexing her fingers. Ahh, much better. This should make experimenting and doing my homework a breeze. It''s too bad that I can''t maintain this form indefinitely. Otherwise I would keep it active all the time. I wish I knew why it gets harder to stay this way after two hours, but the time I can maintain this form has been getting longer the more Iuse it.In any case,I need to ask Hellen something. It wassomething that has beennagging me in the back of my mind for nearly a month and I just recently figured out what it was.


    "Mom, doeither you or Guan know how my Twelve-Headed Hydra King bloodline can be awakened?" Maxine asked.


    "I thought you wanted to avoid it awakening," Hellen said.


    "Indeed,I don''t want to awaken it," Maxine answered, "I want to know how so that I can avoid it."

 Chapter 71

    "There is a way, but you are not going to like it," Hellen answered.


    "Tell me," Maxine demanded.


    "You would have to be inflicted with a fatal wound on your main body," Hellen answered, "The trauma fromsuch a wound forces your body to awaken that bloodline in order to survive."


    "Yeah, you were right. I don''t like it and it''s not going to happen," Maxine announced.


    "However, your father can''t exclude the possibility that certain herbs could trigger it''s awakening," Hellen said.


    "Seriously?" Maxine said in disbelief.


    "Yes, but the odds of that happening are very low," Hellen assured Maxine, "Guan has already checked your blood to ensure that the herbs of Earth wouldn''t trigger it."


    "Wait, when did he get a sample of my blood?" Maxine asked since she couldn''t recall him doing that.


    "About two weeks ago, while you were sleeping," Hellen answered, "Don''t worry he also gathered samples from a few million others from across this world."


    "Would it have hurt him to ask?" Maxine complained.


    "Not really," Hellen answered, "But there is always the possibility that another immortal could pick up that he is talking to someone."


    "Then how do you and him have these talks without being discovered?" Maxine asked.


    "My mind and Guan''s work far faster than yours," Hellen answered, "A conversation that would take you hours to complete only takesme and your fatheran instant. That very small window of time makes it virtually impossible for anyone toeven detect that he is using his spiritual sense."


    "Damn," Maxine said, "Well, could you keep me updated on if Guan finds the combination of herbs that sets off my Twelve-Headed Hydra King bloodline?"


    "Certainly," Hellen answered, "Hmmm, weren''t you about to do something besides taking to me?"


    "Yes, I was about to start experimenting using my Shadow Lord Form," Maxine said.


    "Alright, I will leave you to it, sweetie," Hellen said and she withdrew from the conversation.


    Maxine had put off testing how her Shadow Lord Form effected her essence armor and it''s variations for long enough and decided now was a good time as any to test it. She quickly formed her essence armor and took a look at herself with her spiritual sense.


    The first difference that Maxine noticed was that her pointed ears were elongated by a few inches and the jewels on her forehead were showing through her mask.There goes my idea of using my essence armor to hide the fact that I have the Shadow Lord Form. However when she brought her hand up closer to her face, she saw that the scales were different as well. Each scale was smaller and more flexible than before and they all looked slick as well. She ran her finger acrossed the scales on the back of her hand and felt almost no resistance at all as if herscales were slicked down with oil. However her palms did not have that same effect.This slick coating on my scales will make it harder for swords to cut me unless they hit me dead on.


    Next Maxine summoned a Shadow Wolf and one of her ravens to test the variations of her essence armor. She started with the Shadow Wolf by merging it with her essence armor. After it finished merging, the only difference she could detect with this variant was that her hair was glossier and her furry tail was longer. She moved swiped at the air with a clawed hand to test her speed and power. She saw that she had only a small additional bonus to her strength and speed with this essence armor.That was disappointing. I was expecting something more besides a different appearance than before. I don''t even feel that much difference in my strength or speed other than what the Shadow Lord form brings.


    Maxine separated the Shadow Wolf out of her essence armor and wanted to see how her harpy essence armor was different. She examined herself carefully after entering harpy mode. She still had her pointed ears, but instead of her hair turning into a cluster of feathers, it remained looking like hair. She still had talons on her feet and feathers all over her body. Again she didn''t feel that much of a bonus to her strength and speed from when she did this in her normal state. She quickly separated her raven from her essence armor.


    Maxine was extremely disappointed, but she didn''t want to leave things half-finished. She drew out the bracers that were part of her Shadow''s Embrace armor from within her body to summon her dragon. She immediately had her dragon merge with her essence armor. Unlike with the other two, she immediately could tell the difference even before it fully formed as a huge ammount of essence flooded her body. The ammount of power flowing into her wasnoticeably greater than it was the last time she did this. However it''s external appearance was exactly the same. Unfortunately this increased strength drained her essence much faster as well. In fact, it was too fast. She would run out of essence in only five minutes of using this dragon essence armor while in Shadow Lord Form. Before she could deactivate it, she felt the essence within all of her constructs and clones.It was almost as if she could reach out and use that essence for herself. Just by thinking it, the essence from her constructs slowly flowed to her and replaced the essence that her dragon essence armor was using.What the FUCK!? I can use my constructs like batteries! If this were a game, I would get reported to the developers for having game breaking abilities.It was at that moment that Maxine noticed that it only worked on her constructs and clones that were within a thirty feet of her.My clone and two constructs are feeding me their strength and I am only recieving about half the essence they are sending me.That doubles my run time with this essence armor. I guess it''s lucky for me that most one on one fights don''t last long, but this essence armor drains my essence too quickly. I can''t use it to fight multiple opponents. Although I could put all of my constructs into the bracers of my Shadow''s Embrace armor toincrease the runtime, but it would be far more efficient to let my constructs fight as a group. Regardless, I can''t get cocky. If I have overpowered abilities, there are certainly other people that do as well and I know for a fact that Chris is one of those people. His Elemental Destroyer modemay not beas powerful as my dragon essence armor in one on one fights, but it is perfectly suitedto battle against large groups.


    Maxine shook her head since she was beginning to focus too much on that line of thought and ordered fifty of her Shadow Wolves to approach her.She was goingto have them enter the bracers of her Shadow''s Embrace armor and feed her essence in order to test her flight capabilities with her dragon essence armor.


    After the Shadow Wolveshad entered her bracers, Maxine walked outside of the cave and flapped the draconic wings on her back gently to test their strength before she jumped powerfully off the ground. She spread her wings and glided to get a feel for flying in this form. Hercenter of gravitywas different from when she flew using her harpy essence armor, but she quickly adapted. Once she had confident that she fly easily, she flapped the wings with just enough force to maintain her altitude. Flying like this was much more enjoyable compared to her harpy mode since her hands were free. Unfortunately, it burned up essence too quickly for it to be used during long flights.Now time to test the limits of my flight speed with my dragon essence armor.


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    Maxine smiledin anticipation as she flapped her wings powerfully and she shot forward like a bullet. During her rapid acceleration, she heard three distinct sonic booms.Three? However that thought was the furthest thing on her mind as she began to laugh ecstatically from the wonderous sensation of moving this fast. However she knew that she didn''t have long to enjoy this even with fifty Shadow Wolves fueling it with their essence.


    Maxine slowed down and banked right to initiate a long turn. Once she was lined back up with the cave, she flapped her wings to propel herself forward at Mach 3. However on the return trip she scanned the area ahead of her with her spiritual sense. She had been so excited earlier that she had forgotten about the painful possibility of colliding with a bird.


    When Maxine was roughly a minute from the cave, she noticed a man with a heraldric badge of Lord Kenta on his chest that was looking at the village through a spyglass. More specifically, he was looking at her medicinal garden that the villagers were tending to for her.Why is he spying on a village within his own territory in the first place? It could be that he was sent out to scout out the forces of an opposing territory and he noticed the anomally within the village.


    Maxine dived down torwards him while releasing a draconic roar. This action was more to intimidate the scout than to bring him harm.I know my desire to not kill people willeventaully come around and bite me in the ass. Anyways, even if I did kill this guy, another one would be sent to find out why he didn''t return. Also,I doubt that anyone will want to pilfer the contents of my medicinal garden after that scouts reports it has a dragon guarding it.Seriously, who would want to mess with a dragon, even a small one, over some herbs?


    As expected the scout took one look atMaxine and ran as fast as his legs could carry him. She pulled out of the dive and leveled off. For added effect,she decided to fly in a huge circle around the village a dozen few times at a slow pace as if doing a patrol. She wanted to be certain that the scout saw her doing this, after he confirmed that she was no longer chasing him.


    However while Maxine did her aerial patrol around the village, she saw her best student in the village, Talia, pointing at her and making the other villagers aware that Maxine was there. Canis appeared concerned for a brief moment before a look of enlightenment spread across his face and he went to calm the rest of the villagers.He might think that this form of mine is actually one of my pets.


    After finishing her ''patrol,'' Maxine flew straight to the cave and deactivated her essence armor. However she hesitated for a moment and decided to have her dragon protect the village. In fact, she ordered it to make hourly aerial patrols and to notify her if it saw anyone besides the villagers. Since I have already shown a dragon guarding the village, I might as well keep it on guard duty. In any case, it just makes a difference of what I do if I need my dragon''s power.


    Maxine wondered what time it was and had her clone check the time using her cellphone. She saw that she still hadplenty of time left to make a special potion for her class tomorrow. However first she would check on her mother. She knew her mother hadn''t come home yet since her shadow clone at the house hadn''t encountered her, so she decided to check on her mother through the Shadow Wolves in her mother''s shadow. However she immediately regretted it as her face burned crimson.IDID NOT need to see that. Why didn''t I consider that mom would have a conjugal visit with dad?She really wanted to banish the image of their entwined bodies from her head.


    So Maxine quickly pulled out bronze essence core, a two- year old Blood Ginseng,three strands of Essence Grass and a small glass bottledistilled water inside itfrom her dimensional pouch. They were the ingredients of a potion thatgives the consumer eight to nine strands ofessence, but it only worked on people that had yet to form their core. It was called Awakening Fluid. Fortunately it had no bad side-effects and each potion had enough in it for twenty doses. Unfortunately, it could only be used once per person. After that, it didn''t matter how much they drank of it. It wouldn''t do anything for them. Regardless, she only had to make one potion. It would save her alot of trouble if she didn''t have to refine a bunch of copper essence cores for them for five days, but that was only if she could refine this medicine.However, this was the first time Maxine would be performing alchemy, but she had already conceived of a rough method for refinement. Fortunately she had acquired fifty sets of ingredients for this medicine during her shadow clones hunt for medicinal ingredients, so she wasn''t too concerned about destroying some of the ingredients by accident.


    First, Maxine creaed a low-heat flame and used her essence to move the Blood Ginseng above the flame. She had to constantly monitor the heat. If she made it slightly too hot, it would destroy the component that she was trying to retrieve. Slowly tiny blood-red droplets that had the consistency of syrup appeared all over the Blood Ginseng''s surface. Those droplets are what she was trying to retrieve and they had the right color as well.


    Maxine used her essence to gather these droplets and had them form a ball above the ginseng. After the ginseng started looking like a dried up piece of charcoal, she discarded it and brought out the three strands of Essence Grass. She moved them above the flame in the same manner that she had with the Blood Ginseng only further away from the flame. She wanted to warm up the grass without cooking it. This method would separate the medicinal fluid from the fiber within the Essence Grass. Once she could detect that the fluid had formed, she split her shadow essence into both black and white essence. She used the white essence to encase it while her black essence vaporized everything else. She combined all of the fluid into a ball as she did with the Blood Ginseng. Now she had one red and one green ball of liquid floating in the air infront of her.So far it''s been easy. I am not sure why the recipe said that I needed so many sets of ingredients. Anyways, I need to combine the refined Blood Ginseng and Essence Grass while infusing all of the essence within this bronzeessence core into that mixture at the same time.


    Maxine used the most primitive way she could think of. She started to knead the two ingredients together using her essence while applying heat to the essence core to slowly release it''s essence. She funnelled the released essence into the mixing ingredients above the flames. It was going very smoothly and she was feeling somewhat excited about being successful on her first try. Unfortunately when half of it''s essence from the core had been released, the essence core fractured and exploded. She didn''t even have time to register that she had made a mistake before she was thrown by the explosion as the ingredients were obliterated by the explosion. She slammed violently into the cave walls. Fortunately due to her being an iron stage essence cultivator, she wasn''t hurt. It only scared the hell out of her.FUCK! I should have known that was too easy. Now I have to figure out whythe damn thing exploded or it will happen again.


    Maxine closed her eyes and reviewed the events prior to the explosion and realized that in her excitement she had allowedthe essence feeding that flame to fluctuate very slightly. That had caused the flame under her control to spike in temperature for an instant. She was surprised such a minor tremor in her control would have such a big effect.I need to have finer control of my essence.


    Maxine went through the whole process again, but like before the essence core exploded on her. Fortunately this time, it only had 40 percent of the essence left in it before it did.I got closer. I just need to remain calm and lowerthe heat slightly.


    Maxine kept trying and adjusting the heat of the flame. She went through almost all of the prepared ingredients before she suceeded on the last set by chance.YES! I did it!She was overjoyed that she hadn''t wasted all of those ingredients for nothing, but still she didn''t let her excitement distract her. She very carefully dropped the essence enrichedball of mixed medicinal ingredients into the bottle with distilled water in it and it immediately began to dissolve. I am just happy that this last step is so easy.I should let this sit until that glob has completely dissolved. The recipe indicated that it shouldn''t take more than sixteen hours Earth time for it to completely dissolve. It looks like I am all set to teach tomorrow.

 Chapter 72

    Since this time would be the first that Maxine had ever taught a class without someone she knew present, she felt a little nervous about it as she was sheunlocked the front door of her school and entered the building. It was formerly a karate dojo and the hardwood floors appeared to have been cleaned recently.The walls had onlythree items decorating them. The first two items were the signed contract, and it''s simplidied version, that she signed with the government. The last one was a wall clock. This placemight not be much, but this is still a way better learning enviroment than that damn warehouse that I taught those soldiers boys at.


    Maxine checked the time and noticed that she still had a few minutes before even the earliest arrivals could arrive. She went into the room in the back andin the off chance someone was watching her, reached into her back pack to retrieve the Awakening Fluid through a small portal to the shadow world. She hadn''t put it in her dimensional pouch since it wouldn''t allow the medicinal glob to dissolve properly for some bizzare reason.


    Maxine held it up to carefully inspect itand found that the glob of medicinal ingredients had fully dissolved. She smiled in satisfaction and nearly dropped the bottle when Hellen said via spiritual sense, "It still amazes me how easily you learned how to make that. I can only imagine how happy your father will be when I tell him." Once she recovered, she stuffed the bottle back into her backpack.


    "Damn, mom. Don''t do that," Maxine complained, "I nearly dropped the potion that I made."


    "I''m sorry," Hellen apologized, "I''m just happy that you inheirited your father''s talent for alchemy."


    "Yeah, you told me that last night," Maxine said.At least a dozen times.


    "I know," Hellen said happily, "But it''s something that you deserve praise for."


    "That much is obvious," Maxine replied and decided to figure out whyHellen was praising Maxine so much, "By the way, you didn''t mention how many times Guan needed to make that stuff."


    "I didn''t?" Hellen said in a surprised tone, "It''s odd that I would forget to mention that. He took forty-five tries before he succeeded. Your talent is only slightly weaker than his, but keep in mind, that it normally takes at least two to three hundred attempts before anyone else just starting alchemy could make that same potion."


    "You''re joking right?" Maxine asked in disbelief, "Anyone could have done what I did. It wasn''t that hard."


    "It only seemed that way to you," Hellen said, "Your Shadow Lord form gives you a significant boost to your intellect. That and your natural talent made it far easier to make the potion than it should have. Unfortunatelyyour intellect is hindered by your impulsive nature when you get the least bit angry. Remember when you snapped at Chris for being too invasive with his questions?" His comment about my damn past, or rather the original Maxine''s, pissed me off to begin with. I almost think he said that on purpose just to make it easier for me to slip up.


    "Yeah," Maxine admitted and heard the door to the dojo open, "I can''t chat anymore. I have to greet one of my students."


    "Alright," Hellen said and she cut the spiritual sense connection.


    Maxine began to walk out of the back room before she remembered that she needed to set out some of the chairs stored in the backroom. She grabbed a couple of them to avoid wasting time and walked out of the back room. She saw her student. It was a twelve year old african american girl with her mother. Maxine remembered the girl''s name. "It looks like you''re the first one to arrive, Kanisha," Maxine said happily, "We will begin as soon as the others arrive." Kanisha nodded quietly while having an eager look on her face.It''s good that she is eager. Teaching someone that wants to learn is always better than teaching someone that doesn''t.


    "Do you need help?" Kanish askedafter looking at the two folding chairs in Maxine''s hands.


    "No, need," Maxine said as she remembered that she could have used her essence to move the chairs. She feltannoyed at herselffor forgetting that and immediately created shadow tendrils to unfold and place the two chairs on the floor. Afterwards, she usedher tendrils to grab more chairs from the back room and set them in place while Kanisha and Mrs. Crane watched on in awe.


    "That''s handy," Mrs. Crane said once Maxine finished with the chairs, "Will Kanisha be able to do that?"


    "It depends on something," Maxine answered honestly.


    "On what exactly?" Mrs. Cran asked.


    "If she hasa type of essence that can manifest into something malleable or not," Maxine answered, "But the chances that she even has an elemental attribute of any kind is actually quite low. In fact, I would be surprised if someone in this class has and elemental-type of essence, but it doesn''t mean I am not hopeful for one."


    "Is there any way to make her awaken one?" Mrs. Crane asked.


    "No," Maxine answered flatly, "There is no other way to awaken one other than by natural means."


    "That''s too bad. I am going to head back to work now. I should be back around the time that your session today ends," Mrs. Crane said beforeturning around and leaving. Maxine expected that she wouldn''t be able to stay. Afterall, someone with the wealth to pay Maxine''s fee would have to have afulltime job at the minimum.


    After waiting for some time, the rest of her students arrived as their parents dropped them off. The last student to arrive was nearly ten minutes late.Not the most promising beginning. But these people have busy schedules. It''s not that surprising that they might end up being late. I can''t expect them all to be aspunctualas the soldiers that I taught before.


    All of Maxine''s students hadclustered up infront of her after the last student had arrived."Okay everyonesit down in a chair or on the floor. Whichever is more comfortable for you," Maxine said and she waited until everyone was seated in before continueing, "My plan for today is to teach all of you how to detect essence and if possible, draw it into yourself to refine it."I may as well make them aim high. I doubt any more than two or three of them will be able to even feel essence today.


    Many of Maxine''s students looked eager to learn, and she began, "Now close your eyes and relax your muscles. Extend out your senses beyond your body and feel flow of air in the room. Now search the air with your senses for tiny motes of light. They are there, so be patient. When you can sense them, I will know and impart my cultivation technique directly into your mind.Then you can begin to cultivate and take the first step on path of an essence cultivator." While Maxine spoke, she was actively using her spiritual sense and essence topull essence in a dense cloudaround each of her students. It was difficult, but manageable with only twenty students.


    Maxine was watching them carefully. She knew that when someone first felt essence they had a tendancy to draw a small amount of it into their body reflexively, but she didn''t have a high expectation for these teenagers to have the capacity to enterthe required meditative state on the first day. However to her surprise, five of her students were able to detect essence one after the other in just a few minutes after she finished speaking.Did I just stumble across a bunch of geniuses?


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    However asMaxine started imparting her cultivation technique to the first five, her disbelief only grew as more of her students detected essence.What is going on here?! This is too fast. I have taught others in the previous timeline and none of them were able to learn how to feel for essence this quickly. Although I have to admit the average age of people I taught in the previous timeline werebetween sixteen to eighteen. Most of the kids here are inbetween twelve and fifteen. Could that be the reason? I wouldn''t think a couple years would make that big of a difference, but clearlyit does.


    Maxine had spent two hours watching as every last one of her students were able to sense essence and she was imparting her cultivation technique to them one at a time via spiritual sense. Just as she finished imparting her cultivation technique to the last student via spiritual sense, their parents began to arrive.Perfect timing. Now should be a good time to give them a dose of the Awakening Fluid.


    "You guys surprised me. I didn''t think that all of you would be able to sense essence in under two hours," Maxine praised them much to their and to their parent''s obvious delight and she retrieved the bottle of Awakening Fluid from her backpack in the back room before she continued, "Now I am going to give each of your a small dose of this stuff. This will help you gather the necessary essence to form your core as soon as tomorrow. Maybe even today if you have an elemental attribute of some kind. However I want all of you toform your corehere. Do not try to do it yourself. You could hurt yourself andlimityour futureattainments as an essence cultivator. I want all of you to be as powerful as you can get. One last thing, this potion tastes absolutely horrible, so brace yourselves."I know because the smell alone of it is punguent enough that I can only imagine the intensity of the taste.


    Maxine went up to her students one by one and used her essence to feed them a single dose. She told them to immediately cultivate while ignoring their twisting expressions of disgust as they struggled not to spit it out. She knew that it would only take them a few minutes to form the essence strands under the effects of the Awakening Fluid and they could go home as soon as they finished using up the medicinal effect of that potion.


    Maxine watched them open their eyes with smiles on their faces. She was about to say something when she noticed Kanisha was sweating with her eyes still closed. Maxine quickly scanned her with spiritual sense and discovered the cause. Kanisha was in the midst of forming her core.She actually has an elemental attribute?


    Maxine walked up beside Kanisha and sat down beside her. Maxine kept her spiritual sense trained on Kanisha''s slowly forming core while staying alert. However Maxine was wondering why Kanisha was forming her core this soon and felt that her essence felt cold to her spiritual sense.That''s odd, but not unheard of.I know of only two types of essence that feelthe same way to spiritual sense and they are ice and crystal. Although there is a small possibility that it could be something else, but I can only find that out once she finishes forming her core.


    Mrs. Crane arrived at that moment andopened to speak. Maxine quickly motioned her to be quiet and spoke very softly, "Please give us a moment. Your daughter is in a critical stage in forming her core. If you interrupt her, it could hurt her." Mrs. Crane immediately shut her mouth and watched. However Maxine paid the woman very little mind and continued to observe as Kanisha formed an essence core. Kanisha''s core was forming beautifully next to her heart and Maxine knew that she needed very little coaching to complete it. However she wanted to keep an eye on her just in case. After a few minutes,Kanisha opened her eyes with a smile on her face.


    "Congratulations, you just became a copper stage essence cultivatorwith an elemental attribute," Maxine stated.


    "She does?!" Mrs. Crane asked excitedly, "Which one?"


    "Let''s find out," Maxine said and looked to Kanisha, "Try to grab ahold of your essence and form a small ball above your palm." Kanisha closed her eyes in concentration and a small void that literately warped the air around it appeared above her hand.That''s definitely something I have never seen before. It''s definitely dangerous though. Every instinct I have is telling me to get away from it.


    "Which attribute do I have?" Kanisha asked.


    "I don''t know," Maxine answered honestly, "I have never seenan attribute that behaveslike this before, but I can tell you one thing with certainty. If you use this essence, there is no essence beast on this planet that would ever come near her."


    "Why would they do that?" Kanisha asked.


    After a few seconds of thought,Maxine answered, "Because I feel an instinctive fear of it and human instincts are weak whenin comparison to an animal. In other words, since I don''t want to even be close to it, an animal will want to be as far away from it as physically possible."


    "Good," Mrs. Crane said happily and she looked to Kanisha. Maxine didn''t even bother listening to how the rest of what Mrs. Crane said asMaxine stood up. She looked at the rest of her students, whom were all looking at Kanisha with eyesfilled with jealousy.


    "In any case, I think that we have kept your parents waiting long enough," Maxine told them, "Just a reminder, we are going to have all of you form your cores tomorrow. Have a good night, you guys." It only took a few minutes for everyone to leave and Maxine locked up her school as she left herself.


    As Maxine walked home, she asked Hellen via spiritual sense, "Do you know which attribute Kanisha has?"


    "Yes, it''s spatial. It''s exceedingly rare even within the Alliance," Hellen answered, "If Guan hadn''t laid down the rules to the Alliance, she would betaken on as a student to a spatial attribute holder wanting to pass down their techniques."


    "Does Guan know any of those guys that wouldn''t take her offworld?" Maxine asked, "I know I can''t teach Kanisha properly since I know nothing about that attribute."


    "Your father knows a few of them, but don''t get your hopes up," Hellen answered, "Those that can use that attribute are very prideful and very few of them would teach Kanisha if they could only do it on Earth."


    "Better than nothing I suppose," Maxine said.If nothing else, I can mimic it using my essence to see what I can do with it to give Kanisha something to work with. However I have a feeling it won''t easy or even as remotely as essence efficient as it would be to mimic another type of essence.


    "Oh, before you get home, there is something I need to tell you," Hellen said.


    "What''s that?" Maxine asked.


    "Turan''s interference has caused an unexpected problem. He is doing too good of a job and the Alliance was forced to hire a ship from the Technological Union to perform a DNA scan the inhabitants of Earth. They didn''t do it before because their services are notoriously expensive," Hellen said with far more calm than Maxine would have expected, "They are the only ones with the technology to do it and unlike the members of the Alliance that can do the same thing, they won''t be breaking any of your father''s rules by doing so. If he were to place one that would prevent them from approaching, they would have all the confirmation they need to go all out to find and capture you."God damn it! Wait, I need to calm down. I made this clone for exactly this kind of scenario.


    "When will that ship arrive?" Maxine said calmly, "And what the fuck is the Technological Union?"


    "I know this world''s inhabitants have a tendancy to use vulgarities rather freely, but I would prefer it if you left those kinds of words out of our talks," Hellen said to Maxine.


    "Sorry," Maxine said.


    "It''s alright, Maxine. Just avoid it in the future," Hellen said and continued calmly, "Anyways, the Technological Union is a group of races that rely on technology rather than cultivate any type of energy. As for when the ship should arrive, it should arrive in three to four months, but that is based on what I know about them from one hundred years ago. Their ships could be much faster now." Maxine quickly did the math in her head. She could teach no more than two more batches of students at best with that timeframe. I need to up the numbers of students per batch considerably as well as designate a teacher for when those assholesfrom the Alliance show up to try and capture me. Unfortunately I probably have less time than Hellen''s estimation, so I need to set things up for my school as soon as possible. In any case, Iwill give those fuckers from the Alliance a good old chase before self-destructing my clone in some uninhabited area. Although it would be a lotmore believeable if my clone gets mortally wounded while fending off their attempts to capture it.All I would have to do isto dodge in an unexpected way and ''accidentally''turn a crippling blow into a killing one. Regardless, the biggest problem with that plan is that I can''t tell Emily any of it. I don''t relish the idea of causing her pain like that, but I don''t know a way to spare her that without her tipping off the Alliance that I am still alive. This sucks.

 Chapter 73

    After Maxine finished her class for the day and had gotten hom, she just laid on on her bed. Her students were advancing wonderfully. After they had finished forming their cores nearly a week ago, she had told them to cultivate at home and they could form the basic frame work for their personal fighting style by both sparring and her personal guidence in the dojo. Once they reached a certain level of strength and skill, she would take them into the forest to practice fighting essence beasts as a group.


    During her free time, Maxine had figured out a few tricks using the spatial attribute by mimicking it. Like she expected, it was horribly inefficient to do so. One essence dart made of the spatial attribute cost as much as ten of her ordinary ones. However the penetrating power of that spatial essence dart was beyond what she had expected. Instead of only piercing a few inches into a tree like a normal essence dart, the spatial attribute essence dart just kept going through everything in it''s path. However it did eventually dissipate, but only after it penetrated twelve trees and a five foot thick boulder.


    After that experience, Maxine made a mental note never to give Kanisha a reason to hate her and started to experiement using the spatial in a variety of other ways in an attempt to make a dimensional storage device. She wasn''t able to use Silky''s arachne silk or essence beast hide as a medium to make dimensional pouches. However after a twelve attempts, she was able to make a single dimensional storage ring out of Twilight Iron, but it only had a one cubic footof space inside of it. She considered it a success and gave it to Kanisha to study on how to make something similar herself. When the girl was confident that she could, Maxine would provide her with some practice materials.


    Maxine even figured out why she wasn''t able to make the space inside of her spatial storage device larger. Her affinity for that attribute was essentially zero and she was using a mimicked version rather than the original. Those two facts together made it a few thousand times more difficult for her to create a spatial storage device. Hence she decided to only mimic that attribute with her shadow essence to perform an attack of last resort.


    Unfortunately now that she didn''t have anything tokeep her mind occupied,her thoughts shiften to the impending arrival of the Technological Union''s ship. She had spentthe remainder of her free time thinking of a way to avoid having to use her clone to fake her death. She really didn''t want to hurt Emily. Her first idea was trying to have her clone and decoy hide in the shadow world temporarily until the ship from the Technological Union scanned the planet and left. She even had a good reason for it too since there had been an assasination attempt on her in the past. Unfortunately Hellen told her that plan wouldn''t work. It was very possible that the ship from the Technological Union had specific orders to scan Maxine first due to her physical resemblance to Hellen. Since their sensors can scan all the way to the Earth''s core, they would believe that Guan had spirited her off ofthe planet, if she wasn''t on it. Which would be more than enough of an excuse to find and capture Maxine.


    Maxine''s second idea was to take everyone she cared about with her to the shadow world to hide. However she knew it would never work. She could handle the lack of color in the shadow world, but it would be too much to ask for others to do that same. The rest of the ideas were utter stupidity and were swiftly discarded. Hence she was left with little choice but to use her clone to fake her death.


    The only thing that Maxine think ofthat she couldlet Emily know that she was still alive was through one of her ravens after the ship from the Technological Union left. As for the rest of her Shadow Wolves and ravens, she would make them appear as if they are melting into the ground when in fact they are being sent to the shadow world through small portals in the instant that her clone dies. The only exceptions would be thethirty iron stageShadow Wolves spread across Emily''s, Silky''s and her mother''s shadows. Unfortunately that plan still left Emily feeling a great deal of pain for some time and prevented Maxine from coming back to Earth until she was strong enough to defend herself.


    Maxine got out of bed and walked around the house to help clear her head. She saw Silky was watching an children''s anime about fighting robots and one of the characters was a binary clone of some kind. Maxine shook her head slightly and told herself that Silky needed to cut down on the TV shows. However as she walked back to her room, she felt as if she was hit by lightning.Binary clone?! Why didn''t I think of that? I could make one that looks like me but has mom and dad''s DNA. My appearance could easily be passed off as a atavism of some kind.


    Maxinewent back to her room as calmly as she could and contacted Hellen via spiritual sense, "Mom, I need to talk to you."


    "Yes, what is it Maxine?" Hellen asked via spiritual sense.


    "If I made a binary clone using my adoptive parent''s DNA, would that be enough to trick that Technological Union?" Maxine asked while hoping that it would work.


    "I am sorry, butit won''t," Hellen answered, "A careful DNA analysis done by an AI would easily be able to determine it is a binary clone, if you were to make it. It wouldn''t work either if your father made it either since it wouldn''t possess your shadow essence."There goes that idea. I wonder if uncle Zephyr has any plans, but his would probably revolve around stealthily smuggling me off of Earth before the Technological Union ship arrives.


    "Well, shit," Maxine said.


    "I know you want to avoid hurting Emily," Hellen comforted, "There isn''t much that can be done. The most that your father can do is delay them a few days."


    "Why can''t things be simpler?" Maxine complained to herself, "Are you sure there is nothing that can be done to avoid this mess?"


    "I am sorry, Maxine, but I don''t," Hellen said before cutting off her spiritual sense connection.


    Maxine sat on her bed for a long while before her cellphone started ringing.Who the actual fuck is calling me?! She didn''t even bother checking the caller ID as she asked with venom in her voice, "Hello? who is this?" She just wanted to vent her frustration on someone.


    "Is this a bad time?" Patrick familiar voice sounded from the phone.Maxine took a deep breathe and calmed herself down.Patrick doesn''t deserve my fury. Turan the fucktard does. Who the fuck told him to do such a good job that they had to resort to paying a ship from the Technological Union in to find me?


    "No, I''m just frustrated," Maxine answered.


    "About what?" Patrick almost sounded concerned when he asked that.


    "Nothing you can do anything about," Maxine answered, "Anyways, why did you call?"I was under the impression that he hated me because I look like the psycho-bitch from the previous timeline.


    "I''m sorry for what I said the last time we saw each other," Patrick said apologetically. However Maxineknew that he wasn''tsincere in his apology. She knew him well enough that if he really meant it, he would have come to apologize to her face to face.


    "You are out of essence cores again, arn''t you?" Maxine announced more than asked.


    "Yes," Patrick admitted, "Those damn wolves scoured the area clean of essence beasts bronze rank and up."


    "Good, it''s better that you don''t rely on them to breakthrough the ranks anyways," Maxine answered, "It makes your foundation far more stable."


    "Hypocrit," Patrick said, "You are using cores to advance the same as I am."


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "I am not any more," Maxine replied to his accusation, "Using cores is great for advancing early, but it can be detrimental to your future development in the later levels."


    "How do you know that?" Patrick asked curiously.


    "One of those wierd guys with high cultivations that showed up recently told me that," Maxine said, "I think he was called Zephyr."Sorry, uncle Zephyr. I need a scapegoat. I can''t exactly tell him my real mother, who happens to be a soul bound to a bracelet, is the one that told me. Not only would he not believe me, he would probably think I am insane as well.


    "Why would someone that isn''t from Earth tell you that?" Patrick asked.What? He knows they are not from Earth? How?


    "How should I know?" Maxine said, "And what do you mean that they are not from Earth?"


    "Uhh, nevermind," Patrick clearly lied.


    "Dishonesty is hardly fitting of a knight," Maxine mocked Patrick.


    "Why did you call me that?!" Patrick demanded in a fearful tone.


    "You meana knight?" Maxine asked while feeling more than just a little confused, "Don''t tell me that youdon''t know that your fans have dubbed you the Crystal Knight? I honestly thought you knew about it."


    "Oh," Patrick said over the phone, "It''s fine. Sorry that I overreacted."Note to self: do not call Patrick a knight. It probably has something to do with what Maxine from the other timeline did to him.


    "Don''t worry about it," Maxine said.


    "Well, I best get off the phone. I still haven''t finished my homework," Patrick said, but Maxine knew he was lying to her again. It shouldn''t take him more than an hour to do any kind of homework with his mental processing speed combined with his physical speed.


    "Alright, bye," Maxine said.


    "Bye," Patrick said before he hung up and Maxine immediately became depressed.So he only wanted to talk to me in order to get those fucking essence cores. I know why he is acting like this, but it''s not like I wanted to look like that bitch that tortured him. At least, he still knows it''s me and has my back if I need him. Right?


    Maxine spread out her spiritual sense and looked for Turan to give him a piece of her mind. Unfortunately she couldn''t find him within her scanning range.God damn it. I forgot he could perfectly hide his essence . He could be in the bushes across the street and I still wouldn''t be able to find him with my spiritual sense.Still, she continued to search for him until one of her ravens alerted her to some strange men approaching the village.Huh? What''s this about?


    Maxine focused on her raven and saw fifty soldiers wearing the heraldry of Kenta. The person leading them had a cultivation at iron stage ranktwo, the same as herself, and looked too young to be Lord Kenta.That may be his son since heisn''t that muchstronger than that bandit leader I killed before.She noticed that each ofthem were armed with heavy axes while each of them still carried a long sword at their hip for some odd reason. Behind them, there was a horse-like creature dragging a ballista.What do they need that thing for? Any one of them could easily kill smash walls with their bare hands. Could it be that these idiots fashion themselves as dragonslayers? This is the last thing I need. On second thought, maybe they are just what the doctor ordered. I needed something to vent my frustrations on and those idiots are perfect for the job.


    Maxine created a portal to the shadow world and entered it before returning her focus back to her main body.Damn, I''m glad that those jerks from the Alliance don''t know that I can flee to this world. The most they would know even if they saw me open a portal is that I am warping to a place that has a lot of shadow essence. For all they know, I have gone to a deep cavern on Earth.


    Maxine used her spiritual sense to lock onto the wouldbe dragonslayers and ordered her dragon to destroy the balista with a fireball. She walked out of the cave and saw her dragon slowly move into position just out of the wouldbe dragonslayers line of sight.


    Maxine smiled and ran torwards those soldiers while activating Shadow Lord form her essence armor. While she approached them, she kept her spiritual sense locked onto them, so she could observe the potency of her dragon''s fire. It finally got into the soldiers'' line of sight and they immediately scrambled to ready the ballista. Unfortunately they were too late as her dragon unleashed a small silver fireball roughly the size of her head.That doesn''t look like it will destroy that ballista completely, but let''s see howmuch damageit does.The soldiers scattered from the ballista once the small silver fireball was within twenty feet of the balista. A bright flash of light that would have blinded Maxine had she seen it with her eyes emanated at the point of impact. When the flash ended, the balista was gone. Only a small pile of ash and a fewpools of metalic slag remained.


    However Maxine saw what had happened with her spiritual sense. The wooden parts of the balista had been incinerated and the metallic parts melted in just a handful of seconds.No wonder fantasy novels always say dragon fire is deadly. They literately have a plasma gun packed inside their heads. You have no other choice than to dodge it because if you block, you burn. In any case, now that they have seen my dragon''s power, I should make my appearance.


    By now Maxine had gotten within one hundred feet of the soldiers and she made the ground within twenty feet of her body sprout with shadow tendrils. "It would seem that you have come to kill my ''pet,''" Maxine saidinthe shadow tongue while sounding angry, "Now give me one good reason why I shouldn''t kill the lot of you for attempting to destroy what is mine."All of them whirled around to face Maxine with either a heavy ax or a sword in hand,and shesaw more than one of them had fear in their eyesat the mere sight of her. Regardless of what these idiots say, I am going to beat the living shit out of all of them.


    The closest soldier, whom was wielding an ax, charged at Maxine while screaming, "DIE, DEMON!"Demon? Well I guess I do look like one from his perspective. She let him get inside of her shadow tendril field and used one of the shadow tendrils tograb his foot. Her shadow tendril lifted him high into the air and slammed him into the ground repeatedly. However she was careful not to use too much force. She only wanted to breaksome ofhis bones, not kill him.


    After slamming the bastard one last time, Maxine looked at the rest of them. She waited a few seconds for their answer before she said, "Well? Are you going to answer me or stand there looking stupid?" However after she said it, she knew that it was a mistake. All except for their leader, whom she assumed was Lord Kenta''s son, roared their battlecry as they charged at her.


    Maxine sighed to herself as she grabbed one of them with one of her shadow tendrils and used him like a club in a sweeping motion to incapacitate several soldiers at once. The others were undetered as they continued their charge.Not too bright of them.She hurled groups of four shadow tendrils at a time to slam into them. She could hear ribs breaking from those heavy impacts.


    Unfortunately, Maxine didn''t feel any better just from beating them using her shadow tendrils and charged into the fray herself. She punched and kicked them until they were unable to fight back. This actually feels pretty good.To avoid getting hit, Maxine had used her spiritual sense to feel everything within ten feet of her body and dodged accordingly. She almost felt bad that they couldn''t hit her.


    During that whole time, the son of Lord Kenta was slowly sneaking around behind Maxine, but she had noticed his actions from the beginning. After knocking outthe lastof the soldiers, she turned and looked straight at him causing him to freeze. She smiled to herself right before her dragon broke through alot of branches before pinning the young man to the ground underneith one of it''s claws.


    Maxine turned her head back to the soldiers and saw that they were all groaning in pain on the ground. She walked up to the son of Kenta and removed his helmet. She made a show of carefully examining his face before asking, "Are you the son of Lord Kenta?"


    He completely ignored her question and roared at her, "Do your worst, demon! My father and brothers shall avenge me!"


    "You are mistaken, young lord. They won''t be avenging you since I won''t be killing you or your men today," Maxine said, "Think of it as me showing your father respect."


    "I won''t believe your lies!" he growled at her, "You will kill me once I drop my guard."Is he really this stupid?Seriously, I could kill him right now and he wouldn''t be able to resist at all. Why would I need to wait for him to drop his guard?I have a feeling that if I keep talking to him,I will end up giving myself a headache. It would be easier just to send him away. Even he should be able to understand that I am sparing him.


    Maxine gave him amomentary glare before she whistled loudly as she ordered fifty Shadow Wolves to grab the wounded soldiers and take them to front gates of Kenta city. She gave her dragon a similar order, but it was supposed to carry the idiotic young lord upside down during the whole flight.Perhaps the increased bloodflow to his brain will cure his stupidity, but I doubt it. In any case, I feel a lot more relaxed and I shouldn''t have to deal with those assholes again for awhile. I just showed off a lot of combat potential simply by having my Shadow Wolves and dragon return those idiots back to the city. Unfortunately what I just did won''t change my current situation at all. I know that I can''t avoid the mess that is coming, so I might as well spend time with Emily, Silky and mom while I still can.

 Chapter 74

    Maxine''s students had finally reached bronze stage and had gained just enough skill that they could fight weak essence beasts. She was currently waiting at a parking lot adjacent to a large forested area with Silky and Emily. She had decided to do this expedition on the weekend as to give her students plenty of time to find and fight essence beasts. However Maxine didn''t have Kanisha participate since she started emanating spatial essence as she advanced and would scare away most if not all essence beasts from their group. Instead she provided Kanisha with alot of pouches made of essence beast hide and arachne silk for her to attempt to make a dimensional pouch.It was going to be her final exam, instead of actual combat. It was far more profitable for the girl to makedimensional pouches rather than hunt essence beasts anyways.


    Maxine checked the time and she saw that there was still fifteen minutes until the time she told them to show up.I can''t be too impatient. Afterall, I did ask them to show up at eight in the morning on a weekend, so I should expect a few late arrivals.


    "Maxine, do you have a moment?" Hellen asked via spiritual sense.


    "Yes, what''s up?" Maxine asked.


    "I didn''t want to tell you this before because your father wasn''t sure he could do it, but he has created a countermeasure for the ship from the Technological Union," Hellen announced.


    "Seriously?! What is it?" Maxine asked excitedly.


    "He created two potions," Hellen began to explain, "The first one will temporarily modify the genetic structure of your clone to make it appear that it''s DNA was tampered withor that it is a clone made by a man that didn''t know what he was doing. The second potion will rearrange one of the X chromosones inside of your decoy into a copy of your father''s Y chromosone. Although it won''t be perfect, it should still be enough to trick them. Afterall, altering DNA without damaging the host is nearly impossible, even for someone withyour father''s skill."


    "That''s great!" Maxine said ecstatically.


    "But there may be a side-effect," Hellen cautioned.


    "What do I care? It will only be a side-effect that my clone has to deal with, right?" Maxine stated more than asked.


    "Not entirely," Hellen admitted.


    "What?" Maxine said in disbelief.


    "Your clone and decoy are connected to you by a special link. Although the chances are very low, the potion thatyour decoy willconsume mighthave an impact onyou as well since it contains some of your father''s blood," Hellen explained, "If it does effect you, your Twelve-Headed Hydra King Bloodline will awaken and it will effect both your main body and clone. Typicallywhen two people share an awakening of their bloodlines, they tend to betwins, so they alliance may think that your clone and decoy are twins in that situation."Them thinking my clone and my decoy are twins might work to my advantageif things go to shit. Since I have Turan and uncle Zephyr keeping an eye on me, the Alliance would be less hopefulofcapturing me and devote more of their forces to capture my decoy. Under those conditions, I could fight more easily my way to uncle Zephyr and escape off world with him since I don''t want them to know that I can warp to the shadow world. Although that would mean I would have to deal with the various machinations of the Kavros Clan with my clone, but Emily would know that I am alive. The biggest two draw backs to that are that I don''t know what kind of physical change I will undergo when the Twelve-Headed Hydra King bloodline awakens and that I have to leave Earth.


    "How low is very low? Can you give me a percentage?" Maxine asked cautiously.


    "Less than ten percent," Hellen responded.Less thanten percent? That''s all?! If it means there is a chance to avoid hurting Emily, it is definitely worth the risk. Hell, even if the chances were at 40%, I would still do it.


    "That is a very acceptible level of risk," Maxine said confidently, "Can Guan send me the potions later?"


    "Yes, he can and he will include the date at when you should drink it," Hellen answered, "Just be warned that if your Twelve-Headed Hydra King bloodline awakens it will impact you and all of your clones."


    "Understood, mom," Maxine said, "Thanks and let Guan know I appreciate this."


    "You could show your appreciation by calling him dad," Hellen suggested.


    "Not happening," Maxine answered in a deadpan tone before a thought entered her head, "Mom, why is the Twelve-Headed Hydra King has the title King in it''s name? That has been bugging me for quite awhile."


    "Oh, that''s a good question actually. It has three cores," Hellen replied and added when it was clear that Maxine was confused, "Beasts, or in extremely rare cases humans, that have three cores with a different kind of energy in each core are given the appelation king or queen. Those with two cores with different kinds of energy are called Lord or Ladies. As for the rest of the beasts, they are called either magical, essence or demonic beasts in relation to which type of energy thatexists within their bodies."Huh? Would that apply to Shadow Lords? Wouldn''t that mean they have two cores containing different energies within themselves? I have the Shadow Lord bloodline so why don''t I have two cores? What about Guan? He is known as the Poison Emperor. Does he have three cores?! That would definitely explain why no one can control him. In any case, I need to find out what the types of cultivatable energy are.


    "What do you mean that there are multiple types of energy?!" Maxine asked.


    "Did you honestly believe that there was only one type of energy that you could cultivate?" Hellen asked skeptically.


    "Yes, actually," Maxine admitted, "What arethe energies that can be cultivated?"


    "Mana, ki and essence are the three most abundant cultivation energies in our universe. There are otherones that can be cultivated, but they either require special physiques orare not abundant enough to be used," Hellen explained, "Essence, the energy that you are most familiar with, is the most balanced of the three energies as it provides both a physical boost as well as ranged combat capability. However it isn''t overly powerful in either area, but it has the advantage of being cultivated the fastest. Wizards would be the best word to describe those that cultivate mana. They may be weak physically since mana is more focused on the mind rather than the body, but those that can use it are lethal at a distance or when defending their base. As for Ki cultivators, they have the greatest physical abilities, but do not mistaken them for easy prey that you can attack from afar. Their speedmake it nearly impossible to keep them at a distance."


    Maxine noticed that her students were beginning to arrive and she quickly asked Hellen, "Mom, last question. How many cores does Guan have?"


    "He has four and he is the only being that I know of that has ever had that many," Hellen answered and she severed the spiritual sense connection.Maxine was stunned from Hellen''s answer. She had guessed that he had three cores since the alliance wanted to control him, but not in her wildest dreams did she imagine that he had four. She tried to understand what possible benefits that having multiple cores could bring. Greater endurance? Or would it be strength? Although I do know that having just three cores would mean he has no weaknesses whether it be in close or ranged combat. As for the forth core, I have no idea what it benefits it gives to Guan.She wasn''t even certain how much time had passed while she thought.


    "Mama, I think everyone is here," Silky stated. Maxine looked up and saw that what Silky said was true. All of her students were present and looking at her curiously.Oh damn. I forgot where I was for a second there.


    "Sorry, I got caught up in my own thoughts there," Maxine said calmly, "Without further interruptions, let''s begine. Remember your task is to protect Emily, myself and Silky as we trek through these woods.The three of us are playing the role of a non-combatants. Just think of this as one of those super annoying escort quests that often appear in roleplaying games." Her students quickly formed a ring formation around Emily, Maxine and, Silky.


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    Maxine pointed in a random direction for her students to walk in and spread her spiritual sense out to detect anything that might be too dangerous for her students.


    Directly in their path were six Copper-Fang Wolves. She figured this would be a good enough opponent to test her students against since they had both more numberous and were more powerful than those essence beasts.The wolves charged at them fearlessly as soon as they picked up Maxine and the others'' scent. She could only lament that the essence beasts lacked the ability to guage their opponents'' strength like she could. If they could, they would have fled instead of charged.These critters must have killed humans in the past and think my students are easy prey. Boy are they in for a surprise.


    Maxine''s students froze when the Copper-Fang Wolves roared as they came into sight. She sighed mentally, but she knew that something like this would happen. That is why she wanted them to face a small group of weak essence beasts first. That way she could at least save them if things went badly. However she knew tha tthey needed a push to wake them up from their fear.


    "Don''t just stand there like a bunch of deer in headlights! FIGHT!" Maxine yelled at them with her spiritual sense since if she used her voice it would be too slow to convey her thoughts.


    Maxine saw them quickly snap out of a state of frozen fear and ready their weapons. Two students that prefered bows were too slow to nock their arrows in time. So, four students that used spears thrusted their spears towards the essence beasts almost at the same time when the wolves were close enough, and they managed to kill one of the wolves. Her students with the heavier type of essence armor quickly stepped infront of thespear-wieldingstudents and lashed out at the wolves in an attempt to fend the beasts off. Thatattack had badly injured three of the wolves and the two bow users took the opportunity to kill a Copper-Fang Wolf each. The two injured Copper-Fang Wolves fled in fear after noticing that the rest of their pack were dead.


    Maxine nodded her head in approval of their near flawless teamwork and was about to praise them. However the words of praise never left her mouth when she saw that more than half of them started to puke once the Copper-Fang Wolves were out of sight.Yeah, that sometimes happens after someone''s first fight. Combination of fear and adrenaline can be rough if you have a full stomach. Add on to the fact that some of these kids might be squeamish and there will be puking. It would be best to see which one of them can handle the dismantling process now even if not much of a copper stage essence beast can be used.


    "Now for the part that most of you won''t be able to stomach. I will show you how to harvast materials from essence beasts," Maxine said once they stopped vomitting and saw them all look at her with confusion in their eyes, "This Copper-Fang Wolf has quite delicious meat and it''s hide can be processed into a wonderful leather jacket or durable traveling backpack. However it''s hide is unsuitable for armor. For anyone that doesn''t think they can stomach this, just act as a lookout while I work."


    Maxine walked up to one of the Copper-Fang Wolves and formed a small knife out of her essence. She began to gut the Copper-Fang Wolfin the bloodiest way that she could and heard many of her students that decided to watchvomit again, "See how I am using my knife to part it''s hide from it''s body. This technique is effective even on more powerful essence beasts, but the amount of force needed will definitely be greater whenyou skinstronger essence beasts." She checked on her students and only two of them were able to watch her along with Silky without vomitting. Good, looks like I found two people capable of dismantling essence beasts without loosing their lunch. Emily hadn''t even bothered watching Maxine work skin the Copper-Fang Wolf. Maxine didn''t blame her for it. She was far too gentle to ever be able to do something of this nature.


    After skinning the Copper-Fang Wolf, Maxine quickly cut the meat off the bone intosteaks and storedthe wolf steaksin her dimensional pouch. Her students looked at her with awe as the wolf steaks vanished. She turned to them and said, "I bet you guys are wondering where the meat when right? I used a tool called a Dimensional Pouch to store it temporarily. Your classmate, Kanisha, is capable of making one of these things and that is why she isn''t here with us today. Hopefully by Monday, she will have made one. Just keep in mind that the one she makes probably won''t have the same capacity that mine does."


    Maxine could detected essence beasts approaching them quickly. She knew that they were attracted to the scent of blood and she was tempted to stay to continue her students training. However there were several bronze stage essence beasts approaching and she knew her students were not prepared to face them just yet. "We need to move. Essence beasts have been attracted by the smell of blood," Maxine said as she cleaned herself off with her essence and her students took up formation around herself, Emily and Silky.


    For the next two hours, Maxine''s students demonstrated their teamwork and were near the verge of collapsing when she finally directed them out of the forest. On their way back, Maxine cleaned all of the blood off their bodies using her essence to avoid a scene with their parents.


    Once they were back, her students collapsed onto the ground panting and she praised them, "Good job everyone. Your teamwork is nearly flawless and none of you were injured. All you guys need is a little more practice and you won''t need any more instruction from me. However regardless of what you decide to do with my training, do not try hunting essence beasts solo. It''s too dangerous. In any case, we are done for today, so head on home."


    None of Maxine''s students simply nodded their heads and stumbled to their waiting parents. However Emily grabbed Maxine shoulder and said via spiritual sense, "You were way rougher on them than you were on either me or Silky."


    "I know, but it was necessary. They won''t have anyone to rely on except each other andteamwork needs to be ingrained in their psyche," Maxine answered, "If I am not around, humanity will need strong teams like they are shaping up to be to fend off essence beasts should they attack."


    "What do you mean, if you are not around? Are you going somewhere?" Emily asked.


    "Not if I can help it," Maxine answered with conviction


    "Alright," Emily said with an unsure tone, "We still on for tonight?"


    "Yeah, should I sneak in some goodies using my dimensional pouch?" Maxine asked with a smile, "Those movie theaters always charge more than double for snacks." She was going to watch a movie with her mother, Silky and Emily. Maxine didn''t remember what kind of movie, or even the name of it. She just wanted to spend time with those she cared about.


    "Maybe a couple candy bars," Emily offered.


    "Will do. I will see you there. You best head home to get lunch Emily," Maxine agreed and turned to Silky, "Alright, Silky. Let''s head home and get our own lunch. Mom might be worried since I told her we would be going into the forest."


    "''Kay," Silky said cheerfully as they waved to Emily before each of them ran home.


    Once they were home, Maxine went to her room and saw a rift appear in the air above her bed.So that''s how he has been able to send me things.A single dimensional pouch was spit out of the rift before it closed. She quickly picked up the dimensional pouch and scanned inside of it. She felt rather confused on what she found. There were three potions instead of just two. Fortunately there was a letter inside, so Maxine immediately pulled it out and started to read it, "Maxine, I was suspiciousthat a Shadow Lord has been listening in while I have been talking with your mother, so I discreetly scanned the mindof that young Shadow Lord following you around to confirm this without hurting him. My suspicion was correct and I discovered that they are the ones orchestrating this whole ordeal for you. Those bastards intend to inform the Alliancethat you are my daughter regardless of the Technological Union''s findingsand they somehow became aware your Shadow Lord Form is unique. They want to see if you will become what they call a Shadow Queen by putting you into adesperate situationto forciblyevolve your Shadow Lord bloodline. However it seems they have every intention of ''rescuing'' you at the last possible moment, but it doesn''t appear that they are aware that your clone is the one on Earth. By the way, don''t use essence cores from beasts to create your clones in the future. For anyone that knows what to look for, that kind of core is a clear indicator that is a clone. Try to use an essence core from a humaniod or create a secondary core outside of your body. As for the potions, the two labeled decoy and clone should be taken by their respective entities, so that the Shadow Lords won''t notice anything amiss. The time they are taken doesn''t matter and the possible side-effects that I told your mother were just a ruse for anyone listening in to the conversation I was having with your mother. The third potion canawaken and fuse your Twelve-Headed Hydra bloodline with the Shadow Lord Bloodline. I made it so that any physical changes will onlyeffect your Shadow Lord Form, but only drink it as a last resort as you will immediately enter Shadow Lord form once you do. Don''t worry about your loved ones on Earth. I will take care of them. I know how much they mean to you." She felt like screaming in rage and frustration once she finished reading the letter.


    Maxine took a few deep breathes to calm the rage boiling inside of her at Turan''s betrayal.Why am I angry that he betrayed me? I barely know him and it doesn''t matter if he tells the Alliance about me. That only cements the plan I already have in place. However I hope it''s Turan that comes to my ''rescue.'' Because I will give him quite the explosive surprise.


    Maxineshoved all of her feelings of anger to the back of her mind. She still had many things that she needed to do. She still had to prepare a replacement teacher for her school and since her mother will most likely be taking care of Silky once Maxine leaves Earth, she wanted to ensure there was enough money available to ensure her mother''s financial future.

 chapter 75

    It had been a month since Maxine had discovered the Shadow Lords'' true intentionsand both her decoy and clone had consumed their respective potions since then. She had made it look like the potions were either for healing or energy restoring when she consumed them. However she was curious about the effects of the third potion that Guan gave her, and rolled it in her hands from time to time while debating whether or not she should ever drink it.


    Maxine had finished with her previous batch of students and was working with the next one. Kanisha had decided to join Maxine''s school in order to get a steady stream of materials to create dimensional pouches. Maxine had insisted that the girl sell the pouches through the school and since the school provided the materials, Kanisha would have to get half of the money while the school got the rest. It was a steady form of income for both Kanisha and her school.


    Maxine gave herself a decent salary from her school''s funds,and had it deposited in a bank account that her mother co-signed with her. That way her mother would have access to Maxine''s funds to pay for Silky''s dietary needs. Even in Silky''s human form, she could eat more than two large men and didn''t gain an ounce of fat. Although Maxine wondered why Silky needed to eat that much since her own appetite was lessening as her strength increased.


    However Maxine pushed those thoughts aside. She needed to call Chris and Amanda to see if either of them were willing to teach her students in the event that she disappeared. She had considered Patrick for the job since he had similar experience to her own, but his behavior recently left her feeling sour.


    Maxine dialed Chris'' number first and waited for him to answer. However it wasn''t Chris that answered. "Hey, Maxine. How did you know I moved in with Chris? Idon''t recall ever mentioning it to you," Amanda asked.


    "Umm,you didn''t," Maxine answered, "I was calling him to ask him if he wanted to teach at my school."


    "Really, Maxine?" Amanda asked, "He just learned how to control his own essence recently. He would make a lousy teacher."


    "So he hasn''t told you yet," Maxine said.


    "Told me what?" Amanda asked.


    "That''s his secret to tell," Maxine said, "Can I please talk to him now?"


    "Sure, one second," Amanda said in an annoyed tone.Chris this is payback for reminding me of the pain and suffering that the original Maxine went through. Enjoy explaining this to Amanda.


    "What did you tell Amanda?" Chris demanded with a hint of worry in his voice.


    "Nothing other than you are keeping a secret from her," Maxine answered smugly.


    "God damn it. This is payback for that stuff I said at dinner the other night isn''t it?" Chris asked.


    "Take a guess," Maxine responded.


    Chris let out a sigh and was silent for a moment before he asked, "Amanda mentioned you wanted to talk to me before handing me the phone. What is that about?"


    "Do you have a good job?" Maxine asked instead of answering his question.


    "I mop floors at a school," Chris answered flatly, "Is there a point to this other than making me feel worthless?"


    "Yes, there," Maxine replied in an amused tone, "And since you clearly don''t like your current joy, how would you like to do something else?"


    "What do you have in mind," Chris asked.


    "Teaching kids how to cultivate," Maxine answered.


    "How much does it pay?" Chris asked curiously.Seriously, is that all he wants to know?


    "How about triple whatever you are making now," Maxine answered, even though she had no idea how much he was making. Although, she knew most janitors didn''t make that much.


    "Good enough for me," Chris said, "When do I start?"


    "As soon as I can find enough students for you to teach," Maxine answered, "Do you think Amanda will help with selecting students?"


    "It would take some doing, but I think it''s possible," Chris said, "Wait, how have you been doing it so far? Or do I want to know?"


    "I havethe richer students undergo a combination of psych exams and background checks," Maxine answered, "I don''t want to teach students that have trouble controlling their aggression or have psychological problems. As for the students with less wealth, you could always scan their surface thoughts which you seem to have no problem with. I watch their public behavior." She was hoping that by reminding him of his unethical use of spiritual sense that it would shame him.


    "Oh thanks. That''s actually a pretty good idea," Chris replied as if he didn''t even realize he was in the wrong. What the fuck? Does he not realize he could get into a lot of trouble if he is ever found out?However before Maxine couldwarn him, he said, "I gotta go. Amanda is giving me the evil eye. Bye."Evil eye? Oh! They were probably about to eat dinner. No one likes being kept from their food.


    "Bye," Maxine tried to say, but the call was ended before she could say anything. Amanda must havebeen giving him one hell of an angry glare for him to hang up like that.


    Maxine got up and went to the kitchen to help her mother prepare dinner. Afterall, they had to make enough food to feed the bottomless pit known as Silky. When she got to the kitchen, a smiled formed on her face as she witnessed an adorable scene. Silky was wearing a small apron and was standing on a short stool while stirring a pot. Maxine''s mother was periodically putting ingredients into that pot for a stew.


    Maxine spied a few potatoes that just needed to be cut up. She walked up beside her mother and started to cut up the potatoes with a knife made of her shadow essence. Although she had to be careful not to damage the cutting board, she still enjoyed simple act of preparing food. In the previous timeline, she couldn''t enjoy it since she had to stay on guardevery waking moment on the off chance that an essence beast attacked.


    Right as Maxine finished cutting the potatoes, she felt a sadness come over her.After the ship from the Technological Union shows up, I won''t be able to do things like this anymore with mom or Silky.Tears came unbidden down Maxine''s face as she struggled not to cry. God damn it not now. I can''t cry infront of mom.


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    However despite Maxine''s best efforts, her mother noticed her tears and gently pulled Maxine close so that her head rested on her mother''s shoulder. Her mother slowly stroked the back of Maxine''s head. "It''s alright," her mother said comfortingly, "Just let it out." Maxine no longer resisted her tears and let them flow freely as she cried softly into her mother''s shoulder. She didn''t know how long she stayed in that state, but all the while she felt her mother''s gentle hand stroking her hair.


    Eventually Maxine stopped crying and pulled herself from her mother. "Feel better?" her mother asked.


    "A little," Maxine answered honestly.


    "Good," her mother said, "I''m relieved that you finally cried and got that mess out of your system. Emily has been worried about you."


    "What do you mean mom?" Maxine asked as she wiped the few remaining tears from her eyes.


    "She said that when you began spending more time with her than you had in the past, you appeared tense for some reason," her mother said, "But I know better than anyone what is bothering you. That fight with that fox creature a couple months ago upset you far more than you have been letting on. Now, get out of the kitchen, both of you. I will take care of dinner. Silky, take care of Maxine. She needs you right now."Mom thinks Iam still upset over that? Well, I do feel bad that they died, but I couldn''t do anything about it. I had enough trouble keeping myself and my friends from being killed.


    Maxine did as she was told and went to the dinning room table to wait for dinner with Silky, whom cuddled up onto her lap. Maxine hugged Silky and brushed Silky''s hair with her hand, while Silky appeared to enjoy every second of it. Once her mother come in with the pot of stew, they served themselves and began to eat. As usual, Silky ate most of it. It still amazed Maxine how Silky could wolf so much food down with her tiny frame without getting bloated. Maxine often suspected that Silky had something similar to a dimensional pouch for a stomach.


    After eating her dinner, Maxine helped clean up the table even though her mother told her not to and she went to her room after letting her mother know that she was going to study. She opened a portal the the shadow world and leapt into it. She found a spot to cultivate and once she sat down, she began to cultivate before shifting her focus back to her main body.


    Aside from satisfying her bodily needs and brief times that her clone was in the shadow world, Maxine had been cultivating non-stop and was very close to breakingthrough to iron stage rank 3. To avoid getting stiff, she stood up and stretched while determining how much more time she needed to breakthrough to the next rank.At my current pace, it shouldn''t take me less than two weeks.And that will make my clones stronger since they tend to rank up at the same time that I do. It would be nice if my shadow clones and constructs followed that same pattern, but it''s not as likely. In any case, a stronger clone means that it will have a higher possibility of reaching uncle Zephyr and escaping.I am really glad thatHellen talked with Zephyr in advance to confirmed that he was going to help me. Otherwise, it would be guaranteed that I would be forced to suicide my clone and decoy. Or at the very least, live in a world without color. On a side not, I am kind of surprised when she told me that she had been speaking to him. I guess it makes sense that she would want to know how the rest of her family is doing.


    Maxine felt something strange going on with one of the spiritual marks she had placed earlier and began to check them one at a time. It took her a second to find out what it was. The queen bee that she had tamed had finally formed an essence core. It had taken her queen bee so long to form a core that she had nearly forgotten about it, but now that it had, various ideas started popping up in her head. She sent and order to the queen bee to gather as many venomous insects as it could and see if it could increase the combative ability of the warrior bees by analyzing the DNA of the insects collected to make changes in the DNA of the next brood of warrior bees. She anticipated that these new warrior bees would be at least four inches long and with enough numbers, pose a threat to iron stage cultivators. They would serve as an excellent means of delaying, or posisbly killing, any pursuers when her clone was fleeing to Zephyr, which would greatly enhance the odds of escape. The biggest issues were that she didn''t know how many warrior bees could be produced in that timeframe and if it was even possible to edit the DNA of the bees to that extent.


    The worker bees had just brought a few insects back to the hive when Maxine heard Emily''s voice, "Maxine? Are you here?" She had left a small portal to her room open and that is why she could hear Emily. After sitting back down in a meditative pose, she expanded the portal and she switched her focus back to her clone before jumping into the portal.


    Once Maxine was back in her room, she looked at the startled Emily.Huh? Why is she so surprised?Oh, that''s right. I told her about my shadow portals, but I have never actuallyused them infront of her before."Hey, Emily. What''s up?" Maxine asked cheerfully.


    "I just wanted to make sure you were alright," Emily said, "You have just seemed tense for the past month. It''s not something I did, is it?"So, Emily didn''t bother talking to mom. Or she did and mom told her to talk to me.


    Maxine sighed and answered Emily, "No, it isn''t you."


    "Then what is it?" Emily asked in a concerned tone.Damn it. I don''t want to lie to Emily. She is the one person that I will not lie to. Might as well keep it simple.


    "I didn''t mention this before, but my biological dad is ridiculously powerful," Maxinesaidvia spiritual sense, "And there are a lot of people wanting to control him to use him as a war machine. If I get captured by them, I will be used as a tool to make Guan do what they want. I have been stressing out trying to figure out a way to avoid that and it got worse a month ago when I found out they are sending a ship to specifically fine me with a DNA scanner."


    "Why notescape Earth with your uncle Zephyr?" Emily suggested calmly.


    "Oh, I intend to, if I can," Maxine answered, but Emily appeared confused.


    "Why did you say ''if I can''?" Emily asked.


    "Because when that ship scans Earth, each and every offworlder will rush at me like a swarm of locusts all intent on capture," Maxine answered and Emily gave Maxine a look like she thought Maxine was an idiot.


    "You are being an idiot," Emily stated in an annoyed tone, "You could leave with your uncle the day before, or even a week before, that ship arrives." That was like a slap to Maxine''s face. She had been so focused on avoiding capture that she ignored every other avenue of fleeing. Not only would it avoid a big scene where innocent people could get hurt, it also take the death of her clone out of the picture entirely.


    "That''s a great idea, but I have no idea when the ship with that scanner will arrive," Maxine said.


    "Can''t your uncle tell you?" Emily asked.


    "Probably," Maxine said and she hugged Emily, "I love you and thank you. You saw a way out of this predicament that I overlooked entirely."


    "Your welcome and I love you too," Emily said and she took the initiative to kiss Maxine, which Maxine thoroughly enjoyed.Emily is definitely getting better at kissing. Too bad she no longer blushes when she kisses me though.Unfortunately the kiss didn''t last as long as Maxine would have liked, but she wasn''t going to complain.


    "Now, is there anything else you want to talk about?" Maxine asked with a huge smile on her face.


    "How will we be able to keep in contact after you leave Earth?" Emily asked.


    "Good question," Maxine answered and thought for a second, "I could put one of my shadow clones in your shadow and once it is all clear, I will have it come out. That way we can stay in contact. How does that sound?"


    "Sounds like a plan to me," Emily replied, "What should we do before I head back home?" Maxine discreatly ordered one of her shadow clones to enter Emily''s shadow.


    "Hmm, I have a few ideas," Maxine said in a sultry tone to tease Emily, but she gave Maxine a flat glare, "I was just teasing. How about we play some cards with Silky and my mom?"


    "Okay, but don''t use your spiritual sense to cheat this time," Emily reminded Maxine.


    "Alright, so long as you don''t work together with Silky and my mom to beat me," Maxine responded and started walking out of her room, "I will go get the cards."


    "I will get Silky and your mom at the table," Emily said before leaving Maxine''s room.


    While Maxine went to go get a deck of cards, she made a mental note to get into contact with Zephyr to make sure he would be ready to take her off Earth.I should prepare a few letters for my friends, General Cullen and mom to let them know why I have to leave.

 Chapter 76

    After Maxine played cards with her family, she asked Hellen to contact Zephyr to find out when the Technological Union''s ship would arrive. It only took her a few seconds to get that information since it was done via spiritual sense.


    "Maxine, Zephyr said that the ship will arrive in two weeks," Hellen said via spiritual sense.


    "Two weeks?!" Maxine said in surprise, "I thought we still had at least a month."


    "That was according the the speed that their fastest ships had one hundred years ago," Hellen responded, "The ship approaching Earth isn''t their fastest. Otherwise it would be here already. The only reason it hasn''t is that it was built more for surveying purposes."Fuck! However she had to remind herself that it wasn''t a problem. She still had enough time to finish teaching her current batch of students and set Chris, and possibly Amanda, up with their own students. She would also leave a list of potential students and all of the other necessary information to find more. Hopefully Amanda would take charge of that. Maxine doubted that Chris had the patience to examine every student up to Maxine''s standards, but she knew Amanda would.


    However Maxine knew she had enough time to work with that later. For now, she wanted more information on the Kavros clan other than what she already had and the only two sources of information are from Zephyr and Hellen. And Hellen''s knowledge about the Kavros clan is over one hundred years old. She needed more up to date information, so she needed to talk to Zephyr directly.


    Maxine sat down on her bed and pulled out the communication disk from her dimensional pouch. She tried to get into contact with Zephyr. Within seconds, she saw his face appear above it. "Maxine, what is it?" Zephyr asked, "Is there something wrong?"


    "No, nothing is wrong," Maxine replied, "I just wanted to know what it''s like in the Kavros clan."


    "Oh, that''s quite reasonable," Zephyr said, "Is there something specific that you wanted to know?"


    "Sort of," Maxine said and got uncomfortable as she continued, "I was wondering about the social etiquette and fashion within the clan." There I said it. I never thought I would ever have to worry about fashion of all things. Although knowing the social norm is a good way to avoid accidentally pissing off everyone in the Kavros clan. I don''t want to make enemies just because I said something I wasn''t supposed to.


    "Avoid vulgarities and you should be fine," Zephyr said calmly, "As for fashion, you need not worry about it. Our clan is very liberal in what we allow our members to wear. The only requirement is that you have the clan symbol in a visible location. Although I will admit the women in this area of your world are far more ... brazen than the ones in our clan."Well that''s a relief. I thought that I would have to ask Silky to make me a whole new wardrobe. Although it wouldn''t hurt to have a few sets of clothing made from her now iron stage arachne silk. I have no doubt that if I don''t, my clothes will end up in tatters very quickly. I am already seeing signs of wear and tear on the Arachne Silk clothes that I wear when I train.


    "Define brazen," Maxine asked curiously and it was Zephyr''s turn to look uncomfortable. Clearly he didn''t want to answer that question.


    "Well, um, they reveal too much leg and bosom," Zephyr answered cautiously and Maxine found it endlessly amusing as she finally had some material to tease him with.


    "If you think that is brazen, you should go visit a beach during the summer. Now that is when and where Earthlings get really ''brazen,''" Maxine teased and decided to add a little fuel to the fire, "Some of the girls there are practically naked." She can just imagine his reaction to witnessing a pretty girlwearing a micro bikini.


    "What?!" Zephyr said in a startled tone and quickly regained his composure, before he commented, "So, that is what Hellen meant when she said you like to tease people. I can''t believe I almost fell for that." Maxine smiled to herself.


    "You don''t believe me?" Maxine asked, "Just use the key words ''micro bikini'' in a google search and you will see what I am talking about."


    "I prefer not to," Zephyr answered calmly, but from the glimmer in his eye, Maxine knew that he would due to his curiosity, "Was there something else you needed to know?"


    "No, I think I am good," Maxine answered, "Thanks, uncle Zeph."


    "You''re welcome," Zephyr said warmly as a small smile formed on his face, "It''s best I go now. Bye."


    "Bye," Maxine said and the communication disk went dark.


    Maxine put the communication disk back into her dimensional pouch and tried to think of the contents of the letters that she would be writing to her friends and family.What is the most I can tell them? I guess let''s start with the Alliance wanting to capture me and the reason why. Althought it will probably upset mom, if I tell her that I am not her real daughter, but I have a feeling she might already know that. Afterall she did cover for my dad''s abuse. General Cullen probably knows that I am an alien, but might as well tell him as well. I don''t want to blindside someone that has been really good to me. Oh now that I think about it. I need to leave some very specific instructions for Chris about ethical use of spiritual sense. If I don''t, that idiot could get himself into trouble. Maybe, something along the lines of ''don''t read their thoughts unless it''s with their consent'' kind of deal, but then again, even mentioning that sort of thing is possible to the general public could cause a shit storm of problems. It''s best just to tell him not to do it anymore. Now, is there anything I am forgetting? Oh, yeah! Alice has probably reached bronze stagefor awhile now. I should probably make her a really good bow that will last her awhile. And if I remember correctly, Maxwell is looking for a new set of blades. Perhaps I should give him the spare set I made for my clone. Afterall, I still have a lot of Twilight Iron left over and I could make another set easily after my clone leaves Earth. But I better make sure that those two actually need that stuff before I go ahead and make it.


    Maxine pulled out her cellphone and called Maxwell. She figured it would be odd to call Alice''s cellphone since the girl had never given it to her. After a few rings, Maxwell answered, "Hello?"


    "Hey, Max," Maxine said, "It''s me, Maxine." It still felt somewhat awkward to talk to her previousself, but she put up with the jarring sensation more than once already.


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    "Oh, hey. What''s up?" Maxwell asked.


    "I just wanted to know if you and your sister needed any new gear," Maxine said.


    "Yes, we do actually," Maxwell answered, "Me and the rest of the gang over here have been searching for materials, but it''s slow going."


    "In that case, why don''t I make you and your sister something," Maxine offered, "I got lucky and found a lot of materialsand I can get you a set of blades easy. But your sister will have to wait a few days if she wants a bow. I don''t have any bow strings ready yet. By the way, what''s you and your sister''scultivation at?"


    "I just reached iron stage a few days ago and Alice just hit bronze stage rank two," Maxwell answered.Wow, Alice is being really serious with her cultivation to advance that quickly.


    "Alright, that''s all I needed to know," Maxine said, "I should have thatsome weapons and some defensive gearready for you in a few days."


    "Oh, before you go, I want to know something. Why are you only helping me and my sister?" Maxwell asked, "I understand why you don''t want to helpPatrick. He was acting like a dick and you already made something for Meagan. But I think it''s a little odd that you didn''tmention that you were going to make something forJack." Because Alice is my sister. I don''t care that we are no longer related by blood. I just want to make sure she is safe. What better way than toequip my former self and Alice with the best that I can to ensure that?


    "Because I want to," Maxine answered and heard Maxwell sigh.


    "You are not going to tell me the real reason are you?" Maxwell asked.


    "Nope," Maxine answered bluntly.


    "Fine," Maxwell said, "Just let me know when you are goingto have that new equipment ready."


    "Will do," Maxine replied, "Bye for now."


    "Bye," Maxwell said before he hung up.


    Maxine felt better now that she confirmed that she could help Maxwell and Alice.If Alice is there when I drop the weapons off, maybe I should sneak a few Shadow Wolves into her shadow. It would make me feel infinitely better knowing that she has an extra layer of protection.


    Maxine began to create thebow for Alice with her main body. She still had several bones and pieces of cartillage from iron stage essence beastsand changed her mind about giving Maxwell her spares. Instead wanted to createa new set of blades for him since they might be too light for him considering his larger frame. She also asked Silky via spiritual sense to make a pair of Steel Silk Vests for the both of them and specified that Alice have one with a lot of extra elasticity to adjust to her future growth.


    After all of that, Maxine decided to get something over with that she had put off for long enough. She got up and walked to her dresser. She opened her underwear drawer and reached into the back of the drawer to pull out a small book with a pink cover.It was the original Maxine''s diary and it happened to be the last gift that her father gave her before he became a drunk child abuser. She knew it had been there since she awoke in this body, but she had been avoiding even thinking about it since it contained all the pain and suffering that thepoor girl experienced under the hands of her father. However it also contained a few happy memories, but those were few in number. She would have used her diary to put her father in jail in the past had it contained details pertaining to her abuse, but unfortunately it hadn''t. The most it described was her father getting angry and punishing her for no reason.


    Maxine ran her hands across the cover. She was very tempted to destroy it since it represented pain, but that would simply be avoiding the problem, not facing it.In that case, why don''t I add some happy memories to it. I have accumulated quite a few now that I think about it.Her hand involuntarily moved up to her lips as she thought about the many kisses she shared with Emily.


    Maxine grabbed a pen and flipped the pages to a blank page after the most recent entry which was days before Maxine''s soul fused with the original Maxine. She began writting entries in it. She started withlast moments as Maxwell Adams, followed by her awakening in her current body, her forceful kiss with Emily, her first encounter with Hellen and all the other events that followed. To her own surprise, she even included her true ancestory. It was idiotic to put that to paper, but something deep inside of her compelled her to do it anyways. Eventually she came to the last page of her diary as she finishedwith writingdown the day that she intended to leave Earth. After closing her diary, she felt asif she just scratched an itch that she hadn''t even know was there. She quickly put the diary into her dimensional pouch and had no intention of taking it out before she left Earth.It seems that writing in this diary was a habit of the original Maxine and she used it as a means to cope with her situation. I guess it''s my habit now too.


    "Maxine, what you just did was very stupid," Hellen scolded Maxine, "If I hadn''t obscurred the area around your clone with my spiritual sense, anyone from the Alliance that decided that was a good time to check on you would have been able to read what you were writing."


    "I know it was reckless and stupid," Maxine admitted, "But, part of me had to write it down. It helped me relieve a bunch of pent up stress."


    "I see," Hellen said calmly, but Maxine could detect a seething rage coming from Hellen, "I take it that everything that you wrote in there is true? Including that stuff that was written earlier?"


    "Yes, but why did you read parts of my diary?" Maxine asked while feeling angry thatHellen would breach her privacy to that degree.


    "It''s a mother''s perogative to understand her child," Hellen answered calmly, but Maxine still detected Hellen''s rage.


    "Alright, fine. But, why are you angry?" Maxine asked.


    "In your diary, I saw the frequency in which that man beat you," Hellen answered with obvious anger in her tone, "It makes me want to dispense my own punishment on him. Your father was too lenient with him."


    "Mom, I think he is going through plenty at the moment," Maxine replied, "He is in an enviroment where everyone is violent and he is in a constant state of fear. Because if any of the other prisoners find out why he is there, he will probably be either beaten daily until he is released or stabbed to death."


    "Good, he deserves it," Hellen stated coldly and Maxine decided now was a good time to change the subject.


    "Mom, does the Alliance have any luxury goods like chocolate?" Maxine asked since she actually wanted to know the answer to that question.Please say yes. It would really suck to live in a world without chocolate. Itwierdhow much I like itas a girl.


    "Is that the dark brown, soft candies that Silky keeps asking about?" Hellen answered.


    "Yeah, that''s them," Maxine said.


    "Then, no. They don''t have anything like that," Hellen said, "It''s exclusive to Earth."


    "Alright thanks for letting me know, mom," Maxine said.


    "You''re welcome, sweetie," Hellen answered, "Now you best get your cloneready for bed. Afterall it''s quite late there and Claudia may get concerned that you are not getting enough sleep."


    "Alright, mom," Maxine said and retracted her spiritual sense as she moved to her dresser to get into some more comfortable clothing to sleep in. For some reason, she still liked to wear pajamas when she went to bed. While she changed, she thought about what it would be like to be without chocolate. I can live without it, but I really don''t want to. I never ate that much of it in the other timeline, but that was mostly because it was ridiculously expensive after essence beasts tore up the infastructure. If I remember correctly, a single Hershey''s Kiss cost as much as a dozen bronze stage essence cores. Hmm, that gives me an idea. I could fill up a dimensional pouch full of chocolates and get some of the people in the Kavros Clan a taste of it and that should be enough to pique their interest. If any of them ask, I will tell them it come from Earth and that might open up some trade routes.And since it''s just food big sects or clans won''t go crazy with greed. It''s not like it''s a precious resource that can aide them in cultivation. Beyond that, all I have to do is give Maxwell and Alice their new weapons, write some letters and I am set.

 Chapter 77

    The ship from the Technological Union would be arriving in three days and Maxine had decided that today was the last day Maxine would be on Earth. She gave Maxwell the equipment some time ago and had managed to sneak a few Shadow Wolves into Alice''s shadow. She also toldEmily that she would be leaving tonight a couple days ago,and had explained to Emily that she wanted to spend her last night on Earth with her family. To have as much time as possible with them, she lied to both Chris and Amandaby saying she was taking a break from teaching essence cultivation for a week or two due to being tired. However she still went to school to avoid arousing suspicion.


    As Maxine got home, she was greeted by a hug tackle from Silky, which nearly knocked Maxine down. Silky had done this several times in a row already. Maxine guessed it was her way of showing her love before Maxine left.


    Maxine ran her hand through Silky''s hair and asked, "What would you like for dinner?"


    "Lo Mein with lots of meat!" Silky announced. Maxine smiled to herself at Silky''s statement.I should have known. It is Silky''s favorite meal afterall.


    "Alright, want to help me cut up the meat?" Maxine asked. Since Silky was far more intelligent and manually dextrous than human children her age, Maxine saw no problem letting Silky use a knife.


    "Yes!" Silky said excitedly.


    "Alright let''s get to it," Maxine said, "But don''t eat any of it raw. I don''t want you to get an upset stomach."


    "''Kay," Silky said as she practically skipped to the kitchen.


    Maxine got out some of the essence beast meat from the refrigerator and got out a pair of knives. Silky grabed one and Maxine handed her half of the meat as they began to cut it into smaller pieces.


    While they cut the meat up, Maxine was thinking about the clan symbol that Zephyr had shown her. It was agrey version of her essence armor''s mask while she was in shadow lord form. It even had the opaline gem onthe forehead.She had wondered why their clan symbol was a mask of all things. She could only assume that it was what they thought the Shadow Queen/King would have.However she had no idea where she would place it on her clothes without it clashing with her usual attire.


    They finished cutting up the meat with plenty of time to spare before dinner, so Maxine decided to make some chocolate using her essence bee honey. She had a revelation while gathering chocolate earlier that she could probably make her own chocolate as long as she had a source of cocoa beans. She decided to make her own chocolate bar to see if she had enough skill to do it.


    Maxine processed some Cocoa beans down into powder and finally into dark chocolate. She added a small amount of milk to thin out the mix a little and used essence bee honey to sweeten it. After pouring the molten chocolate into a mould that she had prepared earlier, she finally looked at Silky, whom hadn''t said a single word while Maxine made the chocolate. Her four eyes were glued to the slowly hardening chocolate as Maxine heard Silky audibly swallow some saliva. Maxine picked up the mould and moved it back and forth in the air as she watched Silky''s eye''s follow it''s movement.I knew it was a bad idea to let Silky get exposed to chocolate.


    "You can''t have any until after dinner," Maxine told Silky.


    "''Kay," Silky said with a smile on her face and Maxine glanced at the time. It was just late enough that she could start making dinner and have it ready at the normal time her mother gets home.


    Maxine began making dinner with some help from Silky. By the time her mother walked in the door, dinner was ready. Her mother had a happy expression on her face when she saw that Maxine had made dinner. Her mother walked up to the table and was served a plate before Maxine and Silky joined her.


    After eating, her mother saw the now solidified chocolate and asked, "Delicious as always. Did you make that chocolate?"


    "Yeah, it''s our desert," Maxine said as she stood up and knocked the chocolate out of it''s mould with a few light taps before cutting off a small piece, "Here try some."


    Her mother put it in her mouth and when she began to chew, there was an almost instantenous reaction as a slight blush appeared on her mother''s cheeks followed by a series of moans escaping her lips. If Maxine didn''t know any better, she would have thought that her mother was on the verge of climaxing.There is no way that it can bethat good.


    Curiosity overtook her better judgement as Maxine quickly cut a piece of chocolate off to try it herself. The second she started to chew her eyes widened in shock as she was hit with intense euphoria. The more she chewed the chocolate, the more she was buffeted with wave after wave of euphoria. She didn''t want it to end, but the small piece of chocolate wouldn''t cooperate as it slowly disolved in her mouth.When she came back to her senses, she was laying on the kitchen floor while feeling a very pleasant sensations flowing throughout her body. It took her a second to realize what just happened and how she ended up on the floor.I just turned chocolate into a fucking narcotic and a really strong one at that if it put me on the ground without me realizing it! But how did it become a narcotic? Did the essence honey ridiculously enhance the normal effects of eating chocolate?


    Maxine was drawn from her own thoughts as she heard satisfied sighs from both her mother and Silky. Maxine unsteadily got back to her feetand looked at both Silky and her mother. Silky was laying on the floor not far from Maxine and her mother had collapsed on the table while still in her seat. However it was clear that both of them were in a state of bliss.


    Maxine quickly looked at the chocolate and saw that Silky had only taken a piece of chocolate that was the same size as the one Maxine had just eaten. However even as she stared at it, she didn''t feel the slightest bit desire to eat any more chocolate. It was like she satisfied her chocolate craving entirely with a piece that was the size of a marble.Thank god, it isn''t addictive. I think I better keep this recipe my secret and thankfullythe cocoa beans that I bought earlierhaven''t shown any signs of absorbing essence as far as I have seen. Although I can''t ignore the possibility that some agricultural plants might be efffected by essence in some way.


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    While Maxine looked at the chocolate and thought about what to do with it, her mother said ever so softly, "Maxine, I don''t know what you put in that chocolate, but it was amazing. It felt like I fell in love with your father all over again. Could you put it away for now? We should saveit for a special occasion."It''s not like I will be here to make any more for a good while, so I might as well leave mom this stuff.


    "Okay, mom," Maxine said and she put the chocolate in the refridgerator, "Do you need any help getting up?"


    "Yes," her mother said and Maxineextended her hand to help her mother get up from her chair. She watched as her mother walked in a slightly stiff fashion to the living room to watch TV.


    After her mother left the kitchen, Maxine heard Silky say, "The floor is so comfy."


    "Then you won''t mind if I use you as a rug and wipe my feet on you then," Maxine teased as she lifted up her foot playfully and had it hover over Silky, whom quickly scrambled up onto her feet.


    "Not funny, mama," Silky pouted.


    Maxien decided to test a theory that this chocolate isn''t addictive and asked Silky, "Do you want any more chocolate?"


    "No, thanks, mama," Silky answered, which left Maxine rather surprised since she knew that Silkyliked to eat it a little too much.


    "Alright, then go to the living room and sit with your grandma," Maxine said with a smile, "I will be in there after I clear off the table." She watched as Silky skipped to the living room and noticed the amount of force Silky came down with.I guess she must be heavier than she looks since she has compressed her frame with that wierd technique that the arachne twins taught her. Well, either that or cultivating essence increases weight to compensate for the increased strength and durability.


    Maxine walked into the living room and sat down next to her mother to cuddle up with her. Her mother was watching a boring news show, but Maxine didn''t care so long as she could be near her mother. She felt safe and loved while cuddling up to her mother. She was in such a relaxed state that she dropped her guard entirely and genuinely enjoyed the moment.


    Maxine stayed in that position until she heard her mother snoring softly. Maxine smiled and went to fetch a blanket to cover her mother up with. She checked the time and saw that it was after ten o''clock at night.It''s about time I headed out.


    Maxine walked to her mother''s room. She retrieved the letter that she wrote for her mother and gently set it on the dresser. She looked around the house one last time to engrave this place into her memories and as she walked to the back door to leave, Silky appeared in her path.


    Maxine knew what the little arachne wanted and knelt down with her arms spread wide. Silky ran into her embrace and pouted, "Can''t I go with you?"


    "I''m sorry, but you can''t. Where I am going, people might try to hurt you to make silk for them and I wouldn''t be able to stop them," Maxine said softly with Silky still in her embrace, "If you stay here on Earth, I don''t have to worry about that. You are strong enough to keep anyone from making you even if they found out about your silk."


    "But, but," Silky stuttered as she looked up at Maxine.


    "But nothing," Maxine said firmly, "I want you to do something for me. Can you look after your Grandma Claudia? I don''t want anyone bullying her while I am away."


    "Okay," Silky said while showing signs that she was about to cry.


    "Be good," Maxine said and gave Silky a kiss on her forehead right between her second set of eyes.


    "I will, mama," Silky said as she got out of Maxine''s embrace and ran to her room.


    "Goodbye, my sweet little Silky," Maxine said softly as she walked out the back door.


    Maxine stared at the sky for a few moments before Hellen asked, "Are you sure you want to do this?"


    "Yes," Maxine answered.


    "You know that there is still a possibility that my father could forcibly marry you off, don''t you?" Hellen asked.


    "That''s only if he is a complete idiot," Maxine answered, "He should know that would mean instant hostility from Guan and myself."


    "Indeed it would," Hellen agreed, "But thatmight not stop my father. He only wants the clan to become stronger. He doesn''t care if he dies as a consequence to achieve that. At least that iswhat I believed he was capable ofbefore the death of my body. He could have changed since then."I doubt it. He didn''t care one wit about your happiness before and followed up by disowning you when you didn''t do what he wanted. All to protect his precious clan when he should have acted like a father and shielded you from all harm.


    "Still it''s way better than hurting everyone I care about on Earth," Maxine said, "Anyways, Iam just sending my clone and not my main body. If I don''t like their attitude, I will just self-destruct my clone in their faces."


    "True," Hellen said, "You best get moving. The longer you tarry here, the less of a lead against any pursuers that you will have."


    "Alright," Maxine said and cut off the spiritual sense connection as she ran to the spot that she would rendezvous with Zephyr. It was in the middle of the forest, so it would take her a few minutes to reach it.


    Once Maxine arrived in a clearing, she saw Zephyr''s ship. It wasn''t what she had expected. What she had expected was a small shuttle with enough room for a couple of bunks and a lot of strange engravings on it that served some purpose to increase speed. What she got was a huge arrowhead shaped ship that was at least seventy five feet long and fifty feet wide. She wondered how Zephyr planned on piloting that thing by himself.


    Maxine saw a ramp slowly lower on side of the ship she was facing. The door at the top of it slid open to reveal Zephyr waving her over. She walked up the ramp and he led her through the ship. The walls inside of the ship were clearly made of some kind of dark red metal. She had absolutely no idea what kind of metal it was.


    Zephyr pressed a few buttons on a panel and a door opened with a swish. Maxine looked inside and saw a claustrophobically small room. It had just enough space for the twin sized bed and the meditation mat that were already in it. She had expected the room to be small, but not this small. She turned her head to Zephyr and gave him a flat glare.


    "What did you expect? This ship was built primarily for speed, not comfort," Zephyr said in annoyance, "Even my room is the same size as this one."


    "Fine," Maxine said as she rolled her eyes and walked into the room, "How long until we reach the Kavros Clan and does this ship''s reactor produce essence?" She wanted to know if she could at least cultivate on this ship to pass the time.


    "It produces neutrual essence, mana and ki as a standard feature. Don''t get too excited, though. The density of essence in the ship is just slightly greater than it is on Earth. As for your other question, it should take usroughly two weeks to get to the closest teleportation array thatcan transport us to our clan," Zephyr answered as he started to leave, "If there is anything else, I will be on the bridge."It produces mana and ki too! I better widen the portal to the shadow world so I can see if my main body can absorb either mana or ki. I hope I can form a second core with either of those two.


    "Alright," Maxine said, but Zephyr didn''t seem to hear her as he disappeared in a static discharge.Now that''s acool movement technique.I definitely want to ask him about it, but I have plenty of time for that later.I wonder how long it will take for the knowledge that I am Guan''s daughter to reach the Kavros clan. Odds are that they will know the same day that the Shadow Lords announce it to the Alliance. In any case, I better try plan for any bullshit that the Kavros Clan has in mind for me.

 Chapter 78

    Maxine was minutes away from arriving at the Kavros clan and she was in a good mood. Mostly because of Guan''s response when the Shadow Lords announced that Maxine was Guan''s daughter. Which was that if anyone was to forcibly marry or kidnap Maxine, he would completely annihilate everyone involved and would place the main instigators in an endless loop of pain and suffering. However, if Maxine married for love or joined a group willingly, he wouldn''t interfere.


    When Maxine had heard that, she sighed with relief. Instead of worrying about kidnappers or a forced marriage. But her mood was dampened when she realized that she would have to face a horde of people trying to recruit her to their group. Or worse yet, the countless suitors trying to win her favor with shows of false affection and gifts.Afterall who wouldn''t want to be the son-in-lawof the most skilled alchemist, not to mention one of the most powerful people, in the Alliance.


    Another reasonMaxine was in a good mood is that she managed to form a mana core, but the splitting headache that it caused her had made it difficult to properly appreciate it. Had she known it would form next to her brain, she would have been more hesitant about forming it. Fortunately, Hellen had told her the pain would subside with time.Aside from that, the only thing she really had to worry about is that it really wouldn''t be that useful until her mana core reached iron stage. However once it was, Hellen assured Maxine that she would experience an increase in her mental processing speed, her ranged attack power and in the defensive power of her essence armor by a small margin.


    Maxine stopped thinking about the last few days once she felt a small tremble from the floor.So, we have arrived. I wonder what kind of reception we will be getting and what my grandparents look like. Although I do expect them to look at least somewhat youthful since Zephyr doesn''t look that old.


    Maxine stood up and quicklyput her hair into a loose braid usingher essence. Afterwards she pinned apalm sized version of the Kavros symbol on the end of the braid, but she modified it. It now had a small hidden blade in it to spring out once she applied essence to it. Once she was satisfied with it''s positioning, she opened the door to the small room that she had been forced to stay in for the past two weeks.


    Zephyr, whom had just happened to be infront of her door when she opened it, said, "Follow me andbe on your best behavior. The leadership of our clan will be present and Mother, in particular, is quite excited to meet you." I can''t believe he thinks that I won''t behave without being told. I am not a child.


    Maxine only noticed after he finished speaking that he was wearing a different style of clothes than what he had been wearing for the past two weeks. He was wearing loose fitting black clothes made of silk. His sword was strapped across his back diagonally and the sheath of the sword hadengraving of a branching lightning bolt on it.


    "Fine," Maxine said in an annoyed tone as she followed him.


    AlthoughMaxine''sirratation was immediately forgotten when she thought about metting her biological grandparents.Although she was looking forward more to meeting her grandmother than her grandfather. She didn''t like her grandfather for how he treated Hellen,and her grandmother had thus far had shown that she at least cared about Maxine by sending Zephyr.


    After a few moments, Zephyr commented over his shoulder, "So, you can get nervous."


    "And?" Maxine asked.


    "Just making an observation," Zephyr said with a slight smile on his lips.


    Maxine wanted to say something more, but the exit opened up revealing a large platform at the bottom of the ramp. Zephyr walked down it ahead of her and as a means of calming her nerves, she activated her essence armor before following him down.


    On her way down,Maxine noticed that the sunlight on the ground leaned more to the red side of the spectrum than Earth''s sunlight did and that this world produced essence, mana and ki.I wonder what kind of resources they had to use to produce that result. It could also be that this world does it naturally. Afterall the Kavros clan''s mission is to produce a Shadow Queen or King. It would makesense for them toestablish themselveson a world like this.


    Once at the bottom of the ramp, Maxine looked around the platform that was big enough to accomodate a ship three times the size of Zephyr''s. Unfortunately she couldn''t see anything beyond the edge of the platform due to a weird energy forming a dome around it. It was distorting the landscape to the point that all Maxine saw was a collection ofmulticoloredblobs.


    Maxine looked around to and saw there were at least a dozen people wearing various clothing ranging from weird to oddly familiar. However the clothing that they wore covered almost every inch of skin that they had aside from their heads and hands. The youngest amongst them looked like they were in their early thirties while the oldest person looked like they would be celebrating their one hundredth birthday soon. But that didn''t stop her from figuring out who her grandmother was as the group was approaching at a walk.


    Maxine''s grandmother was the smiling silver-haired woman that stood taller than everyone else in her group. It was obvious that she was well over six feet tall.She appeared to be in her early thirties, but Maxine knew that she had to be over one hundred years old. She was wearing something that Maxine could only describe as a similar style to traditional chinese garments. The stern looking man beside her appeared to be roughly the same age and wearing the same style of clothing as her grandmother, whom she was convinced had to be her grandfather. Unfortunately, the poor man was half a head shorter than Maxine''s grandmother.


    While looking at the rest of their group, Maxine noticed that each and every one of them of them were staring at her essence armor''s mask.Of course they are going to stare. My mask looks a lot like the Kavros clan''s symbol.


    Once they were close enough, one of the elders standing behind who she thought were her grandparents said, "Young lady, where you come from it might be acceptible to conceal your face, but here it is not tolerated. Cancel that technique at once."


    "Sorry, I got nervous and my essence armor helped calm my nerves," Maxine admitted and deactivated her essence armor.


    "There is no doubt. You are Hellen''s child,"the same elder said and turned to who Maxine thought was her grandfather, "Boreas, I trust we don''t need to remind you not to test Guan''s patience. He was already gracious enough not to seek revenge after how you treated Hellen." Yeah, he is definitely my asshole of a grand dad. Why else would that elder single him out? Wait, he said Boreas right? Isn''t that the Greek god of the north wind? It sort of makes sense now how Zephyr got his name.However Boreas'' face quickly turned melancholic once Hellen''s name was mentioned.


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    "I understand," Boreas said with a sad tone and he looked straight at Maxine, "I have no intentions of going against Guan''s wishes."


    "Good," the same elder said approvingly, "Now I can imagine you and Victoria want to spend some time with your grand daughter. Myself and the other elders shall take our leave, but do remember to return to your duties as Patriarch once you have settled her in. Afterall you three have plenty of time to get to know each other."Why does it feel like that elder is an asshole? It''s almost like he thinks he is the Patriarch instead of Boreas. And why is he leaving? He just got here. It''s like he only came hereto confirm that I am Guan''s daughter. There should have been a huge reception party to express the whole clan''s joy attheir Patriarchhaving found his grandchild. Instead I got this vague feeling that I have just been insulted. On second thought, that elder is an asshole. He probablyarranged this whole thing as an insult directed at my grandparents.


    After the elders walked away, Victoria, Maxine''s grandmother, embraced Maxine without any warning forcing Maxine''s face into her chest. Maxine wouldn''t have minded so much if the woman wasn''t flat as a board. It felt like her face collided with a steel plate and Victoria didn''t seem to realize how violent she had been with that collision. Unfortunately it was also apparent that she was going to let go of Maxine any time soon.


    To get out of Victoria''s tight embrace, Maxinesaid via spiritual sense, "I think you broke my nose." Shewas immediately freed from grandma Victoria''s hug and stumbled backward while rubbing her bruised nose.


    "I''m so sorry, Maxine," grandma Victoria said apologetically, "I didn''t mean to hurt you."


    "It''s fine," Maxine said as she felt her nose one more time to make sure it really wasn''t broken, "You were just happy to see me. Just be a bit more gentle next time."


    "Oh, good. I will be," grandma Victoria said in relief and stepped back to to assess Maxine, "I can''t believe how much you look like your mother did when she was a teenager. Although compared to her, your face appears slightly more serpentine and your figure is a smidgen more filled out. By the way, how old are you?"


    "Thirteen," Maxine answered and added, "I will be fourteen on February twenty third."


    "I see," grandma Victoria said and turned to Zephyr for clarification.


    "In four months and seven days, she will be fourteen," Zephyr said. That''s not right. He is off by a few days. Wait, maybe he is using their calendar system.


    Maxine felt someone staring at her intensely, but it wasn''t hostile. She looked at the source to see Boreas with a melancholic expression on his face. She knew that he was obviously feeling remorse for what he did to Hellen just from his expression, but Maxine wasn''t going to forgive him easily. At least in Guan''s case, all of his actions had been motivated out ofa desire to protect herand she was slowly beginning to forgive him. But it would take something monumental for her to forgive Boreas.


    However Victoria started to speak again which caught Maxine''s attention once more, "Oh, good. That means we still have time to prepare for your birthday party."A birthday party, huh? When was the last time that I had one of those? The closest thing that the original Maxine had to a birthday party was a cupcake with a solitary candle on it that mom got me for five years in a row. As for the previous timeline, I didn''t have the luxury to celebrate it after the essence beasts started attacking. The only things I got were hearty slaps on the back and a few words of congratulations for being able to live another year.It was rather depressing when she thought too carefully.


    "Maxine, are you alright?" grandma Victoria asked and Maxine looked at her.


    "Yeah, I am fine," Maxine answered and tried to change the subject, "Can we go to where I will be staying?"


    "Certainly, but after you get your things packed away, I insist that you take a bath," Victoria said, "Being cooped up on that ship for two weeks without a bath musthave been torturous."Oh god, that sounds good! Using essence to get rid of the smell still leaves my skin feeling dirty.


    "You read my mind, grandma," Maxine replied since she really did want to take a bath and noticed grandma Victoria''s face brighten up considerably at being called grandma.


    "I don''t have to. I know from experience how uncomfortable your skin feels after using essence to clean it for lengthy periods of time," grandma Victoria said in an understanding tone, "Now follow me. It''s a bit of a walk to our house."


    Maxine turned to look for Boreas to figure out why he hadn''t said anything while Maxine and Victoria talked, but didn''t see him anywhere nearby. She didn''t really care that he had left, but found it odd that Zephyr had also disappeared. "Where did uncle Zeph go?" Maxine asked.


    "Probably to check on Angela, his wife," Victoria answered.He''s married?! I know it''s not odd for girls even my age to be married in their culture, but why didn''t he mention this while we were on the ship?


    "How old is uncle Zeph anyways?" Maxine asked.


    "Seventeen years old," Victoria answered and seemed to add as an afterthought, "In standard years that is. A standard year is roughlyone day shorter thana year on the world you came from."


    "That answers that question," Maxine said more to herself than anything else as they left the strange dome and she saw the Kavros Clan''s territory. It was a jarring sight. No two buildings had the same architectual style and they came in every color under the sun. Some of whichwere completely alien to her.It''s just like their clothes. No wonder they are liberal with their dress code. They don''t even have a shared architectual design. The only thing they have in common is the clan symbol on their clothes.


    As they walked down the streets, several people greeted grandma Victoria by calling her ''Matriarch'' even though she didn''t look the part. Maxine drew a few curious looks after those people gave their greetings to her grandmother anda few of them paled slightly when theysaw her eyes. Looks like they recognize whose daughter I am. Maxine shrugged it off. She didn''t really care if she talked to anyone other than direct family members anyways. If they didn''t like her, she wouldn''t go out of her way to change their minds.


    After nearly half an hour of walking, Maxine saw a futuristic mansion on the top of a hill with no other buildings within a quarter mile of it. As they walked along the path leading up to the mansion, she saw large swaths of land in the distance to her right dedicated to growing only medicinal herbs belonging to the light or darkness attribute.Those must be the primary ingredients for the Shadow Lord Awakening potions, but it should still be possible for them to breakthrough without the need for a potion. At least, that''s what Guan''s notes said about people with special bloodlines. It was just a lot harder to do without a such a potion.


    "I see you have noticed our clan''s medicinal garden," grandma Victoria statedwhen she noticed Maxine staring at the medicinal gardens and appeared to have a sudden thought before she continued, "Would you like to learn alchemy? You may have inheirited at least some of your father''s phenominal talent for alchemy." More than you know, grandma, but I can''t say anything. I already have enough of a headache with people knowing I am Guan''s daughter. I do not need the extra stress of them realizing that I possess almost the same level as alchemical talent as he does.


    "No, thank you," Maxine answered honestly, "I have enough on my plate." She had been so busy before leaving Earth that she hadn''t had any time to even improve her understanding or her skill at using her movement technique, the Phantasmal Steps of the Shadow Cat, while doing everything else. At least now, she didn''t have to plan or worry for awhile, so she could focus on improving her profficiency using her skills as well as finish memorizing all of the alchemical knowledge that Guan gave her.


    "That''s too bad. I was really hoping for our clan to finally have an alchemist in our midsts," grandma Victoria lamented. Maxine remained silent for the remainder of the walk up to the mansion. Once inside, she felt confused with how inconsistent the interior was to the exterior of the mansion. The interior was furnishings were almost exclusively made from wood and ancient looking ceramics and beautiful paintings were used for declorations. The walls were painted in a neutral white and the hard wood floors looked perfectly aged. The whole place had a faint floral scent.


    Once they were inside, several maids that were in the main hallbowed to them. Shortly after, grandma Victoria stopped and turned around to face Maxine before she said warmly, "Maxine, welcome home."

 Chapter 79

    Maxine was being led to the second floor of the mansion, which is whereher new room was, by grandma Victoria. Shemade a mental note of how truely massive this mansion actually was and she wondered why they even needed a home of this size when they only had the four, now five, of them in it. She guessed that there were more family members. It''s just that they were either too many generations apart from her to care or that they were in cultivating in seclusion.


    Finally, grandma Victoria stopped infront of an ornately carved door and as she started to open the door, she said, "This was your mother''s room. Just be warned, she was fond of painting murals and I didn''t have the heart to remove what she made."


    "That''s fine," Maxine said, but internally she was not fine with it. Just the thought of sleeping in a room with ameturish paintings on the wallsmade her stomach churn, but as she walked into the room, her opinion flipped completely.


    The room was sparsely funished with only a bed, full-length mirror and a wooden dresser. However there was a magnificent mural painted on the walsl. It was of a grassy plain with snow capped mountains in the distance and in the middle of it was a brown-haired man and silver-haired woman in a tight embrace. The man was obviously Guan. No one else hadgolden eyes with green specks in them The only difference was that this version of him didn''t haveany scales on his face. That meant that the silver-haired woman in his arms was Hellen.


    Maxine walked up to the mural and looked at it more carefully. She couldn''t resist the urge to run her fingers along the Hellen''s painted image and marvel at how similar she and Hellen were. Grandma Victoria was right. Hellen could have been my twin sister.While she was lost in her own thoughts, grandma Victoriaplaced her hand on Maxine''s shoulder.


    "Your mother was very fond of that man even before she left the clan for him," grandma Victoria said, but Maxine knew she was being tested.Why is she testing me? Didn''t Zephyr tell her about Hellen''s soul surviving?


    "She still is," Maxine replied.


    Grandma Victoria tensed for a moment before she smiled and said, "True enough. Can I talk to your mother now?"


    "Well, mom? You heard grandma as well as I did," Maxine said to Hellen via spiritual sense.


    Hellen responded by speaking to both of them via spiritual sense, "Hello, mother." A light laugh escaped grandma Victoria''s lips.


    "I didn''t completely believe it when Zephyr said your soul had survived, but it''swonderful that at least part of you is able to be a mother to Maxine," grandma Victoria said happily, "Now which one of you came up with the idea of having Maxine create this clone?"So, she noticed. Guan said unless someone knows what to look for, no one should be able notice that this is a clone. But I didn''t detect her spiritual sense at all.Maybe, she is so far above me in power that I can only detect her spiritual sense if she wants me to.


    "It was mine," Maxine said honestly, "Mom just gave me the idea on how to make it. By the way, how did you know that this is a clone? No one else has noticed so far."


    "That''s simple. I am your grandmother," grandma Victoria said, but Maxine was thoroughly confused by that statement. So grandma Victoria added, "You see it''s considered taboo for anyone other than same gender relatives to use their spiritual sense toperform an internal scan withfew exceptions."


    "What are the exceptions?" Maxine asked.


    "Alchemists searching for hidden wounds, individuals trained to hunt infiltrators and to ensure that an individual doesn''t carry a plague that can kill cultivators," grandma Victoria said and seemed to remember something, "Enough talk about those things. If I recall properly, your clone and main body need a bath. Andis your brother next to your main body? He will need one as well."


    A smile appeared on Maxine''s face since her decoy worked to a degree as she answered, "I don''t have a brother, but I do have a male clone."


    Grandma Victoria''s widenedslightly and she said softly, "That shouldn''t be possibleat your cultivation level."


    "I had a bit of help. Guan had to give me a potion to make it capable of fooling a DNA scanner, but I still had to make the male clone myself," Maxine explained.


    While Maxine was explaining, grandma Victoria started grinning widely before she laughed joyously and gave Maxine another nose-breakingly powerful hug as she almost yelled, "My grand daughter is a genius!" Not again!


    "Mother,I know you are happy, but Maxine still feels it when you break her clone''s nose with your powerful hugs," Hellen calmly reminded grandma Victoria, "Remember how many times you broke mine by accident?"WHAT?! I''m not the first victim of this hugging monster?!


    Grandma Victoria quickly parted from Maxine and apologized, "I''m sorry, Maxine." This time Maxine''s nose really had been broken this time and she snapped it back in place using her essence with an audible snap.That HURT!It''s a good thing that I heal faster than other essence cultivators. Otherwise my clone would have a fucked up nose until I figured out how to fix it.


    "Can I have that bath now?" Maxine asked weakly while gently massaging her wounded nose.


    "Yes, certainly," grandma Victoria said hastily and gestured Maxine to follow her, "The women''s bathing room is this way." She led Maxine back to the first floor.


    While they were traversing the mansion, Maxine detected that her grandmother''s emotions fluctuated several times and could only deduce that she was talking with Hellen. However there was an instant where grandma Victoria released intense bloodlust, but it vanished an instant later.It looks like Hellen told grandma about how Dad abused me, but how did she calm down so fast?


    A few moments later, grandma Victoriaopened a door with a privacywall behind it. She understood it''s purpose since it blocked the view to a large square shaped pool that was directly behind it. The room had a light steamy mist inside of it and she noticed that there wasn''t a single window. Instead it used these luminescent crystals hanging from the cieling to provide light. She tested the walls with her spiritual sense and found that her spiritual sense couldn''t penetrate it. She approved of this design, but there was something bothering her. There were three voids moving around in her vicinity as if they had taken up a defensive formation around her.Invisible bodyguards? I didn''t even detect them with my spirtiual sense. They must have an advanced concealment technique like Turan does. I wonder how long they have been following us.


    "This poolis connected directlyto a natural hot spring, and the array inscribed at the bottom of it keeps the water clean," grandma Victoria said, "As for your clothes, just set them over on that stand over there next to theprivacy wall. One of the maids will collect it later and there should be a few drying towels in that stand as well."


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    "This looks like a communal bath," Maxine commented.


    "It is," grandma Victoria said, "Normally all the women in the household bathe here in the evening, but I am aware of your preferences. So you will bathe separately from everyone else."It''s really hard for me to figure out if she is refering to me being a lesbian or that I hate physical contact. But she should know that it only applies to men right?


    "Alright," Maxine said as indifferently as she could and was about toask her grandmother and the other three to leave when she saw an expectant look in grandma Victoria''s eyes, "Will those three keep quiet about it?"


    Grandma Victoria seemed surprised for a moment before a smile returned to her face before she answered, "Yes, I can guarantee their silence. It''s not like they don''t know about it. They have been following us since we left the starport."


    "I willtrust you on that," Maxine said as sheopened up the portal to the shadow world and switched her focus back to her main body beforeshe jumped into the portal. She saw grandma Victoria''s approving smile as soon asher main body appeared. Grandma Victoria''s gaze was quickly drawn tothe golden bracelet on Maxine''s right wrist.


    "I recognize that bracelet," grandma Victoria said, "Guan gave it to Hellen shortly before she left with him. I never knew that it was capable of housing her soul."


    "I didn''t know that either until I was bound to it, mother," Hellen chimed in.


    "Still it would have been better if your body could have survived," grandma Victoria said, "Maxine wouldn''t have had to deal with that abusive bastard if you had."


    "You aren''t the only one that would have prefered that," Maxine added and rememebered that grandma Victoria was emanating bloodlust earlier, "By the way mom, what did you tell grandma that made her down so fast?"


    "Nothing," Hellen answered swiftly.Youobviously told something. I just hope Dad survives whatever you did. It would upset mom if he died.


    "Fine, don''t tell me," Maxine said grumpily, "Grandma, I would like some privacy while I bathe. Is that alright?"


    "Certainly," grandma Victoria said warmly and started to leave. But she seemed to remember something just before leaving, "Oh! Before I forget, Elder Ezekiel and the other elders requested that you participate in the clan-wide tournament for the younger generation in the next few days. I heard from your mother how far along your skills are, but I want to see them for myself. So please participate."


    "Alright, grandma," Maxine answered and wondered about who this Elder Ezekiel is, "Is Elder Ezekiel the one that did most of the talking at that joke of a reception earlier?"


    "Yes, he is," grandma Victoria answered, "Now get cleaned up."


    "Alright," Maxine said to grandma Victoria as she left the room and Maxine looked at each of her bodyguards, "Could you three leave please? I am not exactly comfortable bathing infront of three people."


    "What gave us away?" a feminine voice asked while ignoring Maxine''s previous request.She doesn''t sound much older than me.


    "There isn''t any trace of steam where you guys are standing," Maxine answered and they quickly made it seem like the steam was flowing through their bodies. They adapted their concealment technique quite quickly.


    "You have keen observation skills, young miss," the same young woman said approvingly, "If you percieve another of our flaws, please alert us. We strive for perfection."


    "Alright, but I would still like some privacy while I bathe though," Maxine complained.


    "I am afraid we can''t do that. It would go against the Matriarch''s orders, but I can send my two companions to guard the perimeter," the young woman said and went silent. However Maxinenoticed that two of them were leaving when they left damp footprintson the floor.


    "Good enough," Maxine said andundressed both her main body and clone while leaving her dimensional pouches on top of her clothes. However to avoid being completely naked infront of the remaining bodyguard, she used her shadow essence to form a bikini on both her clone and main body.Maxine half-expected her bodyguard to make a comment about it, but sheremained silent.


    Maxine and her clone both got into the pool and started to scrub down. While she was doing that, she siphoned some of the hot spring water through a small portal in her hand touse to clean herdecoy like it was in a washing machine before returning it to the pool.


    "So whatis your name? And are you going to stay invisible?" Maxine asked andher bodyguard appeared near the edge of the pool. The girl immediately knelt down on one knee.


    "I am Neesa," said the same girl from before, "The other two are Yumi and Talia." She had short red hair with blue eyes and her lips shared the same color as her hair. She was wearing grey clothing that screamed her occupation as a ninja with the clan symbol on her back. Maxine noticed that Neesa''s height and figure were similar to her own. Neesa would have been beautiful were it not for the crisscrossing scars on her face, but the scars looked like they were done with the intent to disfigure rather than ones from battle. Although Maxinenoticed that Neesa seemed surprisedby the fact thatMaxine hadn''t been repulsed at her appearance.I have seen way worse than a bunch of crisscrossing scars. One poor bastard had half of his face torn off by an essence beast and survived. Now that was a gruesome sighteven after he healed.


    "You don''t need to kneel, Neesa," Maxine said, "I just wanted to see who I was talking to earlier."


    "As you wish, young miss," Neesa said as she stood back up.


    "Are the other two as scarred as you?" Maxine asked and realized she may have touched a sensitive subject, "You don''t have to answer if you don''t want to."


    "Yes," Nessa answered with a hint of sadness in her voice and Maxine felt angry at the person that did this to them. However she didn''t let it cloud her thoughts since she could heal Neesa''s face. So she finished cleaning herself up and got out of the pool to do just that. Her intentions weren''t completely altruistic though. She knew that restoring Neesa''s face would give the girl another reason to protect Maxine besides being ordered to and she wanted someone that she could talk to, besides her grandma and Zephyr, within the Kavros Clan. There weren''t exactly many opportunities to talk with Emily through one of Maxine''s shadow clones.


    Maxine looked intently at the Neesa''s face before slowly placing her hand on the girl''s face and attempted to mimic Emily''s divine essence to make the scars on Neesa''s face fade away. Neesa held still even though Maxine knew it was causing her discomfort.


    Maxine''s essence was draining quickly since mimicking Emily''s divine essence was nearly as draining as mimicking spatial essence. Still, she managed to remove the scars from Neesa''s left cheek using only a tenth of her essence, so she continued to fix the rest of Neesa''s face. After she was done, she removed her hand from Neesa''s face and asked, "So, what do you think? Do I do good work?"


    Neesa''s expression darkened as she appeared to think that Maxine made her face even more damaged. However after she finally reached up and touched her face, her eyes widened in surprise as she felt thenow smooth skin of her face. A few moments later tears of joy coursed down her cheeks.


    Neesa bowed to Maxine and said hoarsely, "Thank you very much, young miss." She has alot of self-control. I was expecting her to breakdown into tears while thanking me profusely. At least, that''s how I would react if I had a fucked up face for god knows how long before someone came along and fixed it.


    "Your welcome, and you don''t need to call me young miss when we are alone. Just call me by my name. I don''t mind," Maxine said while smiling and she retrieved clothes from her dimensional pouch while she got dressed alongside her clone, "Don''t worry about me whenI jump back into shadows. I will be in a very safe location and I will be protected by over a hundred of my iron stage constructs. But I will counting on you to protect my clone. If it gets destroyed, I won''t have any means to return. Please tell the other two about that and when I recover enough, I will remove their scars as well if they want me to."


    "I will relay your message to them, young miss," Neesa said quite warmly even though her voice was still hoarse. Maxine smiled and was a little unhappy that Neesa continued to call her young miss. However it didn''t really matter to her.


    Maxine made a mental note to find out who scarred up Neesa and her other bodyguards'' faces. She doubted they would tell her, so she would ask her grandma Victoria about it later. For now, she just wanted to relax until the tournament. I guess it wouldn''t hurt to show off a few techniques to grandma Victoria, but I am still going to keep my trump cards under wraps until I''m in a situation that I have to use them. Now that I think about it, how much did Hellen tell grandma Victoria about my abilities?

 Chapter 80

    As she walkedtowarda huge amphitheater, Maxine wished grandma Victoria hadn''t convinced her to wear Hellen''s old clothes. What shewas wearing looked almost identical to what grandma Victoria wore on the day that Maxine arrived. Due to Hellen clearly possessing greater height than Maxine, the clothes had been adjusted to fit Maxine''s smaller frame. Unfortunately, shecouldn''t get over the fact that shebasically looked like a shorter, bigger breasted version of her grandmother whilewearingit,so she went over the events of the past few days to distract herself.


    Maxine remembered her own surprise when she found out that Neesa, Yumi and Talia were tripletsafter shefinished removing their scars.Although in hindsight, the chances of that three girls with the rarest eye and hair color combinationas well as thefact that they are the same age andsize should have been a dead giveaway. Unfortunately when Maxine asked about who damaged their faces, grandma Victoria wouldn''t give her a straight answer and Maxine was forced to find out the truth through other means, which could take her some time to do.


    Maxine had spent the remainder of her time coming up with finishing moves. Her intent was to make them as flexible as possible in their use and only managed to come up with four that might be effective. Two of them she could use at any time, but the other two had to be used in conjunction with either her wolf or harpy essence armors. Unfortunately she couldn''t use those two due to what she was wearing. The essence armor variants would damage her clothes. However she doubted that she would find very many uses for single target attacks outside of duels or tournaments. Since in the past, she had mostly been in many vs many or one vs many fights and very rarely fought in a gentlemanly one on one fights. At least, I can use these attacks as nice finishing moves against powerful essence beasts.


    When she entered the amphetheater, Maxine started paying attention to her surroundings more closely and dragged her thoughts to the present as she looked around. Grandma Victoria was leading her to the competitor seating area and finally got to seewho she was going to be upagainst. She was in the tournament for the younger generation, whose participants were thirteen to fifteen years old. She quickly ran her gaze over the nearly one hundred assembled competitors.


    Only a few of the teenagerspresent had any kind of killing intentemanating fromtheir bodies.I really wish grandma Victoria mentioned the age group I would be primarily fighting against when she mentioned the tournament a few days ago. I doubt any of these kids have been in any kind of life threatening danger. It almost feels like I am going to be up against a bunch of cuddly kittens instead of fearsome tigers that I expected three days ago. I feel like all of thework I put into making those attacks was for nothing. Oh well. At least, this a good place to see how feasible my new attacks will be in combat.


    "Here you are. The tournament should start shortly," grandma Victoria said, "I will be watching the competition with your grandfather and the other elders. Remember I don''t care if you win or not. All you need to do is try your best."


    "Alright, grandma," Maxine said with asmall appreciative smile on her face before grandma Victoria turned around and left. Although she didn''t like it when grandma Victoriagave her a nosebreaking hug, Maxine still enjoyed the affection that she got from her grandmother since that affection partially satisfied her desire to be loved. She just wished grandma Victoria wasn''t so rough in dealing out that affection.


    Maxine was unconsciously smiling to herselfwhen she sensed someone was next to her. She turned to see a young man much taller than herself. His loose fitting clothes didn''t do much to conceal his considerable muscle mass. "Yes?" Maxine asked. She didn''t like it that such a large young man was this close to her.


    "You are the Patriarch''s grand daughter right?" he asked amiably.


    "Yes, why do you ask?" Maxine responded and saw his face light up. However his eyes revealed his true intent.And here come the droves of assholes trying to court me so that they can become the son inlaw of Guan for their own benefit.


    "Is there anything you wanted to know about the tournament, young miss?" he asked politely.Huh? I thought for sure he was going to ask something else.


    "No, I don''t have any. My grandmother was quite thorough in regards to the rules," Maxine answered and she started to turn away. Yeah, there was only one rule that applied to me and it stated that I can only use one construct at a time.


    "After the tournament would you like to spar or hunt essence beasts?" he said as she stepped infront of Maxine.


    "No, thank you. I have no desire to be social with any male unless he is a real man," Maxine answered calmly, "Not a boy that thinks his massive muscles makes him one."


    "What is a real man?" he asked.


    "That''s hard to answer," Maxine replied calmly, "But perhaps this will help you understand." She created an illusion beside her of images from when she had still been Maxwell in the other timeline. She started with how he had found Emily''smangled form and nursed her back to health. She followed with his rage and anguish at her death. She finished it with the sight of Maxwell holding his ground and fighting to his last breath against a horde of essence beasts while innocent refugees fled.Compassion, bravery, ferocity in battle, the capacity to feel love for someone regardless of outward appearances and the capacity for noble sacrifice to protect strangers. I dare you fuckers to finda young master like that. There might be a few that havethree or four of those traits but not all five.


    No one present said a word. The young man only left with his head hanging low probably because he knew that he didn''t qualify.


    Maxine looked around for a spot to sit down. She saw a few spots with other girls beckoning her over, but from the looks in their eyes, she knew they had ulterior motives. She just didn''t know what they were. The only spot she felt like sitting at was next to a young man with long black hair in a pony tail. The reason she wanted that seat is because the young man, unlike everyone else present, was ignoring her.


    Maxine took a seat next to him and got a better look at his face. He is ruggedly handsome, and his blue-steel eyes were mesmerizing even from her current angle.He is still ignoring me. I am not sure if Ifeelinsulted or happy about that. Oh well, his reaction is still way better than everyone else''s.


    "You shouldn''t sit next to me," he said without any warning.


    "I will sit where I want," Maxine responded.


    "I am only warning you," he said in a neutral tone, "My great grandfather is trying to find me a wife and with your beauty, he may decide that you and I are a good match."


    "Only if he has a death wish," Maxine retorted, "Daddy dearest has already warned the clan and everyone else for that matter about what would happen if they tried that."


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    "And who is this ''daddy dearest'' of yours?" he asked with a slight smile on his face. Does this guy live under a rock?


    "Poison Emperor Guan," Maxine stated flatly.


    "What?" he said insurprise as he finally turned his head to look at Maxine, "You''re the Patriarch''s grand daughter?"


    "Yes," Maxine answered.


    "I apologize for my rudeness earlier, young miss, but you still shouldn''t sit next to me," he said before facing forward again, "Some of the elders may view it as a political move on your part."


    "I could care less how they view this as," Maxine answered while feeling frustrated that it wasn''t socially appropriate to curse, "I just want to be left alone and you were the only person here ignoring me. So please, continue to do that."


    "Very well," he said with a small smile, "My name is Joshua Keniph."Huh? Why did he introduce himself and shouldn''t his last name beKavros? That''s wierd.Maybe he is announcing which branch of the Kavros clan he is from? I will have to ask grandma Victoria about it later.


    "Thank you," Maxine said as she faced forward while trying to keep her inner thoughts to herself and began to wonder when this tournament would begin.


    As if on cue, Boreas stood up and said with an authoritve tone, "Before the youth tournament begins, let me remind all of you that this arena has been modified to prevent accidental deaths by projecting a forcefield around the participants. Once sufficient damage has been inflicted to it based off of your physique and defensive techniques, a specially created AI will teleport the looser out of the arena and announce the winner. So feel free to unleash your techniques at will. There is also a special formation array to equalize the strength of competitors, so this tournament will be based on skill alone, not on who is stronger. Now without further interruptions, may the youth tournament begin." That makes things a little easier if we are all fighting on an even playing field. Now it all depends on skill and experience, which I have an abundance of, rather than power.


    After Boreas sat back down, the synthetic voice of the AI announced, "Joshua Keniph vs Liam Raas."


    Joshua stood up and leapt onto the arena the instant his name was called followed by the young man that talked to Maxine earlier. A pair of heavy gauntlets made of a metal Maxine had never seen before adorned Joshua''s fists and Liam was wielding a heavy sword.Liam has a slight advantage in this fight due to his greater reach and more powerful strikes, but that heavy sword''s weight will try to throw him aroundoffsetting his advantages to a degree.


    "Begin," the AI boomed.


    As Maxine expected due to his inexperience, Joshua rushed at Liam.Idiot, never do a frontal assault on a heavy weapon user unless you know what you are doing.Liam performed a vertical chop, butthe chopwas stopped in mid-swing as another pair of arms appearedon Joshua''s back to grab the heavy sword before it could gain that muchmomentum.What the actual fuck?! He can manifest body parts using shadow essence?! That is hard to pull off. I know. I have tried.The two extra arms threw the weapon to the side before transforming into rapidly dispersing mist as Joshua''s normal arms started unleashing a flurry of essence-empowered blows to Liam''s chest, ribs and stomach.


    Liam quickly drove Joshua away by unleashing a powerful kick, but unfortunately it didn''t connect as Joshua kicked the ground to propel himself backwards. Liam released a frustrated roar as he slashed at the air creating a visible shockwave that hurtled toward Joshua. Joshua avoided the attack by kicking the groud to propell himself to the side. Joshua quickly closed the distance and grabbed Liam''s wrist to seal the heavy sword own before spawning a set of arms again. What followed would have been a savage beating had the forcefield not been present, but before too many blows had fallen, Liam was teleported out of the arena as the AI announced that Joshua was the winner. Afterwards Joshua quickly returned to his seat to allow the next match to begin.


    Maxine began to critique Joshua''s performance.He used the right approach to beat Liam, but the way he movedwas restrained. He is probably holding back for when he fights against a more challenging opponent in order to catch them off guard. Too bad for him that my experience outweighs his by far. Only, I don''t know exactly how much he is holding back. For all I know, he could be as good or better than I am.


    Maxine''s attention was drawn when the next combatants were called up to fight, but she quickly lost interest. Their skill level was horrible and it was almost painful to watch. They were making every mistake possible. Their edged blades collided instead of dodging or parrying the attacks properly. One of them even used a flying kick which was idiotic since that move was originally used to dismount calvary and not to be used against a stationary opponent on foot.She even saw an excessively long combination attack, which failed to do that much damage.After ten minutes of that stupidity, the winner was finally announced.Please dear lord, tell me those two were only screwing around and weren''t taking this seriously.


    "Maxine Levings, vs Casey Krant," the AI announced.I''m a bit happy that Grandma Victoria insisted that I keep that last name, even if it''s the family name of my abusive father. It''s too bad that grandma''s intentions were motivated to keep me out of the clan politics. By having the AI anounce my family name as Levings, I am, more or less, announcing my intentions to stay out of clan politics.


    Maxine formed her essence armor and leapt onto the arena. Her opponent was scrawny young man wielding a spear. He looked only a year older than Maxine.Since I don''t want to show off too much,I might as well use a polearm too.She expanded her shadow and had her decoy drop the war scythe into the portal. It literatelyjumped out of her shadow and she snatched it out of the airbefore gettinginto a fighting stance.


    Casey as well as half of the elders were looking at Maxine withvarying degrees of surprise.Oops, I should have jumped into the arena with the war scythe in hand. Oh well, too late to worry about it now.


    "I hope you''re at least as good as Liam," Maxine said calmly, "Otherwise, you will loose badly."


    "I can handle myself, young miss," Casey stated confidently as he got into a fighting stance. We shall see about that. Let''s start off with a probing attack.


    "Begin," the AI announcedafter Maxine felt her cultivation being surpressed down to Iron stage rank 1.


    Maxine quickly rushed at Casey, whom got into a defensive stance instantly. She thrusted her war scythe towards Casey''s neck while creating eleven duplicates ofher attack using her essencethat were aimed to either kill or cripple Casey. However she was only using this attack at ten percent of it''s maximum strength to determine his abilities, so other than her primary attack,the remainingstrikes made of essence possessed only one tenth her normal striking power. She called this move Hydra King''s Fury.


    Casey''s defense was quite good compared to the previous two competitors, but it was still horribly lacking. He barely managed todefend against her primary, but failed to block the other ones. In the instantafter her attacks landed, Casey was teleported out of the arena and back to his seat.That was disappointing. It was like fighting someone withalmost no combat experience. That attack wasn''t that hard to defend against, especially after I toned it down. All he had to do after blocking the primary attack was to employ a partial barrier to defend against the other ones.


    "Winner, Maxine Levings," the AI announced as Maxine deactivated her essence armor and placed the war scythe into her dimensional pouch before sighing.


    As Maxine returned to her seat, she realized that many people were making comments about her. They were wondering what could have happened to her to make her so vicious at such a tender age.Vicious? I was taking it easy, but if they consider me vicious, they are far more peaceful than I gave them credit for. That is unlessthey typically don''t have their children battle other humans until their mid to late teens. That might account for their lack of experience in that department.


    Once she was seated, Maxine looked to the elder''s seating area and, she saw an approvingsmile on her grandmother''s face. At least grandma approves. Now I just have to wait for my next match and watch the other matches. Hopefully there will be some promising opponents. Otherwise I will have to lower my skill level in order not to humiliate these children and create enemies within my own clan. If I piss too many people off, they may just look the other way if some bold dipshit tries to kidnap me. Now that I think about it, I better smooth things over with Casey.She looked over to the still shocked Casey while wondering what she could say to soothe his wounded ego.

 Chapter 81

    After thinking for awhile, Maxine got up and approached Casey. The only thing she could think of topatch things up between themwas to give him some advice on how to improve and hoped he took it well.


    As soon as Maxine stood infront of him, Casey looked at Maxine and asked sourly, "Are you here to gloat?"


    "Not at all," Maxine answered, "I just wanted to show you how to defend against an attack similar to mine."


    "What?! Why would you do that?" Casey asked with both suprise and suspicion.


    "Because we are members of the same clan. Shouldn''t we help each other?" Maxine asked calmly.


    "I suppose," Casey said cautiously.


    "Good, now pay close attention. I will create some visual aides to make it a little easier to understand," Maxine said as she created a pair of sillouettes that were wielding spears, inbetweenherself and Casey,using her essence, "To defend against attacks similar to mine, first you need to physically defend against the primary or core of the attack like so." One of the silloettes thrusted their spear forward and the other one deflected the attack to the side before Maxine continued, "This part you did correctly, but you didn''t know how to deal with the auxillary attacks. To defend against those, you need to createsmallbarriers set at an angle to deflect those attacks away as a means to minimize essence consumption. If you were to directly block those same attacks, you would use three to four times as much essence." The attacking figure created several weaker attacks while the defending figure created small barriers angled to deflect the attacks away.


    "So that''s how it''s done," Casey muttered to himself, "But who taught you how to do that?"


    "No one taught me. I just have afriend that uses a spear and figured it out on my own after sparring with him a few times.One of his attacksgave me the inspiration to create theattack that I used on you," Maxine answered.


    "Thank you for your instruction," Casey said respectfully as he stood up and bowed his head slightly to Maxine.


    "You''re welcome," Maxine said with a genuine smile and she walked back to her previous seat. While she did, she noticed that several of the competitors in this tournament were giving her curious looks.They''reprobably wondering why I would give away how to defend against my attack.


    Maxine glanced to the arena to watch the current match up. She had been so deep in thought earlier that she hadn''t paid attention the names of those called up. However her expression darkened when she saw a perverted young man kept trying to grope his female opponent, whom was fleeing from him while crying.I wouldn''t have expectedto find someone like thatin this clan. Still, I feel bad for thatpoor girl. She will probably forfeit before too much longer and that would mean this pervert is my next opponent. Great, just fucking perfect.A few moments later the girl said she forfeited and was teleported out of the arena.


    "Winner, Hector Stanz," the AI announced and Hector looked at Maxine with a lustful gaze.That idiot doesn''t know when to stop. If I don''t stop his behavior now, he will end upbecoming a rapist. Unfortunately a beating won''t do the trick at this point. I guess the shock of loosing an arm over his behavior should do that trick and they can use potions to restore his arm afterwards. Now how do I do that with that pesky forcefield in the way?


    Maxine sat down and began to analyze the forcefields surrounding the competitors in the arena to find a way to breach it in order to punish the perverted Hector Stanz.


    "Jenifer Krell vsAnna Troy," the AI announced.


    Maxine looked at the arena and gauged the strengths of the two young women by their weapons and stances. Jenifer was shorter than Maxine and looked slightly on the heavy side with brown eyes and brown hair. However she wielded a halberd and had a short sword at her hip as a back up weapon. Anna on the other hand had an air of elegance as she held a long sword in her hand. Her raven black hair and green eyes only complimented this image.On the surface, most people would think Anna would win, but Jenifer has the advantage here. She may look fat, but most of that on her is muscle. Muscle that Anna lacks. Too many people forget that essence strengthens what is already there. Add onto the fact that the reach of that halberd makes it difficult for Anna to even get close enough to use her long sword, and on the off chance that Anna can get close enough to use it, Jenifer can bring out that short sword in an instant to fend her off. Jenifer has just too many advantages. Unless her skill level is garbage, she will win.


    The fight went much as Maxine had expected with Jenifer preassuring Anna with ferocious thrusts and sweeping attacks from her halberd.Jenifer was rather nimble considering how much muscle mass she had. However with the way the fight was progressing, Anna would quickly loose once she was hit. Maxine was waiting for the exact moment when the halberd struck the forcefield to analyze it''s make up.


    The moment that Maxine was waiting for showed up faster than anticipated and Maxine immediately began to analyze the forcefield. It was made up of multiple energies that were operating at different wave lengths.Damn, talk about overkill. I would need to be at least in theupper ranks of silver stage to breach that. I need more sample data to be sure though.


    The fight, however, was still going on since the strike had only been a glancing blow, but it was clear that Anna wouldn''t last much longer since she was already looking tired. After a few more swings from Jenifer''s halberd, the fight finally ended as a blow landed on Anna''s chest.


    Before Anna was teleported out, Maxine checked the forcefield again to verify what she already knew.Damn, I was hoping for even a slight variation, but it''s exactly the same as before. If there was even the slightest variation in those energies or their wavelengths, I could find a way to breach it by hitting in the precise moment that all of the energies are at their low phase. Oh well, I will keep checking for flaws for the next few matches, but if nothing changes, I will just come up with another method to punish that perverted prick.


    Maxine barely paid attention to the next competitors called up, but instead focused on the forcefield around them whenever it was impacted. Unfortunately, the result was always the same, which caused her tremendous irratation.Is really no way to get through that damn forcefield other than brute force?FUCK! I guess this is a large clan and they should have an ironclad defense for their future warriorsduring tournaments. It seems that I will just have to go with plan B.


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    Joshua was called into the arena again, but he was up against that worthless fighter from earlier. Joshua simply dodged their initial attack and landed a hammer blow onto theexposed neckof his opponent. That ended the fight instantly with that strike and Joshua casually returned to his spot beside Maxine.


    "Maxine Levings vs Hector Stanz," the AI announced. Maxine simply smiled and lept onto the arena.Hector appeared moments later with that same perverted expression on his face that he had earlier.Fine, let''s see how you handle this.


    Maxine poured her essence into her war scythe and caused the blade to vibrate at a particular frequency.The blade itselfbegan to release a bloodthirsty howl. Simultaneously, Maxinefocused the full extent of her killing intent at Hector. His perverted expression quickly faded as pale-faced terror replaced it and he began to visibly tremble. Unfortunately even the people behind him were showing a lesser reaction to her killing intent as their faces visibly paled, but no where near as much as Hector himself.


    "Begin," the AI announced, but at the same time, Hector screamed, "I surrender. Please, don''t let her near me!" It was at that moment that Maxinesaw an ever growing puddle at his feet.Oh, damn. I didn''t expect that he would piss himself. In any case, I completed my objective.


    As Maxine walked back to her seat, she heard Grandma Victoria''s voice sound in her head, "Maxine, Hellen told me that you have been through a lot, but she never told me exactly what. Now I have to ask you after your little display. Just how manytimes have you been forced to kill?" Two hundred fifty three humans, if I includethose russian pricks that kidnapped mom and everyone I killed in my previous life. Although, I have no idea how many essence beasts I have killed. It''s probably in the thousands, if not tens of thousands. But I can''t tell grandma that. It would only upset her. Not to mention, Hellen told me specifically not to even hint that I have a fused soul.


    "Too many," Maxine replied with her spiritual sense as honestly as she could, "Far too many." Tears threatened to form in her eyes, but she surpressed them. As much as she wanted to be, she wasn''t a cold-blooded killer, at least when it invovled humans.


    "I see," grandma Victoria said in a depressed tone,and changed the subject byshe asking, "Why did you pick Hector to unleash your killing intent on? You humiliated him quite thoroughly."


    "I hate perverts," Maxine answered honestly, "But I hate rapists even more. I felt that if I didn''t scare some sense into that idiot he may cross that boundry in the future."


    Grandma Victoria laughedfor a few momentsbefore she said, "Hector wouldn''t do such a thing. Outside of combat, he is quite the gentleman. It''s his martial instructor that insisted he adopt that mentality during battle. Although I will admit the change in his personality when he enters and leaves combat can be quite jarring to those that don''t know him."


    "Seriously?" Maxine asked, "There is actually a fighting style that revolves around being a pervert?"


    "Yes, it''s very effective onall, but the most brazen, combatants. It even works on beasts with high cultivations since they often possess the intellect to understand his intentions," grandma Victoria answered, "His behavior is only part of the technique though. It serves as a distraction while he throws tiny needles coated in poison at his opponent."


    "So it''s an assasination-type technique," Maxine stated, "I have encountered those before, but not one that encourages the user to act like a pervert. I think the creator of that technique was just looking for an excuse to feel up his opponent and didn''t really care if they were man, woman or beast."


    "Thatlunatic wasn''t shy about admitting that, Maxine," grandma Victoria agreed, "In fact, I believe that technique''s creator was beaten to death by a large group of cultivators and beasts working together. Although for some reason, he managed to teach his technique to a single student before his deathand it has been passed down from teacher to student ever since."The only really believeable part of that tale is that he was ganged up on and beaten to death.


    "Anyways, can you tell me who to look out for?" Maxine asked to change the subject.


    "Certainly," grandma Victoria said, "The strongest remaining opponents for you would be Joshua Keniph, Jenifer Krell and Buck Wilder. I wish I could tell you more, but I would be breaking the rules of this tournament, if I did. I ambending them greatlyas is."


    "Thanks, grandma," Maxine said and finally reached her seat to sit down.


    "You welcome," grandma Victoria replied.


    Maxine already knew the rough capabilities of Joshua and Jenifer, but she hadn''t really paid attention to Buck Wilder.Who thefuck names their kid Buck when they have that Wilder as their last name? That''s just cruel. I can''t imagine the mockery he would recieve it he was on Earth. Although, I don''t think anyone here sees it as an unusual name. Must be a cultural element that I am not seeing or his parents are assholes.


    Maxine watched the proceeding matches until she could see Buck''s fighting style. She had been too focused on something else to really pay attention before, but she vaguely remembers that he wields a sword of some kind.


    "Buck Wilder vs Emma Maleth," the AI announce and Maxine looked at the arena expectantly. Buck looked feral and his torn and damaged clothes added onto that image. His brown hair was in disarray and even how he moved seemed like that of a beast. His eyes had an almost golden hue and his gaze resembled a wolf on the hunt. The sword in his hand appeared to have been added onto repeatedly and looked like it was segmented. I know I have seen a sword like that, but where?Emma on the other hand appeared released a heroic aura and it was complimented by her stunning blonde hair and blue eyes. She wielded a bladed staff with fluid grace.


    "Begin," the AI announced.


    Buck released a feral growl as he charged. Emma smiled confidently as she got into a defensive stance. Oddly he began to swing his weapon when he was still more than eight feet away from her. To both Maxine''s and Emma''s surprise, the blade lengthened and turned into a whip.A whip sword?! Those things are hard as fuck to make, not to mention difficult to defend against. In most cases, the only choice you have is to dodge it. Otherwise it will wrap around you whenever you try to block or parry. When that happens, you may as well kiss your ass goodbye because you just got caught in a meat grinder. That''s assuming your opponent isn''t a sadist. If he or she is, they will use it as a real whip and take pieces off of you until you can''t fight back anymore. Which also happens to be seconds before you die of blood loss.


    The whip blade ignored Emma''s attempt to block it and wrapped around her twice along with her weapon. Buck revealed a vicious grin as he yanked his weapon back towards himself. The whip sword tightened and dragged across the forcefield surrounding Emma and an instant later, Emma was teleported out of the arena.


    "Winner, Buck Wilder," the AI announced. With a flick of Buck''s wrist, the whip sword reverted back into it''soriginal shape.


    Maxine did not relish the idea of fighting him. Fighting whip users of any kind was always a headache for her in the past since the trajectory of their strikes can change mid-swing. It makes it very hard to avoid getting hit andit hurts to high heaven when it does hit. Add onto the fact that Buck''s weapon is also a sword makes it a very lethal weapon.


    But before she has to worry about fighting Buck, Maxine has to defeat Joshua Keniph and Jenifer Krell. Even though the other competitors weren''t as good as Buck Wilder or the other two, it didn''t mean that they didn''t possess a skillset that was a perfect counter to her own.


    Maxine glanced at Joshua and decided to be direct with a question that had been in the back of her mind, "Are you going to hold back or fight me seriously?"Depending on his answer, I may just use one of those new attacks I came up with.


    Joshua turned to look at Maxine and a small smile formed on his lips as he asked in return, "That depends. Will you fight seriously, if I do?"

 Chapter 82

    Maxine narrowed her eyes for a moment after hearing Joshua''s question. He hasn''t seen me fight more than a single attack. So, how does he know that I am holding back? Is he bluffing or did he glean something from my killing intent? It''s also possible he has some videos of when I was fighting on Earth. That would definitely explain how he knows.


    In the end, Maxine smiled as she dismissed those thoughts and asked Joshua, "Perhaps, but only if you are up to my standard. Anyways, how did you figure out that I have been holding back this whole time?"


    "The way you move hints that your fighting style revolves around speed and agility, and that war scythe is not compatible with it. Hence it isunlikely that it is your primary weapon," Joshua answered confidently, "If I had to guess, your weapon of choice is either a sword or blade. Next, your killing intent is quite intense indicating that you have been in multiple situations that required you to kill numberous opponents. To do that, you would need to be quite skilled in the first place.Lastly, the look in your eyes hasn''t shown the slightest hint of fear while watching us fight. It''s as if you don''t considermyself or anyone else here to bea threat."


    "Very good analysis," Maxine commented, "But you are wrong on your last point, I am not fully confident that I can beat you. Mostly because I haven''t seen you fighting seriously. That''s why I asked if you were going to fight seriously or not."


    "That''s reasonable," Joshua answered, "I don''t want to fight seriously unless I have to. The others could find a weakness in my techniques. So how about we probe each other''s skill first andlet things play out from there?"


    "Fine by me," Maxinereplied confidently.


    Maxine didn''t have much time to get comfortable as the AI announced, "Joshua Keniph vs Maxine Levings." Oh, yeah. I forgot that Buck Wilder was on the opposite end of the tournament bracket. It makes sense that we would be called up fairly fast.


    Simultaneously, Maxine and Joshual leapt onto the arena. Instead of bringing out the war scythe from her dimensional pouch, she retrieved her Twilight Iron Blades and got into a loose fighting stance. Her change of weapons surprised a large number of people in the stands, but grandma Victoria seemed pleased.


    "So, you are going to fight seriously," Joshua said with a small smile, "It would be rude of me not to do the same." Two extra sets of arms appeared on his back. Really? Is he trying to be an asura?


    "Cool trick," Maxine praised, "Now, let me show you mine." After forming her essence armor, she expanded her shadow to cover half of the arena and spawned dozens of barbed tendrils out of it.


    "Are you two ready?" the AI asked and both Maxine and Joshua nodded their heads, "Good, begin!"


    Joshua stared at the tendrils around Maxine, but otherwise stood his ground.I can''t really blame him for not wanting to charge into this. It''s like throwing yourself into a field of thorn bushes.Maxine charged forward and her expanded shadow and barbed tendrils moved with her. Her intent was to bind him up with the barbed tendrils and introduce him to her new attack.


    Unfortunately, Joshua was wary of her barbed tendrils and lashed out at the ones that got to close as he began charging at her.Well since he is coming to me. I might as well give him a proper greeting.Maxine created numberous crescent moon blades using her essence and had them orbit around both of her Twilight Iron Blades. Small cyclones of crescent moon blades formed around her weapons.


    Once Joshua was in range, she lashed out at him. Joshua retaliated by unleashing a flurry of blows in an obvious attempt to knock away her attack, but his essence-created arms got shredded the second they came into contact with Bladed-Cyclones around her Twilight Iron Blades. Just as I thought, his fake arms are not protected by the forcefield. That makes it far easier to destroy them with my new technique, Bladed-Cyclone.


    Unfortunately, Joshua appeared to have predicted this as literal hundreds of ethereal fists rapidly formed in the air around him. As he retreated, these ethereal fists were being hurled at Maxine and she knew that she couldn''t dodge all them. She forced to stop wasting her focus on her shadow and let the tendrils vanish.


    Maxine swung her blade at the ethereal fists andreleased a Bladed-Cyclone to cut a swatch through the fists to form a gap that she could jump through. Once she was through the gap, she nearly did a double take when she saw the number of arms that Joshua had this time. She counted twenty and he began charging at her.This could be problematic.


    Maxine hurled her remaining Bladed-Cyclone at Joshua as more as a distraction than an attack and used the Phantasmal Steps of the Shadow Cat to make distance between herself and Joshua to turn this fight into a ranged onet. As skilled as she was, she wouldn''t be able to defend against twenty fists in close quarters.


    Maxine''s Bladed-Cyclone gouged out a small path on the arena''s floor as it hurtled at Joshua, but he kicked down with his right leg to jump to the left in order to avoid it. However, she didn''t even get to gain much distance before all of his palms opened up revealing small glowing orbs.You''ve got to be shitting me.A hail of essence bolts were unleashed from his palms as Maxine dodged for all she was worth and hackedessence bolts that she couldn''t dodge with her TwilightIron Blades.Thank god, he is just firing them blindly. If he actually sealed off my movements using a little strategy, I would be screwed.


    However regardless of her internal complaints, Maxine was slowly getting excited and after dodging for nearly a full minute, she began joyously laughing. She knew it would anger Joshua to be laughed at, but she couldn''t help herself. She was having a lot of fun.


    As expected, Joshua clearly became quite angry that Maxine was laughing and to her surprise, his skin became a greyish color as an opaline gem formed on his forehead.I knew it! He''s the one Guan was told me about that has the Shadow Lord Form. Although I am a bit surprised he hasthe same version of it as I do. I wonder what brought that about? Regardless, this means he is finally going all out.


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    "Finally," Maxine said while continueing to dodge his attacks, "Now, I can bring out my ''pet'' without feeling like I am bullying you. Come forth, Tiamat."A draconic roar erupted from Maxine''s shadow as it enlarged and brought forth her dragon. She intentinally made it emerge slowly and used verbal commands as means to present fake flaws in her abilities.


    Joshua increased the intensity of his attacks at Maxine to defeat her quickly. It was clear that he didn''t want to face her dragon, but Maxine evaded to stand behind her dragon''s head. The attacks that hit her dragon barely even scorched it''s scales.So, that''s what fantasy novels meant by saying as tough as dragon scales. Dragons are such a cheaty race. Wait, wouldn''t that same durability travel over to my dragon essence armor?


    Joshua tried to get a shot on Maxine, but she kept out of his line of sight. Eventually he got enraged and roared, "Cowardly!"


    "Yeah, sure. It''s totally cowardly and not wise to use an obstacle to avoid getting hit," Maxine said sarcastically from behind her dragon as it finished emerging from her shadow.


    Joshualooked like he wanted to yellat Maxine again, but her dragon had already cocked it''s head back as it took a deep breath. "You might want to dodge," Maxine suggested right before her dragon unleashed it''s dragon''s breath.


    Instead of dodging, Joshua unleashed a flurry of punches with only his limbs made of essence at the dragon fire breath.Stupid. Even if he can defend it like that, he will waste a lot more essence restoring his essence arms than if he were to just dodge. Hell, it would be more efficient to form a Spining Rumble Barrier than it is to fucking punch fire. This is no doubt an ingrained response taught by his teacher in the event that he can''t avoid an attack. Now I am starting to wonder. Who the fuck taught him that if he can''t dodge an attack that he is to punch it? I really want to meet the ''genius'' that taught him that one.


    While Maxine was watching Joshua frantically attackingher dragon''s fire breath, she heard Elder Ezekiel''s voice resound in her head, "I want you to lose. Name your price." She was instantly enraged. Both herself and Joshua wanted an honest fight and Elder Ezekiel''s attempt at bribing her was an insult to both of them.


    "Resurect my mother," Maxine responded coldly via spiritual sense and apparently her demand was returned with silence. She expected that since she gave him an impossible task, but it really was the only thing that she would throw this fight for. She glanced over towards him and saw his face red with anger.


    Maxine looked at where Joshua was standing and was impressed when she discovered that he hadn''t been teleported out. However hisessence arms were mostly melted and it left him with only his original pair left. He was panting heavily. Thatstrongly suggested that his essence reserves were low. He has endurance. I will give him that. But regardless, he looks like he is about to collapse from exhaustion and he has no one to blame other than himself. He just made too many stupid mistakes.Creating arms made of essence and hurling all of those essence bolts were a gamble since theyboth of those use up essence like mad. And his idiotic idea of tryingto punch dragon''s fire as a means of defense was a retarded waste of essence. On the other hand, my essence usage was far more conservative in comparison. I still have nearly 70 percent of my essence left while from the looks of it he has maybe twenty precent left, if that.However when Maxine stared at his eyes, she saw that he hadn''t given up.


    "If you have a trump card, I suggest that you use it now," Maxine suggested as she stood next to her dragon.


    Joshua looked at Maxine for a moment before a small smile crept onto his face as small silver lightning bolts arced across his flesh.Isn''t that the trick uncle Zeph uses to move fast?Maxine instantly got into a defensive stance, but she was a moment too late as Joshua turned into an electric blurr that was coming straight at her.


    Maxine tried to avoid his rush, but he was simply too fast. He unleashed a flurry of blows and she was only able to defend against half of them.Shit! He''s too much faster than me while using that technique. My dragon can''t even attack because it could hit me instead of him due to his speed.She released a powerful burst of essence to repel him away from her, so that she could catch her breath.


    "If you have a trump card, I suggest that you use it now," Joshua said with a playful grin as he threw her own statement back at her.


    "I don''t need to," Maxine stated confidently and shadow tendrils wrapped around her, "Tiamat, Scorched Earth!" Joshua''s expression darkened as he rushed at her, but he was too late. She had just finished covering herself with a layer of shadow tendrils and kept adding onto it. She was intent on making the barrier of shadow tendrils around her at least four foot thick in every direction except down.


    While Joshua relentlessly attacked Maxine''s ever thickening defences, her dragon spread it''s wings wide and took flight. It soared two hundred feet above the arena and breathed fire down to bathe the arena in flames. Joshua became frantic with his assault, but his actions were in vain as he was bathed in dragon fire. He only lasted bare moments before being teleported out of the arena.


    "Winner, Maxine Levings," the AI announced, "Maintenance crews report to the arena."


    Maxine dissolved the dome and saw that the arena, besides the place she formed her dome of shadow tendrils, was sheet of red hot molten rock. She expanded her shadow and said loudly to her dragon, "Tiamat, return." Her dragon landed on her expanded shadow and entered it as slowly as it emerged.


    As Maxine leapt out of the arena, she heard Elder Ezekiel roar as he came to his feet, "I object to Maxine''s victory! She clearly violated the rules of this tournament by usinga powerful tamed dragon!" She quickly became angry again.That asshole! Can''t he just face the fact that I won fairly and his grandson lost.


    "Apologies, elder Ezekiel, but you are mistaken. While the creature Maxine summoned was indeed powerful, it was only an extremely well crafted construct. I determined this by scanning the construct''s body as itwas summoned and I discovered that it lacked DNA of any kind. Thus, this one determined that the ''dragon'' was a construct," the AI announced, "I can show you a copy of it''s essence signature and biological makeup if you desire to confirm this for yourself."Thank you, Mr. AI for not revealing how much of a strain it is to control my dragon. If you did, theShadow Lords would at least suspect that I have a special variation to the Shadow Lord Form when combined with everything else that they know about me.


    "That''s not necessary," elder Ezekiel growled as he waved his hand in dismissal and he sat back down, "I retract my previous objection."


    Maxine sat in her seat before meditating to recover as much of her essence as possible. She had used up a lot more essence than she had wanted to in the match against Joshua, but she didn''t regret it. The fight had been far more challenging than she had expected.Fortunately, I don''t think Jenifer Krell is as capable as Joshua, but there is no guarantee of that. If she is, there is no way that I will be winning this tournament, but getting second place shouldn''t be too hard. It''s just fightingtwo well-trained opponents is too draining and I won''t have the stamina or essence to face a third. Even with a rest break, my match against Buck Wilder will be hard.I better watch his fighting style carefully to see if he has any repetative moves. In any case, I won''t have the luxury of testing techniques against him.

 Chapter 83

    Maxine had only just begun to meditate when grandma Victoria asked her via spiritual sense, "Maxine, what did you say to Elder Ezekiel earlier? I only ask because he becamequite irrate after your spiritual sense conversation." It''s a good thing that I can meditate and chat with grandma at the same time.


    "He asked me what it would cost him to have me loose the fight against his grandson," Maxine answered, "My answer was for him to ressurect mom."


    "Maxine, there is no way he could do that," grandma Victoria said.


    "I know. That''s why I said it," Maxine answered.


    Grandma Victoria chuckled and she suddenly got sad, "I understand why you asked that though. I know there are few things that I wouldn''t do to see her smile again. There are times where I wish that I had the means to resurrect her, but I don''t.The only person that might be able to isyour father and I know for a fact that he has been researching since her death. I find it odd that he hasn''t at least tried to yet. I can only guess that he isn''t completely satisfied with his research yet."I bet grandma would be surprised to know that Guan has found three ancient methods to revive mom.The first one involves using a pheonix feather and a few other preparatory items, but pheonix feathers are so rare that there hasn''t been on seen in a millenium. The other method is alchemical in nature. The biggest problem with it though is that it requires extremely rare herbs, but they are far more easily acquired than a pheonix feather. The last one is horrendous. I can''t believe that Guan even recorded it''s existence. Guan would have to sacrifice the flesh and blood of one thousand people that have the shadow attribute with silver stage or higher cultivations and refine their bodies to create a suitable form for Hellen''s soul to inhabit. The only people with the shadow attribute are in the Kavros Clan, so that would mean that he would have to slaughter a large portion of it to revive Hellen. She would never forgive him for that and it''s probably why he hasn''t even tried it.


    "I agree entirely," Maxine agreed, "Anyways it''s not like there are pheonix feathers lying around anywhere."


    "That''s true," grandma Victoria said, "Hmm!? How did you know that pheonix feathers can be used to revive the dead?"


    Maxine knew that she messed up and quickly added, "It''s a legend on Earth. One was used on a man''s dead lover tobring her back to life."


    "Oh, how interesting. You will have to tell me about it in detail later," grandma Victoria said calmly, "I have held you up long enough. Try to recover as much of your essence as possible before your next match."FUCK! I can''t believe that I did that. Now I have to come up with a damn story to tell grandma to cover my lie. Or I should tell her the truth in secret? The only problem is that I don''t know if she will keep it to herself or not.


    "Will do, grandma," Maxine replied and felt the spiritual sense connection being severed. She continued to meditate while she waited for the arena to be repaired.


    However the arena suffered quite the rough treatment due to the match she had with Joshua. The top forth of it had to be replaced. She was wondering how they were going to do that when a squad of people came flying into the arena and started lifting up sections of the arena before carrying them away.


    Maxine checked their cultivation and each of one them had a cultivation above silver stage. It made her quite jealous that they could fly in and out of the arena with such ease. She perform similar feats of aerial agility with her dragon essence armor, but it would drain her essence far too quickly for it to be sustainable.


    Maxinereleased a frustrated sigh and continued to watch them work while she meditated. Fortunately, it didn''t take them long to repair the arena and get the matches back underway. Jenifer Krell was called into the arena almost immediately, but her opponent was so weak in comparison that it ended in one strike.


    Maxine wasn''t too surprised to see that. The odds that there were many more exceptional individuals in their age group was rather low. Finding three of them was impressive enough. However Maxine excluded herself from them since she wasn''t raised in the Kavros clan''s territory.


    After a few more boring matches, Buck Wilder was called up again and he was facing a dark haired girl. It was one of the younger competitors that had gotten lucky early on and hadn''t face any skilled opponents. Unfortunately her luck had run out.


    Buck''s opening move was slower than before as he lashed out at her with his whip sword. The girl dodged the lashing strike by less than an inch. She looked terrified as Buck continued his assaultand the girl narrowly dodged his every attack.


    Maxine became infuriated when she saw that Buck''s expression was one of sadistic glee.The fucker is toying with her! But it''s a weakness that can be exploited if he thinks he is up against a weakened or exhausted opponent. I think that I found a way to beat him even if I am low on essence.The fight continued for another four minuteswith Buck barely missing the dark haired girl before finished her off by wrapping his whip sword around herp.He seems to like finishing off his opponents that way. I will use that against him.


    Maxine stood up at the same instant that the AI announced, "Maxine Levings vs Jenifer Krell."


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    Maxine leapt into the arena and waited for Jenifer to do the same. However once she was in the arena, she gave Maxine confident look while saying, "Don''t even try to hide it. I know that you are tired from fighting Joshua. Just surrender. It would be better than embaressing yourself."


    "Maybe I''m tired. Maybe I''m not," Maxine stated as she withdrew her Twightlight Iron Blades from her dimensional pouch and got into a fighting stance while forming her essence armor, "Why don''twe find out?" Jenifer looked at Maxine with uncertainty for a moment before getting into a fighting stance of her own.


    "Begin," the AI announced.


    Maxine rushed Jenifer at top speed. Jenifer thrusted her halberdtoward Maxine''s chest, but Maxine twisted her body to avoid the strike by a hair''s breadth as she hacked down with the blade in her left hand at Jenifer''s head. Jenifer abandoned her halberd and drew her short sword in an instant to block Maxine''s strike.


    Maxine only smiled and kicked Jenifer powerfully into her unguarded stomach. Jenifer folded ather waist as she was thrown backwards, but Maxine wasn''t done with her assualt yet. She unleashed a Crescent Moon Blitzat Jenifer while she was still mid-air. Jenifer got her feet under her, but didn''t even have a chance to register that she was being attacked before dozens of small crescent moon bladesimpacted all over her body. Jenifer was teleported out of the arena an instant later.That went far more smoothly than I thought it would. I half expected her to twist her halberd so the ax blade on her halberd would wound me.


    "Winner, Maxine Levings," the AI announced.


    Maxine deactivated her essence armor and released a sigh. She normally would have dragged that fight out a bit more to spare Jenifer''s ego, but the girl had asked for it with her cocky attitude. Knocking Jenifer down a peg or two would help her in the long run anyways.


    Maxine ignored the strange stares that she was receiving and returned her Twighlight Iron Blades to her dimensional pouch before walking back to her seat. However before she could sit down and go back to meditating, Jenifer approached Maxine and asked, "How did you know I would react like that when you charged?"Now this is unexpected. But since she came to me, I might as well help her out.


    "That''s easy," Maxine answered, "It''s the normal response of anyone that uses a weapon that could be used as a spear and your eyesrevealed exactly where you were aiming your weapon."


    "I see," Jenifer said with a frown, "How do I avoid revealing where I will strike?"


    "Training your eyes to not look at your intended target until you strike isone way, but that is extremely difficult. Everyone wants to look where they are attacking. Another way would be to train yourself to react as you attack to a changing scenario, but you need a quick mind for that. The easiest way is just to wear a mask that has tinted lens'' so your opponent can''t see your eyes," Maxine answered honestly, "Also, I suggest that you learn a movement technique.It will be helpful to keep your opponents at a distance and where your halberd can do the most damage. I only say that since you seem to plant your feet on the ground when you are being defensive. Standing still only makes you a target for long ranged opponents."


    "Thank you," Jenifer said and she looked rather uncomfortable, "I apologize for what I said earlier."


    "Don''t worry about it," Maxine answered.


    "Thank you, again," Jenifer said before she walked back to her seat.


    "Aren''t you going to tell me how I could do better?" Joshua asked Maxine once Jenifer was out of earshot.


    "Nope," Maxine said seriously, "I think you are smart enough to figure it out on your own."


    "Thanks," Joshua replied with a small smile.


    "You''re welcome," Maxine said, "By the way, what do you think are my chances against Buck Wilder?"


    "I would say that your chances are quite slim," Joshua answered, "At least, that''s what I would say with the skills you have shown thus far. Buck''s weapon of choice is your natural enemy."


    "Tell me about it," Maxine agreed.Now how should I approach this problem? Like Joshua said, Buck is a damn good counter to my fighting style unless I can get close. Summoning my dragon like before won''t work. He will have me cornered before it finishes emerging from my shadow. I can''t rush him either. I will get shredded before I can get close enough to use either my blades or war scythe and he is agile enough to avoid most of my ranged attacks, even if I spam them. If only I could use my Harpy essence armor. I could use the Harpy Feather Bombs to beat him. After all who would suspect that harmless looking feathers would suddenly home in on my targetand explode. No use complaining about it though. I can''t use it with what I am wearing. I guess that I will just have to act like I''m exhausted from my earlier matches. That should give me an opening to work with. I hope that he falls for it. The conditions are not right for any of my other tacticsto work, so this is my only option for now.


    Maxine fought her following matches while gradually showing increasing levels of exhaustion and afterwards watched Buck fight in his. His tendancies to toy with his opponents quickly diminished as the fights progressed. Maxine noticed that he kept looking at her cautiously.He doesn''t completely believe my act.That''s good enough. It just means that he will perform a probing attack to verify my condition.


    Maxine was rather confident that she could beat Buck by the time the final match was about to commence. She looked over at him and froze.There was a young woman fearfully standing next to him that hadn''t participated in the tournament and she was wearing a cloth face mask that covered the lower half of her face.However that wasn''t why she froze. Along the edges of the mask, she could see horrible scarring caused by a blade and came to a realization.It was him. He was the one that ruined Neesa''s and her sisters'' faces.That fucker is very lucky that there is a forcefield projected around him while he is in the arena. Otherwise I would be very tempted to carve up his face just like he did to Neesa and her sisters.Maxine''s rage began to burn fiercely and she wished that the AI would announce their fight already. Oddly, Buck seemed to notice Maxine''s anger and revealed a pleased smile.


    "Maxine Levings vs Buck Wilder," the AI announced.


    Maxine leapt onto the arena and glared angrily at Buck. She was only waiting for the AI to announce the beginning of the fight so that she could use him as a punching bag. However something happened which surprised her. A shadow swiftly covered the entire arena. She looked up and saw that a thick cloud cover had just moved in to block this planet''s sun.I wondered how I was going to beat this bastard after I got angry. Now this will be easy. Afterall, the shade provided by a cloud still counts as a shadow.She looked back at Buck and got into an unarmed fighting stance while Buck did the same.


    "Begin," the AI announced and Maxine performed a Shadow Step.

 Chapter 84

    Maxine exited the Shadow step atBuck''s right side. She swiftly grabbed his sword hand at the wrist and slammed her palm on his elbow. An audible snapped resounded as his arm bent in the wrong direction. He screamed in agony as he dropped his weapon. Excellent. It seems that I was correct in my assumption that I could still dislocate joints, even with the forcefield active.


    Maxine released her grip on Buck''s wrist to allow him to retreat, but not before she kicked his whip sword out of the arena. He took several steps away from her and placed his arm across his chest before grabbing his wrist before snapping it back into place. He groaned in pain and glared at Maxine cautiously.


    Maxine was impressed at his pain tolerance, but that didn''t stop her from continueing her assault. She used Shadow Step again to appear directly infront of him and unleashed a flurry of punches into his face before he could mount a proper defence. He lifted up his arms to block the attacks and she made him pay for it by focusing most of her attacks on his wounded right elbow. Each punch was obviously causing him a great deal of pain. I already knew he would feel some of the impacts from when Joshua pummeled me during my fight with him. It''s good that he can experience this level of pain, but it won''t be long before he tries to fend me off to stop the pain.


    Buck couldn''t tolerate the painjust as Maxine had anticipated and he lashed out almost instinctively with a left punch. Maxine dodged it fluidly and grabed his wrist. She could see the fear in his eyes as she followed through and mercilessly dislocated his leftelbow in the same fashion as she did with his right. However this time she didn''t let him gountil after she landed apowerful kick on his stomach.


    After Buck staggered away from her and regained his stability, Maxine waited for him to fix this arm as well and decided to ask once he was done, "How does it feel?"Buck looked at Maxine in confusion and anger before she continued, "How does it feel to be the one that is toyed with?"


    Buck''s face slackened for only a moment before it twisted into pure rage. He charged at Maxine while snarling like a wild animal. As he charged, his teeth began to give off an almost imperceptible glow.I don''t like the looks of that.


    Maxine used Shadow Step again to appear behind him and in the next instant, she saw a hug set of ethereal tiger teeth bite down where she had been standing a moment before. It''s a good thing I got out of the way. That move would have ended this fight.


    Maxine swiftly grabbed ahold of his hair on thetop of his head before he could realize what was going on and pulled back violently. He didn''t even have the luxury to yell in surprised before she slammed his head onto the arena floor. The impact caused several cracks to appear on the arena floor.


    Maxine walked away from him slowly while he rolled back onto his feet. She wanted to toy with him for awhile longer, but she had a limited time frame to do so. She had roughly three minutes left before a section of thinner clouds arrived that would allow for direct sunlight to peek through and the Shadow Step technique drained a small chunk of her essence each time she used it. It was originally an escape technique and not a battle one.


    Maxine waited until hewason his feet to kick his left elbow hard and heard him howl in pain as he leapt away. She used Shadow Step again to appear on his right side and kicked his right elbow. He didn''t even try to avoid it. Instead he grit his teeth and powered through the pain as he examined Maxine carefully.Oh? Is he trying to find a weakness in my attack pattern? It''s not a bad strategy, but it will only work if I had the intention of dragging his punishment out. Too bad for him that I have no such intention. It''s time to end this.


    Maxine performed the Shadow Step again, but this time, she appeared close enough to them that they could have kissed. He looked confused and she capitalized on this. She quickly stepped forward and hooked her leg with his and threw her shoulder into his chest to knock him down. He tried to kick her with his free leg, but she caught his attack with her left hand.


    Maxine smiled to herself as she hugged his leg to her chest and gripped his knee with her right hand to keep it from moving. She could see the fear of pain in his eyes as he laid on his back. She heard someone yell ''stop,'' but she ignored them entirely as she began to lean forward. An audible crunch followed by a resounding howl of agony as she bent his knee backwards at a forty five degree angle.


    While Buck was still stunned due to the pain, Maxine dropped his leg and methodically dislocated his elbows again while hearing the same voice from before yelling at her to stop. She realized that it was Elder Ezekiel, but paid him no mind since it was against the rules for him to interfer. After she finished dislocating his elbows, Buck was teleported outside of the arena and she immediately felt countless stares of silent disbelief aimed at her without even raising her head.


    "Winner of the youth tournament, Maxine Levings," the AI announced moments before Elder Ezekiel roared, "Do you know what you have done?!"So, you are not even bothering to hide the fact that Buck is one of your pawns. Works for me.


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    "I just won the tournament," Maxine answered innocently while deactivating her essence armor and she saw his face redden with rage.


    "And nearly crippled Buck Wilder in the process!" Elder Ezekiel raged.I didn''t hurt him anywhere near enough to do that. An iron stage healing potion would be more than enough to help him achieve a full recovery.


    "Were my actions against the rules of the tournament?" Maxine asked.


    "No," Elder Ezekiel growled.


    "Then why are you so upset, Elder Ezekiel?" Maxine asked in an innocent tone and noticed that Elder Ezekiel was about to snap. However grandma Victoria''s eyes were sparkling with glee, but Boreas looked nuetral. It looks like grandma has caught on to my act.


    "I am also curious as to why you are displaying such anger, Ezekiel," Boreas said calmly, "Buck Wilder''s injuries are not as exaggerated as you claim. A single potion and a month of bedrest is all that is required for his recovery. If he was your direct descendant, I could easily understand your fury, but as far as I know, he is not. Am I mistaken in this?"


    "No, you are not," Elder Ezekiel admitted sourly, "But I will still insist that Maxine be punished for such cruel behavior and ignoring the orders of an elder."


    "Why?" Boreas asked and started to become increasingly enraged as he continued, "First, you broke the rules of the clan by trying to interfer with the tournament when you told Maxine to stop. Second, I told the participants of this tournament that they could use their techniques at will? Are you trying toturn me into a liar?! If anyone should be punished, it''s YOU!" Did I just give Boreas ammunition to knock Elder Ezekiel down a few pegs?


    For the first time since Maxine has arrived at the Kavros Clan, Elder Ezekiel was subdued in his response as he dropped to his knees with his head bowed, "Please forgive me, Patriarch. I forgot myself."I think I did. Neat. That means he can suppress him politically for awhile at least.


    "You are forgiven, but I do not wish to seea repeatof such behavior," Boreas said, "Now, I believe it''s time we reward the champion of the tournament."There is a reward?! Grandma never mentioned that there was one. I wonder what it is.With a flick of Boreas'' wrist, a box floating in the air appeared infront of Maxine. She immediately opened it and sawa green potion, a shiny silver ring and a pendant with a large green gemstone embeded in it. She had and idea what the potion and ring were, but not the pendant.


    Maxine reached towards the itemsand put the potion and pendant in her dimensional pouch. Since the ring was rather large, she put it on the middle finger of her right hand and was shocked when it resized itself to fit. She used her spiritual sense to probe it immediately after and smiled when she discovered that it was indeed a dimensional storage ring. It had roughly three times the space inside of it that her pouch did.I have wanted an upgrade for awhile now. My pouch is already quite crowded as it is. That reminds me. I should start sharing some of the chocolate I have stored up.


    Maxine bowed her head to Boreas slightly since it seemed to feel right and went back to her seat just in case there was more to this tournament.


    "I must say that this years youth tournament was quite the spectacle," Boreas said happily, "However all of you should heed my words. Do not become complacent and lazy. This tournament was simply a test of your skill level within the clan and does not reflect the skill levels of those outside of it. I expect all of you to continue to train and work hard. With that, I announce that the youth tournament is now over. Go home and get some rest."


    As Maxine stood up to leave, she saw Buck Wilder writhing in pain as his attendant was bending his arms and leg back into place. It looked painful.That asshole deserves every ounce of pain he is feeling. I just wish I could have given both of his legs that painful treatment.However before she turned away she saw a small box appear next to him.Oh, I forgot. Second and third place are often rewarded on Earth. It must be a common custom amongst humans.


    Maxine shrugged and continued to leave the amphitheater. Grandma Victoria appeared beside her when she was a few steps from the exit. She had a huge smile on her face.


    "How about we celebrate you becoming the champion?" grandma Victoria said.


    "Sure," Maxine answered with a smile. She had already sampled some of the food in the Kavros clan and found it to be quite delicious despitesome of the foods possessing an alarming appearance. There was one in particular that upset her greatly. It was a bowl of cooked mushrooms that were considered a delicacy. The problem that Maxine had with them was that each mushroom had a face on it that appeared as if it was begging for mercy. No matter how mucheveryone told her that they weren''t sentient, Maxine just couldn''t bring herself to eat them.


    As they approached a restraunt that was eminating divine smells, a young man with brown hair that looked like he belonged on the cover of a romance novel appeared infront of them. He looked only a few years older than Maxine.


    "Allow me to introduce myself. I am AdamZetch of the Divine Mark''s Clan," the young man said with an elegant bow, "May I join you for dinner?" Although he was polite, Maxine didn''t like him and could tell grandma Victoria felt the same way.


    "No," Maxine and grandma Victoria said coldly at the same time.


    "May I ask why?" Adam Marks asked.


    "You know full well why," grandma Victoria snapped angrily and grabbed Maxine''s wrist as shemovedaround him into the restraunt.Huh? That''s the first time that I have seen my perpetually positive grandma to ever show anger. I will ask her about it later when we have a more private moment.


    As they went to a private booth, Maxine wondered what she was going to do about the young masters approaching her in the future. She had already put forth a difficult to meet requirement and yet she was being harrassed so quickly.Perhaps he doesn''t know about my requirements yet? If not, I don''t know what to do.Maybe I should talk to Emily to get a few ideas. Now the only problem is being able to talk to her. The difference in time makes it hard. Maybe I will be able to talk to her this evening.

 Chapter 85

    Maxine had enjoyed the meal with grandma Victoria and was now soaking in the hot spring inside of the mansion to clean off the sweat that she worked up during the tournament off her skin. Neesa had decided to join herto wash Maxine''s back.


    Maxine really didn''t care. Even though Neesa was naked, Maxine felt no physical attraction to her. It was as if her previous life as a man was a lie,and for some reason, she began to compare their physical assets. Her breasts are smaller than mine, but ourhipand waist have roughly the same ratio. Now that I think about it, my breasts are bigger than almost everyone else''s in the clan. Perhaps my larger bust comes from Guan''s side of the family?


    Maxine shook her head to banish those thoughts and finished cleaning herself. She got out of the pool and began dressing herself with Neesa beside her doing the same thing. Right after they got their undergarments on, grandma Victoria walked in and raised her eyebrow at Maxine and Neesa.


    Maxine felt no shame at all to being seen in her underwear and shecontinued to get dressed at her normal pace. But Neesa''s face quickly reddened as she hastened her efforts to put on her clothes.Why is she embaressed? It''s not like we are naked infront of some boys. Swimsuits on Earth are just as revealing as this if not more.


    "I see you and Neesa have become quite ''attached'' to one another," grandma Victoria teased.Oh, I get it now. Neesa didn''t want to give grandma the wrong idea. Too bad her blushing did just that.


    "It''s not what you think, grandma," Maxine said defensively.


    "Of course, it isn''t," grandma Victoria said with a small smile.


    Maxine quickly decided to change the subject, "By the way, Grandma, why didn''t you like that guy from the Divine Marks Clan?"


    "It''s not just him, Maxine. I hate everyone from that clan. You see the man your mother was originally going to marry was from that clan. His shallow minded elders were the ones that hired the assasins that attacked your mother, which lead to her death," grandma Victoria explained, "But there isn''t enough proof for the elders to do anything about it. Even your father didn''t have enough certainty to eliminate them. He instead annihilated the assasin guild that took the job. I can only show my distaste for that clan on a personal level. But when I think about it. You didn''t know that. So, why didn''t you like that boy?"


    "Something about him felt fake," Maxine explained.


    "I thought it was because you already liked that boy from Earth. I believe his namewas Maxwell," grandma Victoria said in a knowing tone. Maxine looked at grandma Victoria with a confused and bewildered lookuntil she remembered whose appearance she used earlier for her demonstration of what she wanted in man.


    "Who told you that?" Maxine demanded.


    "Zephyr pointed it out. He said that you spent some time with a young man that looked a great deal like the one in your little display at the amphitheater, minus the scars," grandma Victoria explained.I don''t remember seeing him in the amphitheater.


    "God damn it," Maxine complained and put her hands over her mouth as she remembered that cursing wasn''t acceptable, "Sorry."


    "It''s fine," grandma Victoria said, "Just don''t do it again."


    "Alright, grandma," Maxine said.


    "Oh, while I''m here, I would like to hear that tale about the man that revived his love with a pheonix feather now." Damn it. I was hoping she would give me more time to come up with a story. I can''t bullshit my way through it now. Maybe if I only tell her part of the truth. That should work.


    "I''m sorry grandma, but I lied to you before. I only know about the pheonix feather, because someoneinsisted that I learn about various items and herbs that are important to cultivators," Maxine admitted. She wasn''t dumb enough to mention Guan''s name even in a room that prevents the use of spying with spiritual sense.


    "I already knew you lied to me earlier," grandma Victoria said calmly, "I just wanted to see if you were going to tell the truth."


    "You knew?! Why didn''t you say anything about it at the time?" Maxine asked curiously.


    "I had a feeling that it was something that was dangerous to talk about even with spiritual sense," grandma Victoria answered, "But you worried over nothing. Justhaving that knowledgeisn''t something to be concerned with. That''s actually rather basicknowledge and it makes perfect sense for your father to insist you memorize it."


    "I didn''t know that," Maxine said honestly.


    "Of course, you wouldn''t. You lived on Earth for almost your whole life," grandma Victoria said as sheplaced her hand on Maxine''sshoulder.


    "That''s true," Maxine agreed.


    "There is one more thing I would like to talk to you about before I let you go to bed," grandma Victoria said calmly, but a sadness was in her eyes, "I have asked for an expert in matters of the mind to talk to you. The level of skill that you showed at the tournament could only be attained through a series of vicious battles. I have seen what happens to young warriors in similar situations when left alone. I just want to ensure that your mind is stable." That''s reasonable.


    "That''s not a problem, but I have already seen a psychiatrist on Earth already," Maxine answered.


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    "A psychiatrist? Is that what they call an expert that heals mental ailments?" grandma Victoria asked, "Regardless, I still want you to see Madam Neshan. That ''psychiatrist'' may have missed something."


    "Okay, grandma. I will see her," Maxine acquiesced. She didn''t see a real problem with seeing someone if it allayed her grandma''s fears.She just didn''t think she had any mental problems.Then again, most people that have problems don''t realize that they do.


    "Good," grandma Victoria said, "Now I will let you finish getting ready for bed."


    As Grandma Victoria started to walk out of the room, Maxine had a sudden craving for chocolate and took out a piece of chocolate from her dimensional pouch. She snapped a piece of it off before throwing it into her mouth and began to chew. She reflexively released a soft sound of delight at the taste and that sound attracted her grandma''s attention.


    "Maxine, what are you eating?" grandma Victoria asked with a curious look on her face and Maxine remembered her desire to give Earth some help.An opportunity!


    "It''s called chocolate," Maxine answered honestly, "Would you like some?"


    "Just a small piece," grandma Victoria said and Maxine gave broke her off a small piece. As soon as Grandma Victoria had it in her hand, she put it in her mouth and began to chew. Her eyes widened in surprise before closing her eyes swiftly as if to savor the taste.


    After grandma Victoriafinished eatingthe chocolate, Maxine asked, "So, do you like it?"


    "It''s exquisite," grandma Victoria replied with a pleased smile, "This ''chocolate'' came from Earth, yes?"


    "That''s right, grandma," Maxine said.


    "Thank you for sharing some of it with me. Good night," grandma Victoria said.


    "Good night, grandma," Maxine said and watched as grandma Victoria left. As soon as she was out of sight, a smile spread across her cheeks.Grandma is a perfect candidate to spread out the word about chocolate. Even if she only asks for a small amount of it be delivered from Earth, many people in the clan will notice it and will wonder what''s so good about it before they order some for themselves out of curiosity. Although I didn''t expect her to take the bait so quickly. It still works in Earth''s favor.


    Maxine quickly made her way to the second floor of the mansion with Neesa close behind her and entered her room. She heard more than saw Neesa take up position just outside of the door. She knew that her sisters were nearby, but wasn''t exactly sure where they were. She really didn''t care too much in any case as she laid down on her bed and checked on Emily through the shadow clone that she left in her shadow.


    Emily was brushing her damp hair infront of a mirror. It appeared that she had just gotten dressed and was finishing up her routine before going to school. Maxine waited until Emily finished brushing her hair before contacting her via spiritual sense, "Hey, Emily. I''m sorry I havn''t been able to talk with you for the past few days. I have been rather busy over here."


    Emily looked startled and looked around for a moment before she smiled."It''s alright. I figured you would be busy meeting your relatives. Besides that, what have you been up to over there?" Emily asked.


    "Mostly spending time with my grandmawhile being showed around the clan''s grounds and I participated in a youth tournament within the clan," Maxine explained.


    "Oh? A tournament? How did you do?" Emily asked, "Did you get a high ranking?"


    "I won it as a matter of fact," Maxine gloated.


    "That''s amazing!" Emily praised Maxine, "Who were your toughest opponents?"


    "Hmm the two hardest were one guy that thought he was an asura and the other used a whipsword. Although I lost my cool when I was up against the guy with the whipsword. I found out he severely scarred several girls'' faces right before I fought him."


    "Please, tell me you are joking," Emily said, "There is no way anyone would let someone like that roam free."


    "Sorry, but his fighting capabilities outwieghed his crimes," Maxine answered, "So I decided to punish him."


    "What did you do to him exactly," Emily asked cautiously.


    "I broke both of his arms, twice, at the elbow and his left leg at the knee before someone decided that the match was over," Maxine answered.


    "That sounds painful," Emily commented, "But he deserved it."


    "I think he had more coming, but I wasn''t allowed to do more," Maxine lamented.


    "What else did you do over there?" Emily asked clearly to change the subject.


    "Not too much beyond telling some guy to go away when he asked if he could join me for dinner," Maxine answered, "I knew there would be a bunch of young men trying to woo me, but I gave them all a really harsh requirement to meet just to have a chance. But this one guy completely ignored it. It''s extremely frustrating when some people won''t listen."


    "It sounds like it. What requirements did you ask for anyways?" Emily asked.


    "I didn''t say. I showed them," Maxine said and followed up by describing the display she put onat the amphitheater.


    "Why did you use Maxwell''s appearance?" Emily asked suspiciously, "I know you had visions of the future through his eyes. So, I guess it wouldn''t be that surprising for you to have a little crush on him."


    "No, I don''t," Maxine denied it, "I just find him comfortable to be around that''s all."


    "Well regardless, I think you may have inadvertently declared that he is your boyfriend," Emily rationalized, "Just think about it from someone else''s perspective if they found out about him."Hmm, if someone saw Maxwelland saw my display at the amphitheater of my ideal man, they will at the very minimum suspect that I like him and at the most think that we are a couple. FUCK! Now there will be jealous assholes that want to get rid of him.


    "I see what you are talking about," Maxine agreed, "Any ideas to fix this? Because I''ve got nothing and I do not want Maxwell to get hurt by some stupid asshole."


    Emily was silent for a few moments before she answered, "There is no way to undo this, ''if'' they discover Maxwell, but you have already mentioned that Earth is a relatively unknown world. So it''s very unlikely that they will."


    "My grandma already knows about him," Maxine admitted, "How long do you think before someone else discovers this?"


    "I see," Emily said while thinking deeply, "I''m sorry. I can''t think of anything."


    "This is so frustrating," Maxine complained.


    It was at that moment that Hellen join in their conversation, "Why don''t you just say he is the only young man that Guan approves of? It''stechnically not a lie, so that should be acceptable. Right?" That''s true. He fused Maxwell''s soul to his daughter''s afterall. That has to count as approval on some level and saying that would also give me a damn good excuse for why I used his appearance.


    "What?" Emily said in surprise.


    "That actually makes a lot of sense," Maxine agreed, "I will go with that."


    "Did he really approve of Maxwell?" Emily demanded.


    "Yes, he did, but I don''t care who Guan approves of or not," Maxine replied, "I just don''t want anyone to get hurt because of my stupidity."


    "You never liked anyone getting hurt because of things you did," Emily said happily and jumped when she looked at her bedside clock, "Crap, I need to head out. It''s not quite Christmas break yet. Talk to you later."


    "Bye and enjoy school," Maxine said and retracted her focus from her shadow clone.However she was still smiling. It always made her happy to talk to Emily. She smiled happily as she closed her eyes and switched her focus back to her main body before trying to get some sleep.

 Chapter 86

    Maxine had spent the pastten minutes dry heaving due to the stomach churning nightmare that she just experienced. The nightmare had started off with something she rather enjoyed. She was cuddling and making out with Emily. It had relieved her that she still found Emily sexually attractive. But at one point in the dream, Emily had morphed into Maxwellwhile she was kissing Emily. Instantly, she heard a voice in the back of her head screaming that was telling her to get away from Maxwell as fast as she can.


    Maxinewas panicking, and it only got worse when shenoticed Maxwell''s hand moving towards her breasts. She managed to force herself awake just before his hand could touchthem and she immediately started dry heaving. The whole experience made her feel violated and nauseated due to the fact she had been kissing Maxwell even if it was only a dream.


    Maxine wiped her face with the back of her hand as she forced her nausea back. She had no idea where that dream had come from, but it had reinforced her desire to avoid any kind of physical contact with men. She just hoped that she would never have another dream like that one again. Although it still wasn''t as bad as the nightmares she had in the previous timelinewhere she kept reliving the traumatic events of her life. It made it so that she rarely slept a peaceful night before being reincarnated into this body.Huh? Why haven''t I had a nightmare like that since then? Wierd. Well, I am not going complain about it. I like being free of those nightmares.


    Maxine checked the time and still had an hour before she needed to return her concentration back to her clone.Good, that dry heaving spell won''t cause me to change my routine.She lifted a 500 lb boulder onto her back and started running through the nearby forest. Muscle training was important even for essence cultivators.Unfortunately she didn''t have the time for it before she advanced to iron stage. Thus she could only train with weights in order to build any kind of muscle strength or endurance. The good news was that her body was naturally inclined to being swift and agile, so she didn''t need to train those aspects of her physique that much. As an added bonus, her improved physical fitness carried over to her clones. It was something she discovered by accident shortly after switching out her main body with her clone.


    Maxine ran for 45 minutes and spent the rest of the time using the boulder as a wieght to do situps, pullups and squats. By the time she was done, she was covered with sweat and panting. She was smiling since she had worked off a lot of her pent up stress during her workout.


    After one more look around, she walked back into the cave and got into a meditative position before returning her focus back to her clone in the Kavros Clan''s mansion. She slowly opened her eyes and got out of bed before getting changed. The only thing she needed to do today was to meet Madam Neshan. Otherwise she was free to do whatever.


    Maxine made her way to the dining hall and sawa young woman that she had never seen before sitting beside Zephyr at the massive dining table. She has golden brown hair, but she was a more common looking beauty rather than a stunning one that she would have expected. However there was no mistaking the love that she was showing for Zephyr.That must be Angela.


    "Good morning, Maxine," Zephyr said, "Why don''t you join us for breakfast?"


    "Sounds good to me," Maxine answered as she sat down across from him and was swiftly served what looked suspiciously like bacon and eggs with a slice of toast by a maid.Finally, a normal looking breakfast!


    Maxine dug into the food with relish. While she ate, the young woman, whom Maxine had guessed was Angela, started talking to her, "I have been wanting to talk to you for some time, Maxine. Zephyr has talked about you quite a bit since returning home."


    Maxine paused from eating to ask, "What has he told you about me exactly?"


    "That you like to tease others," Angela said, "I would appreciate it though if your refrained from teasing my husband. He is easily embarrassed."


    "That just makes him an easier target," Maxine replied and immediately regretted saying it as a wave of intense hostility enveloped her. It felt as if Angela had transformed into an angry oni even though her expression and appearance didn''t change.This was one of the few times that Maxine felt threatened by another human since shereincarnated and quickly added, "But, I guess I will lay off the teasing since you asked."


    The sense of danger disappeared and Angela said sweetly, "Thank you. Oh! Mother mentioned that you have something called chocolate on you. May I have some?"What the fuck is with this woman?! The vibe she gives off changes far too fucking fast. Is she bipolar or something?! In any case, I think it''s a good idea to finish my breakfast and make myself scarce before herattitude towards shifts again.


    "Yeah, of course, you can," Maxine said as she retrieved a full bar of dark chocolate and slid it across the table to Angela.


    "Thank you again," Angela said and took a bite out of the chocolate, "By the maker! This is delicious! You must try this Zephyr." She may as well have shoved the chocolate into Zephyr''s mouth considering how forcefulshe was presenting it to him. Maxine took the opportunity to shove the remainder of her breakfast into her mouth, so that she could get away from Angela while she was distracted.


    Maxine made a clean getaway, but she encountered grandma Victoria just outside the Dining Hall. "Good, you have finished eating. Follow me," Grandma Victoria said as she grabbed Maxines wrist and started to drag her away, "Madam Neshan just arrived and insisted that she meet you right away." She wastaken to one of the guest rooms on the first floor of the mansion.


    Inside was a skinny elderly womanseated in a comfortable looking chair. "Greetings, child. As you have undoubtedly guessed, I am Madam Neshan," the elderly woman said and once the door was closed, she added, "Now, I need you to bring out your real body." Maxine whipped her head around to face grandma Victoria with a look of betrayal, but Madam Neshan spoke up before Maxine could say anything, "Your grandmother said nothing to me, child. I could tell in an instant that you are not truly here as your body lacks the aura of a soul."I have never heard of anyone that can detect souls that isn''t their own, but if she really can, that would mean she might be able to tell that I have a fused soul.


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "Maxine, please. Do as she asks," grandma Victoria pleaded to Maxine, "It''s to help you."


    Something felt off to Maxine and was about to tell them both no when she heard word from Hellen, "Maxine, there is no way for her to find out that you have a fused soul just from looking at your soul''s aura."


    "That''s not what I am worried about," Maxine answered, "I am afraid she will attack my main body before grandma can stop her."


    "Maxine, why would she do that?" Hellen asked, "She would die in the next instant."


    "As you said before, Guan has made a lot of enemies in his life and some of them may just want to see him hurt without caring about the consequences. For all I know, Madam Neshan could be among thethose of people," Maxine countered, "And the easiest way to hurt him is bykilling or injuringme. Why else would she insist on making me reveal my main body when she could simply ask me about my past?"


    "That''s a very good point," grandma Victoria said via spiritual sense. Maxine was stunned since she hadn''t realized that grandma Victoria was able to listen in on their conversation. Mostly because their conversation was going on through her body that was currently in the shadow world.


    "Is it really necessary to have my grand daughter''s true self appear before you," grandma Victoria asked, "If she were to appear infront of you, that is the same as inviting an attack from her father''s enemies."


    "Unless she is comfortable talking abouther past traumas, it''s entirely necessary," Madam Neshan, "But in my experience,it is a rare thing that someone is able to talk about them."


    "I''m fine with that," Maxine answered and looked at grandma Victoria, "Although I would prefer it if you weren''t in the room when I talk about those ... things. I don''t want to upset you, grandma."


    "I understand, Maxine," grandma Victoria said sadly. She walks up to Maxine and gently kisses Maxine''s forehead followed by a gentle hug before walking out of the room.


    As soon as grandma Victoria left the room, Maxine felt a powerful wave of spiritual sense encase the whole room and from what Maxine could tell, it was emanating from Madam Neshan. It was clear that this old woman was taking her job seriously.Lying to this woman will be impossible and leaving things out won''t work either. Neither she or grandma Victoria would believe I got that good at combat in less than six months. I guess I have no choice but to speak in half-truths again. I will just go with what Emily guessed before to stay consistent, but I better start with the original Maxine''s memories instead of Maxwell''s. Otherwise I may not be able to keep my stories straight.


    "Whenever you are ready," Madam Neshan said gently.


    Maxine took a deep breath to center herself and began to speak about the original Maxine''s childhood beginning with the first time her father beat her. A fury filled her heart as shedescribed in detail what exactly happenedand noticed that Madamn Neshan''s fists and jaw were clenching almost imperceptibly.


    Eventually, Maxine got to the point where she experienced her reincarnation, and began to describe it like it was an extremely long dream. As she spoke, it was like reliving every last one of her traumas one after the other and she couldn''t stop her self from shedding tears. She described her parents death, Alice''s death, her first kill, every battle that she had been in that she could remember, Emily''s death and finally her own death in the previous timeline. She had just finished telling Madam Neshan how Maxwell died in the other timeline when the old woman got to her feet and brought Maxine into her embrace. Maxine didn''t fight her embrace and hugged Madam Neshan back.


    "It''s alright. Let it all out," Madam Neshan said gently as Maxine cried and once Maxine calmed down, she continued, "Experiencing another''s death can leave horrendous scars on the mind. I have only heard of a few instances where this has happened.Each instance of it involved someone with a fused soul, but they normally recover on their own because they possess stronger souls." Maxine involuntarily stiffened in Madam Neshan''s embrace. "Worry not, child. I have no intention of revealing that to Victoria or anyone else for that matter. That woman would mount a foolish crusade to punish Guan if I did."


    "How can I trust that you won''t tell anyone?" Maxine asked as she separated from Madam Neshan.


    "I wouldn''t dare," Madam Neshan said, "I have done this for over five hundred years and not once have I broken the confidence of anyone that I treated. If I did, it would ruin my reputation."


    "She isn''t lying, Maxine," Hellen said via spiritual sense, "Why do you think I''ve remained silent this whole time?"


    "Fine, I will trust you," Maxine said to Madam Neshan, "But why would grandma mount a crusade against Guan? He is way stronger than she is. It doesn''t make sense."


    "It would to hersince Guanfused your soul with a battle hardened warrior. That is essentially the same as forcing to youexperience years of battle, hardship and pain," Madam Neshan said, "If Victoria ever found out about it, she wouldn''t care what his excuses are. She will hate him as if he was her archenemy."


    "When you put it like that, I can definitely see her doing that," Maxine agreed.


    "It''s good that you realize that," Madam Neshan said calmly and looked at the door for a moment as if she was lost in thought, "We have been talking for quite some time and it''s nearly lunch time. I think now would be a good time to stop for today do, is there anything else you would like to talk with me about?"


    "Yes, there is. I don''t find women or men attractive," Maxine said, "Is that normal for someone like me?"


    Madam Neshan let out a sigh, "Sexual indifference is quite common with fused souls, but that won''t be a problem once you find your beloved."So that explains why I feel attracted to Emily and no one else.


    Maxine bowed her head slightly and thanked Madam Neshan, "Thank you for your time and wisdom."


    "You are very welcome," Madam Neshan, "If there is nothing else, we should go see your grandmother."


    Maxine nodded before she left the room and saw grandma Victoria anxiously pacing outside. She saw a look of sadness in her grandmother''s eyes before recieving another bone breakingly rough hug.Damn it. Grandma must havenoticed something in my appearanceand guessed I had been crying. But did she have to break my nose again?!


    "You worried over nothing Victoria. Maxine does not have signs of major mental problems from what I could tell, but she does have issues trusting men. However those issues should resolve themselves with time, so long as her future interactions with men are positive ones," Madam Neshan reported calmly, "I still suggest that we have a few more sessions on another date just to be on the safe side, but we can discuss that later. You two should spend some time together."


    "Sounds good," grandma Victoria said as she held Maxine for one more moment before releasing her and realized that she had broken Maxine''s nose again, "I''m so sorry, Maxine."


    "That''s getting old fast, grandma," Maxine said at the same time as grandma Victoria apologized and snapped her nose back into place.Jesus, can''t she learn to control her strength like she did earlier when she gave me the gentle hug?


    "Some things never change," Madam Neshan chuckled as she walked away.


    "I will try harder not to hurt you like that, Maxine," grandma Victoria said and quickly changed the subject, "Oh! Would you like to go lunch at that restraunt we went to yesterday? As I recall, you seemed to enjoy the pasta dishes that they served."


    "That would be wonderful," Maxine said and followed grandma Victoria out of the mansion.


    As they left the mansion, Maxine was actually quite surprised things when as well as they did. It was as if Lady Luck was smiling on her. However she knew that things wouldn''t go her way forever. Eventually something would happen. She was determined to train up and grow more powerful until it did, but that didn''t mean she couldn''t enjoythis peaceful atmosphere while it lasted.

 Chapter 87

    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.


    Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    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."

 Chapter 88

    "I''ve missed you too," Emily whispered back, "Now you going to tell me what''s up with that ice queen expression you had going on earlier?"


    "Well, that expression keeps the ''young masters'' that are trying tocourt me from pestering me quite as much. You would believe many false confessions I have heard in the past two years," Maxine explained.


    "Didn''t you tell them you weren''t interested?" Emily said.


    "Yes, but they just behaved as if I hadn''t said anything," Maxine explained, "At least, Maxwell is the type to back off when he is rejected."


    "You are wrong on that point," Emily corrected, "He has tried to get me to go on a date several times regardless of how many times I told him no. Honestly though, I think he was just trying to find out what''s going on with you through me."


    "Seriously?" Maxine asked while feeling quite surprised. She had remembered that she hadn''t been one to push her feelings on a girl if they weren''t interested.


    "Yeah, he asked me about you every time he came to ask me on a date," Emily said with a smile.


    Maxine groaned in frustration, "I really don''t need him tyring to court me right now. If I showed him even a hint more affection than those ''young masters'' roaming the clan, they might ..."


    Emily cut Maxine off, "They would believe you are making the smart choice since this isone ofthe only choices you could maketo maintain peace within the Alliance. Or thatyou are keeping your girlfriend happy by being nice to him."


    "Huh?" Maxine said in confusion at what Emily just said, but she quickly recovered.


    "I never said I didn''tlikeMaxwell. The only reason I have rejected him is because I wanted to see how you felt about it," Emily said while looking insecure, "And I can''t exactly read how you really feel about it without a face to face talk. It''s hard to read your real feelings through spiritual sense." Maxinehad expected that Emily would want to find a boyfriend eventually since she wasn''t a lesbian in the other timeline, but didn''t think it would happen this soon. Regardless Maxine wasn''t going to stop her.


    "If you want Maxwellto be your boyfriend, go for it. It''s not going to hurt my feelings," Maxine said with a smile and while hoping her grandma wasn''t snooping with her spiritual sense, she leaned in to whisper into Emily''s ear, "And if it would make you happy, I don''t mind having a threesome with the two of you." Even if I find the whole experience disgusting. She could see Emily''s ears turning red.


    "Stop teasing me," Emily said as she shoved Maxine away.


    "Whose teasing? I am dead serious," Maxine said.


    "But why?!" Emily asked in disbelief, "You hate men."


    "That''s true. I hate men, but I love you more," Maxine said honestly and kissed Emily passionately. She enjoyed every moment of that simple kiss and had to force herself to part from it. Once their lips finally parted, she asked with a blissful smile on her face, "Now is there anything else you want to talk about?"


    "Not that I can think of right now," Emily said in a daze and quickly shook her head to clear it, "But I would like a tour around the city."


    "Sure," Maxine said with a smile, "But don''t you need to ask Ambassador Sutton if it''s ok? You are one of his bodyguards afterall."We have a few hours before lunch will be served, so this will be a good time to spend some quality time with Emily.


    "Alright, I''ll be right back," Emily said as she walked out of the room. Maxine followed her out, and saw that her grandma and the ambassador were still talking.


    Maxine more or less knew what Emily was going to ask so she walked some distance down the hallway and waited for her there. To her surprise, Maxwellwas trailing behindEmily as she returned.What the hell?


    "Ambassador Sutton said it was okay, but Maxwell insisted on being my escort," Emily said.


    "Hey! I have to look out for my team''s healer," Maxwell asserted, but she could see that wasn''t the only reason he wanted to come as his gaze landed on her for the barest of moments. She saw that hereally did have feelings for her, but there was something else in his eyes that sent a chill up her spine. She didn''t know what that something was, and it made her nervous. So she decided to keep an eye on himuntil shefigured out what it was.


    "Sure, you are," Maxine said, "Just be prepared to be challenged to a few duels because of me."


    "Seriously? I didn''t think you were that popular," Maxwell said.


    "I amthat popular, but not because the reasons you think. Those idiots onlywant me because they want access my real father''s alchemical skills," Maxine said.


    "Well, those guys are assholes and sinceI have already volunteered myself to be your escort, I may as well play the part," Maxwell said and bowed slightly as he gestured for Maxine and Emily to proceed, "So, ladies first."


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    Maxine smiled as she rolled her eyes as she led them out of the mansion and into the city. Before they left the mansion, she put her ice queen facade back up and started to show them around the city. Starting with the restraunts and markets. Several of the young masters visiting her clan gave Maxwell the evil eye. Unfortunately, she encountered the one person she completely hated after merely ten minutes.


    It was Adam Marks. He was far more persistent than the other young masters trying to court her and it annoyed her that he never broke his polite facade. There was more than one occassion where he grabbed her wrist or shoulder and she reflexively beat him. Yet he still kept trying to initiate physical contact. It was to the point that she suspected that he enjoyed beaten up byher, but he wasn''t the only person she has given a beating to. Several other young masters recieved the same treatment when they tried to initiate any kind of physical contact.


    "Good day, miss Levings. I see you are entertaining some guests from Earth," Adam Marks greeted her and his eyes quickly locked on to Maxwell, "May I ask who your male companion is?"


    "My name is Maxwell Adams and Isuggest you retract your killing intent before I get violent," Maxwell said in a domineering fashion.Oh? I didn''t think he would gain sensitivity to killing intent this soon.


    "Are you threatening me? If you are, be warned," Adam Marks said with a look of displeasure, "I am a silver stage rank one essence cultivator."He is confident, but not without reason.Maxwell is only at the peak of iron stage.


    "Last chance to back off," Maxwell warned as if he hadn''t heard Adam Marks'' words.


    "Shouldn''t we stop them?" Emily asked.


    "No, fighting in the clan is pretty much ignored as long as no one is killedor no property damage is caused," Maxine stated. She had seen enough brawls in the past two and a half years to confirm that.


    "Have at you," Adam Marks said as he charged at Maxwell.


    Maxine barely saw a fiery grey aura appear around Maxwell that made it feel as if hiscultivation had just doubled before he turned into a blurr. Maxine felt that strange chill go up her spine once more and saw Maxwell reappear as he landed a powerful right into Adam Marks'' face. Adam Marks'' nose released an audible crunch as he was sent flying. Fortunately he didn''t hit anyone when he landed on the ground and skidded to a stop.


    Maxine broke her ice queen facade since she had been surprised and alarmed. She hadn''t thought Maxwell could move that fast with his cultivation. The only way he could have done something like that was with a physical boost technique. However not many people used them for good reasons. They drain essence far too quickly to be used effectively and one mistake in the use of the technique could lead to severe injury or death.


    "Don''t get back up," Maxwell said to Adam Marks and turned to face Emily and Maxine, "Sorry about that, but he was asking for it."


    Adam Marks had gotten back on his feet after Maxwell had turned his back and his face was red with rage as he drew his sword while charging at Maxwell. Maxine could see the killing intent in his eyes and retrievedboth of her Twilight Iron Blades from her dimensional storage ring before moving to intercept him. She channeled both her essence and mana to boost her speed and strength as much as possible and she hacked his weapon to divert it into the ground as she brought her other weapon to his throat in one fluid motion. She used the edge of the blade to cut into his neck just enough to cause pain withoutcausing any life threatening damage in order to make him halt his movements.


    "You were aiming to kill a guest of my clan. Under normal circumstances, it would be well within my rights to kill you," Maxine said frigidly, "Butout of respect for your clan, I won''t kill you."


    "Thank you for your mercy," Adam Marks said fearfully as a small line of blood descended from the wound on his neck, "I promise that it won''t happen again."


    "It won''t happen again because you will be leaving. Right now," Maxine said coldly and Adam Marks looked indignantbefore he quickly fled towards the space port.


    She turned back to face a surprised Maxwell and Emily, "You both know full well how fast I am.It shouldn''t surprise you that I was able to intercept him."


    "That''s not why we are surprised, Maxine," Emily said, "It felt like you would have actually killed him if he hadn''t run."


    "Good. If my act fooled you, it definitely fooled him," Maxine said, "Anyways, he is lucky grandma wasn''t around just now. If she was, she would have killed him. She hates anyone from the Divine Marks Clan."


    "Why?" Emily asked.


    "She is under the distinct impression that his clan is responsible for sending assasins after my biological mother," Maxine said, "I am almost certain she is right, but neither of us can selfishly act on it since it would effect the entire clan."


    "It sounds complicated," Maxwell commented.


    "Yeah, it is, but in any case, there isn''t much either of you can do about it," Maxine said and quickly changed the subject, "Shall we continue the tour?"


    "Yes, let''s," Emily said without giving Maxwell a chance to speak.


    Maxine continued with the tour around the city to see the various sights and started to lead them back once it was nearlunch time. Once they got back to the mansion, everyone enjoyed a meal together and she got to laugh as she saw Patrick being served the ''Begging for Mercy'' mushrooms. Maxinethoroughly enjoyed the experience of eating with all of her friends, but the atmasphere was broken before their meal was finished.


    "Victoria, I have heard your maids say that your grand daughter is one of the most skilled warriors in her age group," Ambassador Sutton said, "I was wondering if it is appropriate for her to have a sparring match withsome of my bodyguards. They are some of the strongest warriors my world has and it would give me an idea on how they compare to others within the Alliance."


    "I wouldn''t recomend that," grandma Victoria said, "Maxine has above average skill level and she has this nasty habit of severely beating most of her opponents to the point that it requires several months for their injuries to heal."


    "Grandma, those guys that I beat up were harrassing me. The only way I could stop them was to break half the bones in their body. I have no reason to beat up our guests. They haven''t done anything to deserve such treatment," Maxine said calmly, "Also, I haven''t had a chance tospar against someone who uses a sword and shield or dual blades like I do. It would be a good learning experience."


    Grandma Victoria smiled for some reason as she looked at Maxwell and the others before she agreed, "Fine, but not today. Afterall our guests have just arrived today and need their rest from their long journey. Anyways, I think you should spend some more time with your friends."I didn''t like the look in grandma''s eyes when she looked at Maxwell and Patrick. Maxine was about to resume eating her lunch when she heard grandma Victoria add one more thing, "Maxine, I almost forgot. I want to have a word with you after you are done eating."

 chapter 89

    Maxine was standing in a hallway with grandma Victoria. Granmda Victoria had just projected a bubble of her spiritual sense around them and said to Maxine, "I know what you said to Emilyand I am furiousas well as confused. I thought you wanted to be with her and only her."


    "I want to be with her but..," Maxine said weakly. Those young masters have been getting anxious about my constant refusals lately. I am afraid they will try something drastic soon and I don''t want Emily to get caught in the middle because of it. It''s safter for her to be with Maxwell. I only said that shit about the threesome to cement the idea in her head. I never really expect her to ever collect on it.


    "But what?" Grandma Victoria snapped.


    "I am afraid that some crazy bastard will hurtor kidnap Emily just to get their hands on me," Maxine admitted, "I''ve had to deal with just being Guan''s daughter. I don''t want Emily to get dragged into this mess as well. That''s why Isaid she could be Maxwell''s girlfriend."She didn''t want a repeat of the previous timeline. It had nearly driven her insane when Emily had died in the previous timeline. She didn''t know if she could withstand such a loss a second time.


    "If you don''t want her to get hurt, take a page out of your father''s book. Become someone so powerful and ruthless thatno one wouldn''t dare harm your loved ones and unlike your father, you have over a hundred constructs to help youdo justthat," grandma Victoria reminded Maxine.


    "But I am too weak to do that now," Maxine said in frustration, "What do I do in the mean time?"


    "Rely on your family. Both myself and Guan have already been helping you to protect your loved ones on Earth for some time already and I suspect Boreas has been helping indirectly as well even if he won''t admit it," grandma Victoria said and Maxine felt confused, "Why else do you think no one on Earth tried harm Claudia, Silky or Emily afterthe Shadow Lords revealed that you were Guan''s daughter? I can assure you that many earthlings wanted to. The only reason they didn''t is because Guan convinced their governments to protect those threeand I had a few of our clanmatesprotect them from the shadows just in case."I noticed that she didn''t mention dad at all.It seems grandma is still holding a grudge against him, not that I blame her.


    "How did Guan convince them to do that?" Maxine asked.


    "He threatened to stop using his energies to prevent the mass of that dead Scarlet Horned Savage Dragon from effecting thethe tidal forces of Earth. It is big enough to cause quite the change to the tides," grandma Victoria said calmly, "By the way, why haven''t you told Emily about your male clone? If you had, she may not have even been interested in that boy."I always wondered about why that dragon didn''t mess with Earth''s tidal forces. I can''t imagine how many people died because of that if he had stopped doing that. Wait! Did she just mention my male clone? Damn it, Hellen must have told her.


    "I was worried it would wierd her out," Maxine said.


    "Hmm,I see your point.It''s not just anyone that can make a clone of the opposite sex, but you should still tell her before it''s too late," grandma Claudia said.It''s not just opposite sex clones, grandma. I haven''t met another person that can make a clone as easily as I can. Hell, only a few gold stage cultivators in my clan have even one, yet I have two. No wonder grandma keeps calling me a genius.


    "Alright, I will try to find an opportunity to tell her, grandma," Maxine said, "Is there anything else you want to talk about? I sort of need to get back to giving Emily a tour."


    "There is one other thing I wanted to talk to you about. It''s about Maxwell. That fiery aura he has is a result of a special technqie used in conjunction with a rare physique."What? How the hell did I not know that?! I had that body before.


    "He has a rare physique?" Maxine asked since rare physiques weren''t in his notes unless they needed a potion to enhancethem.


    "Yes, he does. That fiery aura of his was a side effect of a technique that is used with a rare physique called the Battle God physique. When that technique is used properly, it allows the user to become powerful enough to fight on par with a king-class being. However there is a problem. That technique is only possessed by large clans like our own," grandma Victoria explained, "Or by certain extremely powerful individuals like your father."


    "Is it possible that he learnedthat technique his own?" Maxine asked with concern.


    "The chances of that are very small. I''m much more convinced someone else taught it to him," grandma Victoria said, "Although I dont see why your father or a clan would even bother. He is far too weak to be of much use. Unless they gave him that technique as reimbursement for using him as an experiment to see if an ancient myth associated with that physique is real."


    "What myth is that?" Maxine asked.


    "Well it''s a nonsensical story about how that warrior used his body to house the soul of his fallen comerade within his body until he could avenge him so that his commerade could rest in peace," grandma Victoria explained, "The reason that myth is so interesting is because no fleshy body was meant to house more than one soul. Too many people have tried to do just that without that physique. Their flesh rotted from within from the strain."God, I hope he isn''t being used as an experiment. Although I can totally see Guan exploiting that physique to save the other Maxine''s soul from theprevious timeline.


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    "That sounds horrible," Maxine said.


    "It is. Regardless, I suggest that you keep an eye on him while he is here," grandma Victoria stated, "At least until we know for certain what is going on."


    "Alright, grandma," Maxine said, "I better go now. Those two are probably wondering where I am." And I need to figure out a way to get Emily away from Maxwell in the mean time. If I had known in the past that he might be involved in this shit, I would have never said that it was okay for her to be his girlfriend. FUCK! Now that I think about it, why did she ask me if she could be with Maxwell? I don''t recall her ever having that kind of personality quirk. Wierd.


    "Very well. I will go entertain our other guests" grandma Victoria said as she went back into the dinning hall and Maxine started walking towards the main hall of the mansion where Emily said that they would be waiting.


    While she walked there, she tried thinking of some way to take back her words, but came up with nothing. That was up until she saw them.Emily looked pissed with her arms crossed over her chest. Huh? Why is Emily pissed? Did Maxwell just do what I think he did.


    "Hey guys, we can resume that tour whenever you are ready," Maxine said calmly, "Is everything alright?"


    "Yeah, it''s just that Maxwell is being an asshole," Emily said in a huff. So I was right. He rejected her. But why would he do that after putting so much efforttrying form a relationship with her? This doesn''t make much sense, but it works for me.


    "Hey, you know that I was only interested in ... uhh," Maxwellfroze from nerves before he could finish, but Maxine was certain he was going to say her name.


    "I already know that you like me, Maxwell," Maxine said sharply, "It was obvious after you stumbled when you saw me smile."


    "You saw that?" Maxwell asked while he looked more uncomfortable.


    "Yes, I did and I don''t care that you like me," Maxine stated coldly, "Because I do not like you. At least, not in the way you want me to."


    "That''spart of the reason," Maxwell said, "I need to ask you to do something."He toyed with Emily''s emotions just to ask me a to do something for HIM?! Was I ever that much of an asshole?


    "You toyed with Emily''s emotions and angered me in the process. And now you have the gall to ask me to do something for you. Are you retarded?" Maxine asked while feeling enraged.


    "I didn''t mean to hurt her, but I really do need your help," Maxwell said.


    "I don''t care what it is you need me for. I won''t do it," Maxine snapped and turned to Emily while trying to regain control over her emotions, "Do you want to continue with the tour?"


    "I would love to," Emily said as she gave Maxwell an angry glare and gestured for Maxine to take the lead.


    Maxine lead them back to the city and decided to show Emily a wonderful sight. She had held off on showing her it because it was best viewed during the afternoon. She took them up onto one of the high walls facing the east that surrounded the city. The view from up there was spectacular.


    A grassy field of emerald green extended for nearly three miles until it reached a crystal blue lake surrounded by flowers of every color imaginable. Beyond the lake was a thick andlush forest. Various beasts oftencame to that lake to drink. It allowed her to see them in all their beauty without having to fight. It was one of the reasons Maxine came here. Currently there was a flock of Emerald-Horned Elk getting a drink.


    "This is one of my favorite places to hang out at," Maxine said.


    "Those deer are beautiful," Emily commented.


    "That they are," Maxine said, "They don''t come this close to the city very often. This is the third time I have seenthat particular type of beastsince I have been here."


    "Are they aggressive?" Maxwell asked with concern.At least he is trying to do his job.


    "No, they are quite peaceful as are most herbivors," Maxine stated, "That is unless you do something stupid likeapproachone of their young or make threatening moves."


    "Oh, alright," Maxwell said and he was quiet for several minutes while they enjoyed the scenery, "I really do need your help with something."


    "And I still won''t help you withwhatever it is so you might as well find someone else," Maxine said coldly.


    "I told you she wouldn''t listen," Maxwell mumbled under his breath as he walked a short distance away, but Maxine still heard him. Those words put her immediately on edge and confused her all at the same time.Who the actual fuck is he talking to? Does he have a communicator on him? I better check.She scanned the area around him to see if any transmissions of any kind were being sent and found nothing, but that didn''t mean anything. It could be the type of device that transmits on a energy wavelength that she can''t percieve. So she decided to wait to see if he would talkto himself again. I would really prefer it ifMaxwell wasa spy for another clan rather thanhim being used in some fucked up experiment to see ifhis body can house multiple souls.


    In truth, she knew that Guan would have it in him to use Maxwell just for that purpose to save Maxine from the other timeline. That man was a real sucker for his own daughter. Afterall, he already involved a whole planet of innocents to hide her, and fused his daughter''s soul with another to stabalize her mind. What was one more victim added to the batch to the him?I really hope Guan didn''t do that. It would have been kinder to just let her die. The other Maxine would be literately in a prison. She wouldn''t be able to move or interact with anything unless Maxwell let her. The only thing she would be able to do is to talk with Maxwell. I don''t see that going well for either of them. At least she would get to experience the love that a good family shares in that situation. It might be enough to change her, but I doubt it.


    Emily distracted Maxine from her inner thoughts by hugging Maxine with one arm. "I should have known Maxwell wasn''t going to want me," Emily said sadly.


    "Well he was sending you mixed signals," Maxine offered, "The only way you could have known was by asking him to see if he was actually interested."


    "I guess you are right," Emily said.


    "Are you enjoying the view?" Maxine asked to get Emily''s mind off of Maxwell.


    "Yes, I am," Emily said.


    "I thought you would," Maxine said as she snuggled closer to Emily. She just wanted to enjoy the moment for as long as she could.

 Chapter 90

    Maxine stood within the cave in the shadow world examining her body from head to toe with the help from one of her ravens. She did this once a week togive herself peace of mind thatno physical changes occureddue to her Twelve-Headed Hydra King bloodline like it did with Guan. So far she hasn''t found any real big changes other than most of her body hair had fallen out. She was left with only some hair between her legs and the hair on her head. Fortunately, that was the only change she noticed ,but she dreaded transforming into the Shadow Lord form. She has been putting off checking it for quite some time since she was afraid that all of the physical changes that she was supposed to undergo were transfered over to her Shadow Lord form. She was afraid that she would have to watch herself turn into a humaniod abomination with an absurd numberof limbs.


    Unfortunately, Maxine was pressed for time. She had less than twenty minutes before breakfast starts and shortly after that her sparring matches. So she needed to know all of her capabilities since she had been planning to unveil her ability to transform into the Shadow Lord form during one of her matches. But she would do it only if it was required to win.Afterall, Joshua''s Shadow Lord form hadn''t gotten that much attention from the Shadow Lords. It was as if they didn''t even care. Still she was hoping that if they saw a corrupted version of the Shadow Lord form that they would leave her alone. It would be proof that her bloodline is no longer pure enough for her to be a Shadow Queen canidate.


    Maxine closed her eyes for a moment to prepare herself for whatever might happen and began her transformation. After it finished, she checked herself out and found some minor changes to her Shadow Lord form. She had two more opaline jewels appearing on her body. One was between her breasts and it was almost sitting evenly with her essence core. The other was just below her navel.


    She examined those two jewels with her spiritual sense and found out that the one between her breasts was exclusively drawing in essence, but the one at her navel wasn''t doing anything. She guessed that it was dormant. She checked the opaline jewel on her forehead to see if there were any changes and found it was only absorbing mana rather than the essence it was absorbing in the past.


    Before she could process what it all meant, her body was starting to change again as she noticed that her height was rapidly increasing. Damn it!I knew this was coming. Please don''t let me grow additional heads or any other extra limbs. ANYTHING but that!


    Maxine quickly looked at her hands while hoping that she wasn''t going to be looking at them from multiple perspectives and saw that her fingernails were changing into claws that appeared to have venom tracks. She waited for her transformation to finish and to her relief, no additional heads appeared. But something else became a very concerning. She felt a wieght on her lower back. She twisted her neck to look over her shoulder to find that she had serpentine tail covered intinyscales was forming where her back met her butt. It was a little over five feet long. Which was convienent since it was the same length as the tail of her draconic essence armor.


    She checked the rest of her body to find scales covered almost every inch of her skin except where she had hair. It was very upsetting, but still better than having extra heads.Well, I did say anything. Anyways, this form will require me to modify some very elastic clothing for my spar with those two if I intend to show off this form. I don''t want to end up naked infront of everyone. Now how tall am I right now? Too big of a difference in height could really mess with my sense of balance.


    She looked at herself with herraven to determine just how much taller she was than before. Based on what her raven observed, she was roughly four inches taller than before. Shit, I''m as tall as Maxwell in this state and this added height and weight has completely thrown off my sense of balance. Oh, well. It is just a matter of training to get used to this form. I hope it has improved my physical prowess considerably. Otherwise this will be a useless transformation. Fortunately for me, it only takes a minute or two to find out.


    She formed her essence armor to maintain her modesty in the off chance a villager was nearby and walked outside of the cave to lift up the five hundred pound boulder she uses for her morning exercises. It felt like it weighed half of what it did before. She put it back down and did a quick speed test using a stop watch. After running for a few hundred feet she checked the time.It appears that my physical strength and speed have doubled. That will be useful if I need brute strength.I wonder what else I have gained.Hmm, maybe I should check to see if I can spit acid. I remember reading it somewhere that hydras can do that.


    She walked back inside of the cave as shescanher mouth thoroughly for any kind of new glands using her spiritual sense and found what she was looking for. There were a series of new glands in her jaw and cheeks. She opened her mouth and tried to unleash an acid spray. Unfortunately she had no idea how. After about two minutes of experimenting by tensing certain muscles in her face, she finally managed to spray some acid onto the cave walls. Which caused them to immediately liquify into a greyish goo.


    "Hmm, what a nasty ability you have there," Hellen said approvingly via spiritual sense, "I doubt very few opponents would expect it something like that during a clash. Although higher level fights rarely have opponents that physically close to one another." The sudden sound startled Maxine and she quickly undid her transformation.


    "Jesus, mom. Don''t scare me like that," Maxine said and once she calmed down she said, "Why haven''t you been talking to me much the past few days?"


    "I''m sorry, sweetie. I have been chatting with your father at length through that portal you left open to Earth and it has left me rather drained," Hellen said via spiritual senseand instantly her voice became cheerful, "Besides that, your father is very close to being able to revive me."


    "And how many times has he said that in the past two years?" Maxine asked skeptically.


    "Six times," Hellen said via spiritual sense and her tone shifted to a hopeful one, "But this time, he was able to revive a small animal that was nothing but bones. It completely regenerated stayed alive for nearly a month. He even discovered the reason why it died off at the end and he only needs to run another series of tests before he will be satisfied that it will work on me."


    "That''s good news," Maxine said happily and was actually looking forward to having a Hellen physically there.


    "I can''t wait to have a body again," Hellen said eagerly and Maxine spent a full minute smiling before Hellen spoke again, "I saw that you enjoyed your day yesterday with Emily as well as with that boy, Maxwell."


    "Yeah, it was great to spend time with Emily," Maxine said with a smile on her lips, "So, I take it you know that I am going to spar with Maxwell and Patrick today?"


    "Yes, I do and I am wondering why you didn''t at least listen to Maxwell''s request," Hellen said, "He appeared to be somewhat desperate for your aide and it would have only cost you a few moments of your time." Hellen was right in the fact he seemd rather desperate. From what she knew, Maxwell should have backed off after being refused once, but yesterday he kept asking her repeatedly. It had to be something important and now that she had calmed down, she felt bad about how she treated him yesterday. She wanted to make it up to him this morning.


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    "I was angry at him yesterday," Maxine said, "But after sleeping on it, I realized I was being a bit of a bitch yesterday and I will make it up to him after breakfast."


    "Good, now you best head out. I believe breakfast should start in another five minutes and your clone has yet to get dressed," Hellen said.Maxine quickly got herself dressed and her clone into a fresh set of clothes before she switched her focus back to her clone.


    She left her bedroom and made her way to the Dining Hall and found that Maxwell and the others were already there eating breakfast. She thought it was odd that they would be up this early until she remembered the time difference was probably messing with thier sleep cycles.


    "Good morning," Maxine said to them as she sat down next to Emily.


    "Maxine, I''m begging you. Please, I really do need your help," Maxwell said via spiritual sense.And that makes four times he has asked me.


    "Can it wait until after breakfast?" Maxine asked via spiritual sense.


    "Yes, and thank you," Maxwell said before retracting his spiritual sense.


    Maxine was served what looked like slices of ham, but tasted like turkey, with a slice buttered toast and hashbrowns to go with it. Everyone else appeared to be eating a similar breakfast.


    Maxine knew that the meat came from an essence beast and the sides came from various essence enriched crops. All of it was used to hasten the rate of cultivation, but for the ambassador, all it would do is improve his overall health.


    "This meal looked just like a typical breakfast from Earth. I never knew your clan was so thoughtful in the food arrangements," Ambassador Sutton announced.


    "Well, the chefs have been garnering to my tastes since I arrived here," Maxine said, "It''s no surprise that grandma suggested that they make your breakfast similar to my own."


    "It is still appreciated, miss Kavros" Ambassador Sutton said, "By the way, when should I expect Victoria to awaken? There are still some things I wish to discuss with her."Yeah, I know you want to discuss the future trade terms with her. It won''t be much longer before Earth can start defending itself from essence beasts, if Maxwell and Patrick are signs of how strong everyone has gotten.


    "It''s Levings and grandma should be up In roughly an hour," Maxine said, "She isn''t quite the early riser that I am."


    "I see. Thank you," Ambassador Sutton said as he continued to eat his breakfast.


    Maxine quietly enjoyed her breakfast with Emily and left the Dining Hall to wait for Maxwell to see what he wanted her to do. She waited there for quite some time and began to wonder if he was getting some payback for her making him sweat it out over night, but quickly dismissed that since he seemed quite determined to talk to her. She had waited for half an hour before he finally left the Dining Hall.


    "Sorry for the wait," Maxwell said.


    "It''s alright," Maxine said, "Before you ask me to do anything I have to make something clear. If your request harms anyone in my family, I won''t do it."


    "It won''t," Maxwell said and he seemed to gather his thoughts. He stood there for nearly two minutes before Maxine got really impatient.


    "Well?" Maxine asked impatiently.


    "Oh, sorry. I got lost in my thoughts there for a second," Maxwell said, "If you had a sister would you do anything to help her?"


    "What''s with that question? Of course, I would help her, but the fact remains that I don''t have a sister," Maxine said, but she didn''t like where this conversation was going.


    "I think it''s easier if you tell her," Maxwell appeared to say more to himself than to her.


    "Hello," a voice nearly identical to her own resounded in her head via spiritual sense in the next instant.Oh, god. Guan, you crazy bastard. You actually did it.


    "Hello," Maxine said uncertianly via spiritual sense just in case her fears were wrong, "What is it that you need from me? But before that, what should I call you? It would be too confusing for everyone if we use the same name."


    "Good point. You can call me Orianna for now," the other Maxine said via spiritual sense, "As for what I want, you should already know that. Afterall we are essentially the same person."


    "You''re right. I do know what you want, but we need to talk to grandma before I can do anything. There are a few things we need to prepare in advance," Maxine said calmly via spiritual sense, but in truth, she felt that something was terribly wrong with this whole situation.She seems far tooreasonableto be the same crazy bitch that tortured Patrick for god knows how long. Not to mention the other stuff she did. It''s making it hard for me to believe that it''s really her.


    "Why do you need to talk with her? And what do you need to prepare? It would only take you a few hours to help me,"Orianna said via spiritual sense.


    "Don''t you think grandma and everyone else would find it a bit odd that I suddenly had a twin sister walking around? And what do we do about clothes and other necessities? I know you can use my clothes, but that won''t do for very long. Grandma wouldn''t allow it," Maxine retorted via spiritual sense, "If we don''t talk to her first and get things ready, it will only cause problems later."


    "I never considered those things,"Orianna said via spiritual sense.


    "Good," Hellen said happily via spiritual sense as she suddenly entered the conversation, "And don''t worry, I have already informed mother what is going on. Shewill have some arrangements forOrianna after Maxine''s sparring session with Maxwell and Patrick."Huh? That was too easy. I know grandma spoils me and trusts Hellen a lot, but I thought there would be some resistance at the appearance of an alternate timeline version of myself. It makes me wonder what Hellen told her.


    "Who is that?" Maxwell asked via spiritual sense.


    "Are ... are you my real mother?"Orianna asked cautiously via spiritual sense at the same time Maxwell asked his question and Hellen answered lovingly, "Yes, my beloved daughter."


    "Why?! Why did you and father abandon me and leave me with those... people?!" Orianna asked angrily and Maxine instantly felt sympathy for Orianna.


    "I didn''t have a choice in that matter," Hellen answered sadly, "My body has been dead for over one hundred years. You will have to ask your father. I don''t know his specific reasons, but it must have had something to do with ensuring that you were never found."


    "I''m sorry to interrupt, but there will be plenty of time for us to settle these things after I create a new body for you," Maxine said apologetically, "Maxwell doesn''t exactly have a lot of time. He has already been gone more than long enough to relieve his bladder."


    "You''re right," Orianna answered, "I just wanted to know."


    "I felt the same way when I found out how Guan was my real father," Maxine said, "But that doesn''t mean I will keep you in the dark. Once you have a nice fleshy body again, I will fill you in on why this shit happened to us."She is way too clear headed for me to understand what''s going on with her. Now that I think about it, she has essentially been sharing a body with a man that is in clearly love with her and not me. He just sees her through me. I guess it''s possible that situation could have reformed her.


    "Thank you," Orianna said via spiritual sense, "Maxwell, you have been so kind to me since I awoke last year. Is there anything I can do for you as repayment?"I definitely do not want to know what he will ask heras repayment. Mine and Maxwell''s personalities have deviated enough that I am not confident that I won''t hit him as soon as I hear it. Time to bail.


    "Well, I will leave you two to talk this out privately," Maxine said via spiritual sense to avoid that particular conversation as she started to walk to her room and reminded Maxwell, "Don''t forget about our sparring match." She was somewhat hesitant to make a new body for Orianna, but she didn''t know how much longerMaxwell''sbody could take housing Orianna''s soul before it started to rot. Just because his body was special didn''t mean it wouldn''t be affected by the presence of an additional soul within it. She really didn''t want her original family to go through watching Maxwelldie like that for any reason.The upside to helping her is that there shouldn''t be any problems for Orianna''s soul to bind to a clone. Afterall, it''s technically her clone too. On that note, it''s probably a good idea to make a clone for her that doesn''t have an essence core just in case she is just acting nice to get a body, but for grandma''s, Maxwell''s and Hellen''s sake, I really hope that she isn''t.

 Chapter 91

    Maxine was calmly walking to the amphitheater for her spar. It was grandma Victoria''s idea thatshe spar with Maxwell and Patrick there. It made sense since the projected forcefields would prevent accidental injuries. However for some reason,grandma Victoriaalso restricted the audience to the clan elders, Madam Neshan, and the ambassador''s group. Normally such an activity would be available to all to watch for entertainment if nothing else.


    Maxine just shrugged it off as something to do with politics, but she was fully aware of why Madam Neshan was present. It was most likely to determine if Orianna was insane or not. Even with Maxwell''s soul aura interfering with Orianna''s, Madam Neshan should be able to determine that with her special eyes.


    Before she left the mansion to come to the amphitheater, she had been concerned with what clothing could accomodate her new transformation, but she was able to find something. She was currently wearing a loose-fitting long shirt with loose-fitting pants that she had modified on the spot to allow for the tail to emerge without damaging or displacing her clothes. Fortunately, her clothes were made of very durable arachne silk, so it doubled up as a form of armor.


    Before she entered the amphitheater, she spotted Turan out of the corner of her eye as he approached her. What is he doing here and where has he been for the past couple years? I haven''t seen him even once since I have been in the Kavros Clan.


    "Greetings, Ms. Levings," Turan said politely.


    "Hello, Turan," Maxine responded politely even if she wanted to beat Turan half to death, "Where have you been?"


    "Here in your clan. Although, I arrived a month or two behind you," Turan answered and started to hand her a book of some kind, "I am here to apologize forall of the inconvenience that my people have caused you and to give you this." Inconvenience? Is that what he calls forcing me to leave Earth?! Maybe I should ''inconvenience'' him byripping off his balls.


    "You call what your people did to me an inconvenience?! I had to leave the planet of my birth because of their interference!" Maxine said in a tone that expressed every ounce of her anger while ignoring the book in his hand and paused as she tried to push down her rage, "Is there anything else?"


    "No, I may you enjoy the rest of your day," Turan answered with a smile as he set the book on the ground infront of her before he literately vanished into thin air, "Farewell, Miss Levings."Oh, so he knows Neesa''s trick of invisibility. I wonder how grandma will react to finding out he is hanging around.


    Maxine put the book that Turan left on the ground into her dimensional ring before she continued into the amphitheater and quickly made her way to the arena. She saw everyone there. Madam Neshan was next to Grandma Victoria and Ambassador Sutton was a talking to Patrick and Maxwell. Meagan, Jack and that strange young man that hated her were all together.


    However Maxine quickly notices that grandma Victoria looked to be on the verge of tears as Madam Neshan talked to her in hushed tones.I guess Madam Neshan just gave grandma a general idea what kind of shit Orianna has been through.It must be something really bad for grandma to be effected like that. I remember that she only angry when Hellen told her about my childhood, but not once did she shed a tear.


    After a short while, Madam Neshan patted grandma Victoria on the shoulder before leaving the amphitheater. Maxine didn''t know where Madam Neshan was going, but she guess it had something to do with helping the maids at the mansion to set up a suitable enviroment for Orianna.


    Maxinewanted to go up to her grandmother to comfort her, but was waved off by her."Focus on your sparring matches," grandma Victoria said via spiritual sense while trying to regain control of her emotions, "I will let you know what Madam Neshan told me about Orianna later. Be prepared. It won''t be pleasant to hear."


    Alright, grandma," Maxine answered via spiritual sense and saw a concerned ambassador Sutton making his way to grandma Victoria.


    Maxine looked away from grandma Victoria and took in what kind of equipment thatMaxwell and Patrick were wearing. They were both wearing defensive gear. Patrick was wearing plated armor of some kind. He had a kite shield on his back and a sword at his hip. Maxwell was decked out in leather armor and had four blades strapped to his body. Two were on his hip and the other two were on his back. The pair strapped across his back were the Twilight Iron Blades that she gave him.


    "So which of you wants to go first?" Maxine asked as she approached them.


    "I will," Patrick said calmly.Patrick is a heavily defensive fighter and he won''t attack me unless he is certain that an attack will land. That means I won''t get to find many openings.


    "Let''s have a nice match," Maxine said in a friendly tone to Patrick.


    "This isn''t just a sparring match and you know it," Patrick answered coldly.No, shit. It''s a political move by the ambassador. Hewants to prove that he has warriors capable of defending the people on Earth from essence beasts. It would allow Earth to start trading chocolate for other resources, but I don''t think they are ready yet. Their best fighters don''t necessarily reflect their capabilities as a whole.


    "That may be," Maxine said as she jumped into the arena, "But this is also an opportunity to sharpen your skills. Is it not?"


    Patrick let out an amused grunt before jumping into the arena himself, "That it is."


    They both took up their respective fighting stances with weapons in hand and activated their essence armor. Patrick''s essence armor had integrated with his armor, shield and sword. It formed a nice crystaline shell over all of his equipment.


    He stood his ground while watching Maxine from behind his shield. Maxine smiled to herself as she observed him for any openings, but he had none.I guess I will have to try and make one.


    "Fight!" the AI announced.


    Maxine charged at him and before she got close, she struck the ground to throw the debris from her strike at his face. He moved his shield to block it and she circled around him quickly to strike him from a blind spot. Unfortunately when she got close enough to hit him, she felt his spiritual sense. At that instant, he moved his shield to block her attack. Her blade bounced harmlessly off of it.It seems he hasn''t been slacking off in improving his defense.


    However before she could even retreat, ten small crystaline spikes formed onPatrick''s shield.Oh, shit!Maxine desperately tried to dodge as crystaline essence darts shot out of Patrick''s shield, but it was too little, too late. The majority of the darts were going to hit her if she didn''t do anything. She used her blades to deflect as many of them as she could, but three of them still hit her left shoulder and leg.Damn, that took me by surprise. He didn''t have that trick up his sleeve the last time that I saw him. It''s just good that I reacted quickly. If I hadn''t, he would have won. His crystaline essence darts can punch through my essence armorway too easily.


    Maxine decided to stop taking it easy as she channeled both of her essence and mana through her body to move swiftly around Patrick at greater speeds in an attempt to confuse him as well as avoid getting hit with a surprise attack again.


    She lashed out with one of her blades once in awhile to test how firm his defensive stance was and was blocked or parried every time. Getting past his defenses with speed won''t work. It looks like I will have to use more brute strength.


    She stopped circling Patrick and charged at him while keeping an eye on his shield in case of another sneak attack. She lashed out at full strength with both of her blades at him and he blocked like she expected. The force of the blow caused him to stagger which she took advantage of as she dropped down and swiped her leg to knock him down. He fell backwards as his feet wereswipedout from underneith him.


    She jumped into the air as he fell and unleashed a Crescent Moon Blitz with each of her blades. Even though he was falling, he was still able to block her attacks with his shield, but the lower part of his body still got hit. Surprisingly it wasn''t enough to beat him according to the AI.Well damn. That armor must be made of some good stuff.


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    Patrick tried to get backon his feet, but Maxine stopped him by using shadow tendrils to bind him to the ground. She didn''t dare get close since she didn''t know what other tricks he had come up with since she saw him last.


    She started unleashing Crescent MoonBladesone after another at him. Even with him using his shield to block half of her attacks, it didn''t take long for him to be teleported out of the arena. However using that attack so much had drained her essence and mana reserves down to half. If she was going to fight Maxwell immediately, she would have to fight him at half strength.I really wish my ordinary essence darts had more penetrating power like Patricks. Otherwise I wouldn''t have had to use so much of my essence and mana to beat him.


    "Winner, Maxine Levings," the AI announced.


    Maxine looked up at the stands and saw ambassador Sutton look somewhat pale and surprised. Apparently her vicious assault had been a bit too much for him to watch. "Amazing," ambassador Sutton said softly and he turned to grandma Victoria to ask, "Are all of your young warriors this ... effective?"


    "Oh, heavens no," grandma Victoria said as she had clearly recovered from earlier, "Maxine is my clan''s top young genius. There are perhaps two, maybe three, others in her age group that can put up a decent fight with her."


    "You must be very proud of her," ambassador Sutton said.


    "I am," grandma Victoria said with a smile, "But you should also be proud to have such a skilled young warrior yourself."


    "Thank you, but he still lost to your grand daughter," ambassador Sutton said.


    "Indeed, but this is the second time that I have actually seen hertake a hit that wasn''t blocked or deflected fromanyone. Which puts young mister Mason on par with my clan''s other geniuses," grandma Victoria said, "And he has a phenomenal defense. It''s been a very long time since I have seen anyone take such a beatingbefore they lost."


    "He is one of Earth''s best when it comes to defense," ambassador Suddon said proudly, "Now I am interested in seeing how she fairs against her next opponent. Maxwell is undoubtedly one of Earth''s topthree when it comes to offense."


    "Oh? That sounds interesting. Shall we find out which of them is better right now?" grandma Victoria asked.


    "We could, but doesn''t your grand daughter need time to recover her strength?" ambassador Sutton asked in return.


    "She might if she didn''t have a special method to restore her strength in a speedy manner," grandma Victoria said as she gave Maxine a look. Oh great. She knows that I can siphon essence from my constructs to restore my own, but even with my essence and mana cores fully charged,I honestly don''t know if I can beat Maxwell. He has the capacity to boost his strength to match a king-class being, but he may not be able to with Orianna''s soul inside of him. However I can''t count on that inhibiting him.


    Maxine siphoned mana from her main body and essence from her Shadow Wolves in order to restore her strength. She lamented that she couldn''t use this same method to cultivate to a higher level, but she wasn''t too upset over it. If anything, she was happy that it didn''t work that way. If cultivating was that easy, it wouldn''t be nearly as satisfying when she reached a new plateau of strength.


    Once she fully restored her strength, Maxine looked up at Maxwell and said, "I''m ready when you are, Maxwell."


    Maxwell jumped into the arena and said, "You know, I really miss hearing you call me Max like you did on Earth. Why do you have to be so formal all the damn time?"


    "Sorry, but I have to be formal. You are guests of my clan. It''s one of the drawbacks of being the patriarch''s grand daughter," Maxine answered apologetically and asked via spiritual sense, "Is my sister able to help you while you fight in any way?" It still felt wierd to her to call Orianna her sister, but she may as well get used to it. Afterall, they will be posing as twins as soon as Maxine makes her a body.


    "I can, but I won''t," Orianna replied via spiritual sense, "I thought I would let you two have a fair match." Now, she wondered how Orianna was actually able to help him. She only asked because she was considering the slight chance that Orianna could help him. However she had a feeling it had something to do with the extra blades Maxwell carried. Regardless she didn''t have time to think about it now.


    "Thank you," Maxine said via spiritual sense and continued verbally, "I want you to come at me with your full strength. I don''t want to win thinking that you didn''t come at me with your best."


    "Alright then. Just remember you asked for this," Maxwell replied with a confident smile as a fiery light grey arua erupted around him and the strength of his cultivation skyrocketed until he was seven times stronger than before.Damn. Even with my new transformation, I will still come up short by a single level strength wise, but I have more experience when it comes to fighting humans. That should make this a close one.


    "Impressive," Maxine praised Maxwell, "Now, it''s my turn to return the curtesy."


    She roared as she began to transform into her new form as she channeled both her essence and mana. As before, her height increased, her skin turned to a light grey, a tail sprouted out of her lower back, her fingernails turned into claws and scales started to appear over most of her body. Grandma Victoria wasat first alarmedat Maxine''s transformation, but a moment later she showed a pleased expression. Everyone else had a mixture of disbelief, fear and wonder plastered on their faces.


    "Ready?" the announcer AI asked and both of them nodded their heads as they held their blades in hand, "Fight!"


    Maxine charged first with her blades to either side of her body and Maxwell followed suite with his own charge. She knew that she had to take the initiative in this fight since Maxwell held the edge in raw power. She just hoped that he didn''t have an advantage over her when it came to speed. Otherwise she would loose horribly.


    However before they clashed, the blades strapped to Maxwell''s back flew out on their own and hurtled themselves at her.She was momentarily surprised, but that didn''t prevent her from reflexively deflecting the blades away. Unfortunately Maxwell''s tactic of distracting her worked and he was practically in her face with a weapon raised high while she appeared to be unprepared for him.


    Maxine smiled underneith the white mask of her essence armor as she lashed out at his gut with her tail. The strike wasn''t enough to send Maxwell flying. But it was enough to knock the wind out of him and force him to retreat a couple steps.This tail is quite useful in a fight.


    Maxine wanted to continue her counter attack, but Maxwell''s flying blades had returned forcing her to frantically defend against them. Those blades took up an orbiting attack pattern and forced her to hold her ground. she growled in frustration since these blades were buying time for Maxwell to recover from having the wind knocked out of him.Damn it. How the hell is he able to control those blades so well?! Did Orianna lie to me when she said she wouldn''t interfer?


    Once he recovered, Maxwell charged at Maxine once more and began to unleash a flurry of blows, which Maxine was barely able to defend against. Each strike she deflected or blocked against, whether it be from the flying blades or Maxwell''s own attacks, were making her arms slowly go numb. She knew that she couldn''t keep this up for much longer. She made the decision and created a bladed cyclone around herself to force Maxwell to retreat.


    She stared at him and got into a perfectly balanced stancewhileshe breathed in deeply. In the next moment, her blades began to change. The blade in her right hand turned pitch black while giving off a white aura and the blade in her left hand turned pearly white with a black aura. This was the effect of her mastery over the Yin Yang Blades technique and it granted her a boost to her offensive and defensive abilities. Unfortunately since she hadn''t completely mastered it, she couldn''t maintain it for very long, but that didn''t matter. She only needed it to help her withstand the force of Maxwell''s attacks during their next clash.


    Maxwell hesitated for a moment before he continued his assault. As before his two flying blades flew forward first with him following directly behind them. With a swipe of her left blade, she knocked both of his flying weapons to the side andstepped forwardas she lashed out with her right blade at Maxwell''s chest.


    As Maxwell blocked her attack with one of his blades and readied the other one to counter attack, Maxine formed a cluster of essence darts at the end of her tail. As his blade cleaved at her head, she smashed her tail to the side of his blade to divert his attack and aimed the tip of her tail at Maxwell''s stomach before firing all of the essence darts at once.


    Maxwell was teleported out of the arena, but not before his attack hit her shoulder. The force of that blow made her knees buckle and she knelt downon her hands and knees to keep from hitting the ground. Although the AI recognized that she won, it felt more like a draw to her. Her attack would have been enough to kill Maxwell had this been a life and death battle, but his attack would have left her in critical condition. Even factoring in her regenerative abilities and that she would be using the best healing potions, it would have taken her at least a full day to heal up enough just to leave the battle ground.


    Maxine didn''t listen to what the AI or what anyone else was saying as she got back to her feet and undid her transformation. While her body shrank back into it''s normal proportions, she was only going over the fight with Maxwell in her head to see where she could improve. Unfortunately aside from becoming more powerful or abusing the use of her constructs, there was nothing more she could have done.Well, at least I know Maxwell has the strength to protect those important to him.


    "Maxine? Are you alright?" grandma Victoria asked via spiritual sense, "You have been standing there for several minutes."


    "Yeah, I am fine," Maxine responded via spiritual sense, "I was just going over my match with Maxwell in my head and trying to find a way to improve."


    "That''s just like you, but you nearly gave ambassador Sutton a heart attack due to your immobility. He was afraid that Maxwell had actually hurt you somehow even with the forcefield up," grandma Victoria said in amusement via spiritual sense.


    "I don''t blame him for being concerned, but let him know that I am fine," Maxine said via spiritual sense and decided to ask, "By the way, when do you want me to make Orianna her body?"


    "As soon as you have recovered enough strength to do it," grandma Victoria said via spiritual sense, "Orianna has been living within Maxwell''s body for long enough."


    "Alright, grandma," Maxine answered via spiritual sense, "And you can tell me what Madam Neshan said about Orianna in the mean time."

 Chapter 92

    Maxine was meditating in her room to recover her essence and mana while waiting for grandma Victoria to arrive and shehad insisted that they talk about what Orianna went through in private. It made Maxine very concerned for Orianna''s mental state. If it was too bad, Madam Neshan might not be able to rehabilitate Orianna.


    When Maxine was nearly back to full strength, grandma Victoria came into her room. She looked like she was extremely stressed. "Maxine, I''m sorry for taking so long. The preparations for Orianna''s revival took me longer than I anticipated," grandma Victoria apologized, "I just want to knowsomething before Itell you anything. How much do you know about what happened to Orianna? I know Guan wouldn''t have left you entirely in the dark."


    "I know she suffered similarly to me during her childhood and I know that she turned into a monster that murdered and tortured people for fun," Maxine admitted, "What I don''t know is what caused her to become like that, but I know it had to be something bad for Guan not to tell mom what it was."I really wish I hadn''t read Guan''s notes on that. Those that have damaged or broken souls go insane, but very few of them became violent. Those few suffered an extreme psychological trauma.


    "You are not wrong," grandma Victoria said as she took a seat on Maxine''s bed.


    "What happened to her?" Maxine asked.


    "Madam Neshan wasn''t able to give me any specifics on the events in her life. She couldn''t even tell me how old she was when these events happened or in what order. But what she managed to glean from Orianna''s aura is very upsetting," grandma Victoria said and her voice started to tremble as she continued, "Orianna saw both of her parents being murdered. She was starved, beaten and raped frequently for a portion of her life. But the event that hurt her the most was... was when her baby was murdered."WHAT?! She had a baby?!How the hell did Guan allow that shit to happen?! No, he wouldn''t allowed anything like that to happen to Orianna or her baby if he could help it. He must have brokenthrough to the next stageand ascended to another plane in that timeline. Or he died. I really don''t want to think about that line of thought. I can''t imagine who or what would be able to kill him. Not unless a god descended and decided that Guan needed to die for some reason. I wonder why something like that hasn''t happened in this timeline.


    As grandma Victoria broke out into tears, Maxine hugged grandma Victoria comfortingly and felta memory deep within her mind kindle to life. It was when she was still Maxwell Adams and it had beenmore than five years after the essence beasts hordes started appearing. Their group had captured a band of ruthless raiders for their bounty and there had been an insane girl clutching the mangled corpse of an infant in the bandit''s den. She had been too filthy for Maxine to remember her face clearly. But she had remembered that it had been Patrick who found her and carried her out of that place.I still feel no regret for decapitating each one of those bastards, even though it lowered the bounty we could collect. I just couldn''t stand the thought of those twisted, baby killingbastards living for another second. It''s too bad Patrick''s kind intentions got him marked by Orianna.


    "And what else?" Maxine asked even though she knew what grandma Victoria hadn''t said.


    "She became obsessed with someone. Her rescuer, I''m guessing.I don''t know why, butshe murdered and tortured many people. Someone must have sought vengeance against her her actions and she died by being burned to death," grandma Victoria said. Huh? That''s surprising. I know Chris fought her, but he never directly said that he beat her.


    "Is she still crazy?" Maxine asked cautiously after afew minutesof silence.


    "Yes, but according to Madam Neshan, she is not as bad as she was beforeher original body died," grandma Victoria said quietly, "The time she has been within Maxwell has been good for her."


    "Good, that means she can be helped," Maxine said and wanted to change the subject, "Is everything ready?"


    "It will be after lunch. Have you recovered your strength?" grandma Victoria asked with a depressed tone.


    "Enough to make a body for Orianna," Maxine said confidently.


    "Good," grandma Victoria said and wiped the tears from her eyes as she got to her feet, "I will entertain ambassador Sutton until lunch."


    Grandma Victoria left her room and Maxine went to look for Emily. While she looked around, she thought about what to do with Orianna and Maxwell.I better make sure those two keep their pants on after Orianna''s revival. Orianna is clearly still too unstable for anything like that and I doubt she would even be willing to do anything of that nature considering what grandma told me.


    Her train of thought was disrupted when saw Emily. Unfortunately she was with Meagan and as soon as Meagan saw Maxine, she gave Maxine an angry glare.Uh, what did I do? I thought we were on good terms the last time we spoke, but that was before I left Earth. I wonder what changed.


    "I see that Maxine is here," Meagan said coldly, "I will leave you two alone to talk."


    "May I ask what I have done to make you so angry, Meagan?" Maxine asked before Meagan could walk away.


    "You are the daughter of that bastard who caused all of this shit to happen to Earth. Do I need any other reason?" Meagan growled.I washoping that Meagan wouldn''t bethat kind of person.


    "You and I both know I had no choice on who my parents are," Maxine said sadly, "It''s not like I asked to be his daughter and don''t my actions to help Earth count for anything?"


    "Bullshit, you weren''t helping Earth," Meagan snapped, "You were helping yourself and you ran like a coward when you found out that the truth of your origins would be revealed."She isn''t wrong. Most of my motivations are selfish. I just didn''t want to see my current or previous familyor friends die just because some assholes wanted to capture me. By helping Earth, I was indirectly helping everyone that I cared about. But she is wrong about one point.


    "You''re right. I ran, but you are also wrong. I didn''t run just to save myself. I did it to save everyone," Maxine answered and when Meagan looked confused, she added, "Guan has a lot of enemies that just want to see him hurt and even more people that want to control him through me.Do you think any of them would even hesitate for a second to turn Earth into agraveyardjust to get their hands on me? I doubt that anything bigger thansingle celled organismwould survive and that''s assuming Earth is in any condition to sustain life at all."


    "What?" Meagan said surprise and seemed to regain her senses a moment later, "You''re lying."


    "What reason do I have to lie? Or do you seriously think that I am afraid of ordinary human soldiers? I''m practically bullet proof at this point and anything short of a railgun or nuke won''t do any real damage. Although it would still sting if I were to get shot," Maxine explained and continued with a series of questions, "And did it ever strike you as oddhow the Shadow Lords notified the nations of Earth about how essence was introduced toit and my heritage in the same statement without it benefiting them in some way?"


    "I''ve always wondered why they did that," Emily asked, "It didn''t make any sense to me. That announcement would onlyantagonize Guan and nothing else."


    "It made sense to them. They wanted my bloodline to evolve and theybelieved that a great need such as survival would have been a great trigger for such an evolution," Maxine explained.


    "That''s ridiculous, but how do you explain your recent transformation," Emily asked.


    "That transformation is the result of my bloodlines fusing together and had nothing to do with the interference of the Shadow Lords," Maxine said and she remembered how it made her look, "But I have to admit, I''m not a big fan of how it makes me look."


    "No kidding. I can''t imagine how unsettling it is to watch your fingers change into claws," Meagan commented, "Or having a tailgrow out of your back."


    "I agree with you Meagan. No matter how useful that tail of hers is, it''s unsettling just to imagine having one," Emily agreed.


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    Maxine was confused for a moment.What? No mention of the scales or my skin color change? Although in Emily''s case, she wouldn''t mention the skin color change since she has seenmy Shadow Lord formbefore.She suddenly remembered that she had been wearing essence armor the whole time while transformed and it had prevented everyone from seeing her skin.


    "That isn''t theworst of it. I also get these snake-like scales covering almost every inch of my bodye once I transform," Maxine admitted, "You two just didn''t see it while I had my essence armor on."


    "Oh, damn," Meagan commented while Emily asked, "Could you show us?"


    Maxine looked at Emily with surprise for a momentbefore she shrugged her shoulders, "Sure, why not?" Since she still hadn''t changed out of the clothes that she used for the sparring matches, she didn''t see a problem and she transformed.


    AsEmily''s eyes widened with wonder, she reached out and touched Maxine''s now scale covered hand. However Meagan had retreated a few steps nervously. "Your scales areso smooth that I can''t feel the gap between your scales," Emily commented, "It''s almost like running my fingers across silk."


    "Really?" Maxine asked.


    "Yeah," Emily said softly as she started rubbing the back of Maxine''s left hand in earnest and Maxien noticed that Emily''s hands were drifting dangerously close to her claws.


    "Be careful of my claws," Maxine warned Emily, "I think they may be envenomned. I haven''t had a chance to confirm that yet and I rather not find outby accidently scratching you." Shechecked her claws with her spiritual sense to see if there was actually venom on themjust in case. Unfortunately, there was venom along the edges of her claws, but she had no idea how lethal it was. I better be careful of these things in the future.


    "Oh, then I better stop then before that happens," Emily said.


    Meagan''s stomach growled without warning making the both of them to turn to face her. "I guess it is time for lunch," Maxine announced and reverted back to normal, "Let''s go get something to eat."


    The three of them went to the Dining Hall and were served a pasta. While they ate, grandma Victoria and ambassador Sutton arrived with everyone else. There wasn''t much of a conversation while they ate lunch, but as Maxine finished her lunch, grandma Victoria gave her a look.


    "Everything is prepared. Madam Neshan is waiting for us in the shielded guest room. Maxwell will meet us there," grandma Victoria said via spiritual sense and Maxine nodded her head in acknowledgement.


    She knew where that room was. She had been to it once before. It was one of the innermost rooms meant for special guests such as visiting elders from other clans or sects and that room was shielded against spiritual sense.It seems grandma wants to make this as quiet as possible if things go badly.


    "I have to go, Emily," Maxine said, "I have something that I need to take care of."


    "Alright, take care," Emily said and Maxine left the Dining Hall.


    She quickly made her way to the shielded guest room. She could have sworn that she saw Boreas while she was on her way there out of the corner of her eye, but when she looked, he wasn''t there. Inside of the room, she found a waiting Madam Neshan within it and saw that a strange arraywas drawn on the floor. It spaned almost the entire room. Maxine looked at Madam Neshan with a raised eyebrow.


    "It''s to restrain Orianna from hurting herself or anyone else in the event that she is worse off than I thought," Madam Neshan explained.So, she is just as cautious as I am.


    "I understand," Maxine saidas she took a seat in chair and took note of a set of clothes laid out on the bed.


    A short while later, grandma Victoria walked into the room with Maxwell following directly behind her. "So, what dowe need to do?" Maxwell asked.


    "You need to put this on andnot use your spiritual sense while in this room," Madam Neshan said as she tossed him a blindfold and Maxwell looked confused, "The blindfold is to keep you from ogling Orianna."


    "Oh, right," Maxwell said as he quickly put on the blindfold, "Now what?"


    "Just stand right here," Madam Neshan said as she had him stand in a corner on the outside edge of the array, "Maxine and myself will handle the rest. Just a reminder: When I remove her soul from your body, both of you will feel like you have just lost a limb since the both of you have shared a body for so long and you will probably experience at least some pain. To minimize this, the two of you must remain calm and allow me to retrieve Orianna. If you don''t, the pain that you experience will only be more intense." Maxwell nodded his head in understanding.


    Maxine took it as her cue to summon her main body to the room. She couldn''t make a body for Orianna with a clone. She needed blood from her main body to use as a base. It worked under the same concept as making copies. Making a copy of a copy resulted in certain details being lost or corrupted.


    She switched her focus to her main body and slashed open her hand using a knife made of essence. She used her essence to telekenetically catch her blood and create a ball of it. Next, she drew out as much essence as she could from her constructs as she began building a body for Orianna.Since she wasn''t using an essence core as it''s center, it would required much more concentration and essence to create a body for Orianna than it did to make a clone using an essence core.


    Maxine felt her essence and a large portion of her blood being drained rapidly out of her body as Orianna''s body was beginning to form. First askeleton began to form followed by the internal organs and muscles. Finally skin started to coatOrianna''snewly formed body.


    At that moment, the array came to life as Madam Neshan pulled Orianna out of Maxwell and placed her into her new body.Maxwell acted as if someone gut punched him and he fell to his knees while hugging his gut. However Maxine wasn''t paying much attention to him since she was almost completely focused on applying the finishing touches to Orianna''s body. She had just enough essence remaining to grow out a full head of hair for Orianna. However the hair that grew out of Orianna''s head was black instead of Maxine''s silver grey hair or her original brown hair.That''s odd. Did I mess up somewhere? No matter. A difference of hair color is a minor thing. The rest of her appears to be identical to myself.


    A second later, Orianna''s eyes started to flutter open. She sat up and nervously reached up to touch her face.Her fingers explored the surface of her face and started to shed tears. "I finally have a body again!" Orianna shouted joyfully.


    Maxine smiled happily even though she was about to collapse from blood loss and exhaustion. She was happy to see that Orianna''s reaction was what she had expected.


    Grandma Victoria rushed over to pickOrianna up and hugged her gently with tears in her eyes.Maxine walked weaklyto them and joined in the hug to make Orianna feel more loved.


    After an unknown amount of time, Maxwell broke the atmosphere by asking, "Can anyone tell me what''s going on? Kind of in the dark here."


    "They are enjoying a familial embrace, young man," Madam Neshan said and when Maxwell started to reach for his blindfold, Madam Neshan grabbed his wrist, "Don''t even think about taking that off. Orianna is not decent yet."Grandma Victoria and Maxine finally released Orianna so that she could helpher to get dressed.


    However as soon as they released Orianna from their embrace, Maxine felt an overwhelming fear and her heart beat accelerate rapidly as Orianna''s gaze landed on Maxwell. She only blinked and in that time, Orianna''s face had twisted intoa terrifying smile full of obsession and madness.


    Maxine''s entire body started to tremble on an instinctive level as she momentarily hallucinated that Orianna was covered in blood. What is wrong with me?! Orianna has the body of an ordinary sixteen year old girl. I can literately rip her apart with my bare hands.So, why?! Why am I so terrified even though she isn''t even looking at me?!She glanced at grandma Victoria while trying to keep Orianna within her sight and she saw alesser form of her ownfear in her grand mother''s eyes.


    Neesa and her sisters appeared out of thin air with weapons drawn, but Maxine could see their weapons trembling ever so slightly. Orianna ignored them as she continued to look at Maxwell with that terrifying smile.


    Madam Neshan placed herself between Orianna and Maxwell, but Maxwell whispered something to Madam Neshan that caused her to move aside. He got up off the ground and slowly walked into the array with open arms while saying, "Orianna, I don''t know what happened to you. You never talked about it the few times that I asked, but I still accept and love you. So there is no reason to scare or hurt anyone. Because there is no way I would ever want to be with anyone other than you." The terrifying smile on Orianna''s facetransformed to a warm and gentle one as tears began to flow down her cheeks once more.Huh? My fear disappeared. It seems Maxwell''s speech worked to calm Orianna down. Now why were Madam Neshan and Maxwell as afraid as me and grandma? I need to figure out why later.


    Oriannabarely managed to walk a handful of steps to reach Maxwell''s open arms and she planted a kiss on his lips beforeburied her face into his shoulder as Maxwell''s arms closed around her. Although Maxine was grateful that Maxwell calmed Orianna down, it bothered her that Orianna was naked in his embrace.Grandma, why the hell are you allowing this?!


    As if on cue, grandma Victoria coughed awkwardly and said in an authoritive tone, "You need to get dressed, young lady."


    "Can I stay like this for a little longer?" Orianna pleaded.


    "Absolutely not. If you two were married, hugging him in your current state of dress wouldn''t be an issue, but you two are not," grandma Victoria asserted.Good job, grandma. Now you have put that idea of marriage into her head. It''s only a matter of time now.I need to make sure we are not spiritually connected on any level before then.


    "Okay," Orianna pouted and gave Maxwell a kiss on the cheek before she parted from his embrace.


    Maxwell was taken out of the room by Madam Neshanwhile grandma Victoria and Neesa blocked the view from anyone trying to peer in the room from the hallway. Since Orianna appeared as if she was about to fall over due to lack of balance, Maxine quickly moved to help her to the bed and to get her dressed.It figures that she needs my help to do this sort of thing. She has been without a body of her own for so long that she has forgotten how tokeep her balance enough to walk.


    While she helped Orianna get dressed, Maxine had a strange feeling that she was forgetting something.OH! The book that Turan left me. I still need to look through that just in case it''s something important, but thatdamn thing can wait. For now, I need to spend time with Orianna using my main body. It wouldn''t be right to do otherwise. It''s not like she has the ability to hurt me and it allows my clone to keep up appearances in the meantime.

 Chapter 93

    It had been roughly three days since Orianna''s revival. Grandma Victoria had quietly informed all of the maids about Orianna during that time, but she didn''t tell them the truth of where Orianna came from. She had told them that Jenifer Krell had found her by accident duringher most recent assignments off world. It made sense since Jenifer had just gotten back from assessing the progress of the culture on a world at the edges of the Kavros Clan''s territory.


    During those past three days, Angela, grandma Victoria and a few female other relatives that Maxine didn''t even know she had came to visit Orianna to see how she was doing. However, all of her male relatives were all banned from entering her room for the time being. Madam Neshan had cautioned them that since Orianna had a body now that she might have a powerful reaction to the presence of any man, besides Maxwell. Unfortunately she wasn''t able to specify what kind of reaction that it would be. She could scream in terror or become extremely violent.


    To ensure that Orianna remained at ease, Maxine kept her main body with her at all times, so that both herself and Hellen could be there for Orianna. And through their combined encouragement,Orianna was able to walkproperly within two days.


    Unfortunately, Maxine wasn''t able to find time to spend with Emily due to focusing her efforts to caring for Orianna. Let alone to read the book Turan left her, but when she finally managed to read it''s contents, she found it contained all of the variations that the Shadow Lord form can take. However the part describing the appearance of a Shadow Queen or King caused her some concern. It''s appeareance was almost identical to her own Shadow Lord form, but thankfully she had never used her Shadow Lord form where anyone could see.


    In that section, the book described the many possible abilities of the Shadow Queen/King. Some of them she had like her ability to recreate any kind of essence and others she did not such as the ability to control someone like a puppet through their shadow.However the ability that the Shadow Lordshoped for the most was the ability to summon one of their ancestors that had ascended to a higher plane. It made sense for them to hope for that. It would practically ensure their dominance within this plane of existence if they had a deity stage cultivator leading them. However she found a missing page where it was going to describe what might happen to the summoner once their ancestor was summoned.Yeah, that''s suspicious as fuck. I am definitely not going to reveal my Shadow Lord form. Although I may not have that ability, but it''s better to be cautious. However, this was clearly not the reason Turan gave her this book, so she continued to read.


    She was startled when reached the later half of the book and she found that nearly an eighth of the it was dedicated to identifying and methods of elimination of what they called a Shadow Demon. It was a mutation ofthe Shadow Lord bloodline triggered by extreme emotional traumathat would normally cause insanity. Is this what happened to Orianna?This mutation forces mana, ki and essence to combine in a single core to create a new form of energy. This new energy is highly unstable, but overwhelmingly powerful. It wasn''t very specific on how strong, but it hinted that a Shadow Demon is quite possibly as powerful, if not more, as a Shadow Queen/King. Unfortunately, the unstable nature of this new energy errodes what sanity the Shadow Demon has left and changes them into a vicious and cruel psychopath. What made matters worse is that the mere presence of a Shadow Demon will cause a constant effect similar to dragon fear on anyone possessing the Shadow Lord bloodline. So, she was a Shadow Demonand never will be again as long as I can help it. To do that, I need to keep Maxwell hereto ensure that since he has asstabilizing effect on Orianna.


    Before Maxine put the book away, a small piece of paper fell out from it. Hmm? What''s this? It looks like amessage from Turan.


    ''I only gave you this book to you so hand it to your grandparents. They need to find the developing Shadow Demon within your clan. I would have given it to them myself, but they are more likely to kill me than to listen to anything I have to say. Believe me when I say that this creature does not need your pity and compassion. When you find it, kill it without mercy. For it will not show you any. -Turan.'' is what themessage said. Turan can go fuck himself. I will not allow him to kill off Orianna. She has suffered enough as it is.


    Maxine really didn''t like Turan in the first place, but this cinched it. However she still needed to find a reason to keep Maxwell at the Kavros Clan and she knew that she would need to reveal the contents to at least grandma Victoria if she was going to accomplish that task. It was necessary to keep Orianna''s mental state stable.


    Maxine used her spiritual sense to search the medicinal gardens. Thankfully that place was within range and she was able to find grandma Victoria. She had taken ambassador Sutton there to show off their wealth.


    [Grandma, Orianna needs Maxwell to stay,] Maxine said abruptly via spiritual sense.


    [Why do you say that? She has been fine so far without him constantly coddling her,] Grandma Victoria answered.


    [I found this information in a book that my Shadow Lord observer gave to me,] Maxine said as she sent the information regarding Shadow Demons to grandma Victoria. For a moment, Maxine could sense grandma Victoria''s intenseconcern even from here. However she quickly calmed down.


    [Do you think Oriannawill become a Shadow Demon?] grandma Victoria asked with an unnatural calm.


    [Not as long as she keeps getting better, and that''s why we need Maxwell to stay. You saw the stabilizing effect he had on hera few days ago,] Maxine explained.


    [How do you suggest we keep him here? Maxwell is one ofEarth''s best warriors. They are unlikely to agree toarequest that he stay for any length of time,] grandma Victoria said.


    [Ambassador Sutton would agree in a heartbeat if you told him that Oriannahas strong feelings for Maxwell. The prospect of a stronger alliance through the use of the marriage between those two would be too tempting for him to pass upand it would at least get him to stay here for an additional month or two,] Maxine said.


    [Hmm, I believe you are right, but how would I explain how Orianna met Maxwell in the first place? We can''t simply say that Maxwell was housing Orianna''s soul up until a few days ago. He wouldn''t believe it. Even Boreas had a hard time accepting it when I told him,] grandma Victoria reasoned.Hmm, good point.


    [Just say that Oriannainsisted on meeting him after she saw a recording of my match with Maxwell,] Maxine suggested.


    [Thatmight work, but it would bring up other questions. However those are easily dealt with. Is there anything else?] grandma Victoria asked.


    [Nothing right now, but I will be taking Orianna into your flower gardenin thirty minutes or so with Madam Neshan. Keeping her indoors all the time isn''t good for her mental health. Is there any chance Maxwell will make an appearance? Orianna has been asking if she could see him,] Maxine said..


    [I''ll see what I can do, but no promises, Maxine,] grandma Victoria said before gently cut off their spiritual sense connection.


    Maxine switched her full focus back to her main body as her clone started to make it''s way to Orianna''s room.She intended to take Orianna out for a walk with her main body to make her feel more secure on the chance they encountered a man along the way.


    Orianna was currently extremely bored while sitting on the bed. There were only so many activites and games that they could do in a room. "Madam Neshan, can we take Orianna for a walk through the botanical gardens a little later?" Maxine asked and saw that Orianna perked up considerably.


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    "Of course, a bit of fresh air will do her some good, but as you know, I will have to accompany you two," Madam Neshan said.


    "Yay!" Orianna shouted joyously as she energetically bounced out of the bed.


    "Before that, we need tomake you more presentable," Maxine stated as she looked over Orianna. Herhair was in some disarray and she was wearing a very wrinkled dress. It didn''t bother Maxine or Madam Neshan when she was just around them, but it was completely unacceptible for going outside.


    Orianna quickly opened up the wardrobe and picked out a dark blue satin dress. After she got it on, Maxine helped her brush and style her hair. Unfortunately, the only thing Maxine knew how to do correctly was a braid, but it didn''t feel right ot force Orianna to have the same hair style. Thus she left the majority of Orianna''s hair hang loose as she made two small braids that started at Orianna''s temples were joined together with a hair tie near the base of her skull. As a finishing touch, she pinned the Kavros clan''s symbol on the hair tie. Aftershe was done,Maxine guided Orianna over to a full length mirror to let her see what she looked like.


    Maxine saw herself in the mirror just before Orianna did. She was wearing a high necked dark green dress.I really wish I hadn''t let Orianna talk me into wearing this damn thing. It makes me feel like a medieval nobleman''s daughter and to top it off, I can''t use my legs to fight while wearing this without flashing them my panties. Although I have to admit, it looks good on me.


    "I look amazing. Thank you," Orianna said after she saw herself in the mirror and hugged Maxine breifly, "When will we be going?"


    "As soon as my clone gets here," Maxine answered, "Which should be in a few more seconds." Once her clone arrived, it switched places with Maxine and the three of them went for their walk.


    On the way, Hellen came out of her resting state and exclaimed, [Oh, my! The both of you are dressed up quite beautifully. Where are we headed?]I am only wearing this dress because Orianna wanted me to.


    [We are going to the botanical gardens for some fresh air and meet up with grandma there,] Maxine answered while keeping Orianna in on the conversation.


    "And maybe Maxwell too right?" Orianna chimed in with a hopeful expression on her face.It''s a small miracle that she can be positive about anything after the hell that she has been through.


    "Yes, he might be there. No promises though. He is one of ambassador Sutton''s bodyguards afterall and might not be able to come if the ambassador doesn''t," Maxine answered.


    "He still might be there though," Orianna said happily with a smile. Her positivity was so infectious that Maxine ended up smiling as well. Even Madam Neshan chuckled lightly.


    [It''s so good to see you smile, Orianna. You have no idea how much joy it brings me to see it,] Hellen said happily.Orianna opened her mouth to reply, but her mouth froze half way open asher complexion immediately turned pale. The next instant she hid behind Maxine.


    Maxine tracked Orianna''s line of sight roughly and saw Boreas roughly thirty feet away with a concern written all overhis face.God damn it. I can appreciate that he is worried about her, but I was intentionally taking a roundabout route to avoid any men. I didn''t account for him hiding from my spiritual sense. I thought grandma told him to stay away from her for the time being. Fucking moron.But still, it seems Madam Neshan was right. Although, I was expecting that she would flip out and scare the shit out of me again instead of this. I am not complaining but still it makes me wonder why she is showing fear.


    Maxine gave Boreas an angry glare before turning around to calm Orianna. Madam Neshan was a step ahead of her and was already soothing Orianna, "That''s just your grandfather, Orianna. He just wanted to see if you were alright. Nothing more. He isn''t going to hurt you."


    "Please, make him go away," Orianna begged in a weak voice while trembling.


    "He left already when he saw that he upset you," Madam Neshan replid calmly.


    "Really?" Orianna asked as she checked over Maxine''s shoulder and she seemed to calm down, "Can we keep going to the gardens?"


    "Yes, we can. Just know that if Maxwell is there, he may be accompanied by other men," Madam Neshan cautioned, "Are you sure you still want to go?"


    "Yes," Orianna asserted.Orianna is either a phenominal actor orher love for Maxwell is overriding her fear.


    "Alright," Maxine said and gently took Orianna''s hand as Madam Neshan lead the way.


    They werefar more careful this time and avoided everyone on their way to the botanical gardens. It took them nearly three times as long to get there, but they still managed. It was fortunate that the botanical gardens quite close to the mansion. Otherwise the chances of encountering other people would have risen exponentially.


    Once inside, Maxine retracted her spiritual sense. There was no need for it since there were almost no men within the botanical gardens. It was an unspoken rule that men were not allowed unless they were accompanying a woman on a date. However normally such things happened later in the day so Maxine was safe to relax for a while.


    Orianna was looking around with wide eyes at the various plants all around them and her eyes finally settled on a blue flower shaped oddly like a teardrop, "What''s that flower called?"


    "Aqua''s Tear," Madam Neshan said.


    "It''s beautiful. Can I have one in my room?" Orianna asked.


    "I''m afraid not, child. Your clan only has three of those flowers within these botanical gardens due to how difficult they are to cultivate," Madam Neshan said.


    "Couldn''t I just pick one and keep it in my room until it wilts?" Orianna asked.


    "You could try, but you would most likely get your hand burnt in the attempt. It''s protected by a barrier from all but the insects and small birds that pollenate it," Madam Neshan said, "It is used to preserve the plants in their natural state as much as possible."


    "Oh," Orianna said disappointedly and started walking down a path that was lined with various flowering plants and small trees. Maxine and Orianna followed behind her.


    Orianna wandered around the botanical gardens for quite some time. Maxine wasn''t sure how long she followed Orianna for, but eventually she heard grandma Victoria''s voice in the distance slowly approaching them. Orianna had apparently heard her and showed a smile as she started to quicklywalk in that direction.


    Maxine scanned ahead with her spiritual sense and saw that ambassador Sutton was withgrandma Victoria along with all of his bodyguards. She quickly caught up with Orianna and grabbed her shoulder gently to remind her that she was there.


    "Now this area has some lovely tropical plants from a planet called ''Tolekan'' by it''s inhabitants. As you can see, these particular plantshave peculiarcolorations compared to any other plants within the botanical gardens," grandma Victoria said as she came into sight.


    Orianna flinched in fear when she saw ambassador Sutton, but seemed to gain courage when her eyes landed on Maxwell. She appeared to have some internal conflict before she started running to Maxwell. Maxine followed behind Orianna with Madam Neshan beside her.


    "Maxwell!" Orianna shouted happily just before she hug tackled him. Maxwell hugged her to his chest happily as Orianaburied her face into his shoulder. Ambassador Sutton looked at her curiously,and did a sudden double take when he noticed Maxine.


    "Victoria, is this your other grand daughter, Orianna?" ambassador Sutton asked cautiously after he recoveredbut he failed to notice that Orianna was trembling slightly in Maxwell''s embrace.


    "Yes, this is Orianna. I''m actually quite surprised to see herout of her room. She hasn''t left it since we found her," grandma Victoria said.


    "Since you found her? When was that, if I may ask?" ambassador Sutton asked.


    "Quite recently, the place my clansmen found her at was quite far from here by your standards. It was not the most pleasant of places.The things thatshe witnessed there caused her to beabsolutely terrified of men," grandma Victoria said sadly andMaxine finally noticed that Patrick was sweating heavily with his eyes glued to Orianna''s figure. Oddly, Meagan was also looking at Orianna nervously.Hmm? I can sort of understand why Patrick is having an issue. He might on some level realize it''s the same person that tortured him in the other timeline. But whyis Meagan having a similar reaction?


    "That is quite unfortunate," Ambassador Sutton said.


    "Yes, it is," grandma Victoria said, "And that is the reason that I''m overjoyed that she took such a keen interest in Maxwell. He is likely the key to removing her fear of men altogether. If she had not met him, she may have very well stayed in her room for years before venturing out of it."


    "As I told you before, I have to contact Earth before I can authorize Maxwell staying here, but I will do my best to convince my world''s leaders of the merits behind that course of action. Now I would love for you to explain to me why this particular plant is purple," ambassdor Sutton said as he walked a short distance away with grandma Victoria. Maxwell and Emily were the only two that stayed behind with Maxine and Madam Neshan.


    Orianna appeared to appreciate the fact that the ambassador decided to give her some space as did Maxine. It gave her an opportunity to be near Emily.


    Maxine walked up to Emilywhile smiling,but before she could do anything, Emily gave her a glare before she practically yelled at her via spiritual sense, [Why didn''t you tell me that you had a twin sister?!]


    [It''s not like I didn''t want to tell you. I have just been so busy taking care of her that I just couldn''t find the time. Do you forgive me?] Maxine said apologetically as she hugged Emily''s waist.


    [Alright, but you will be telling me all about her later,] Emily insisted and Maxine only nodded her head in assent. Maxine felt the eyesof several people looking at them, but she didn''t care if they saw her being intimate with Emily. She just wanted to be next to Emily with her real body for a change.

 Chapter 94

    Maxine spent several hours touring through the botanical gardens with Emily, Madam Neshan, Maxwell and Orianna. Grandma Victoria and the others had already left to see the other sights.


    After they had left, Maxine had wanted to get some privacy in order to be more intimate with Emily, but Madam Neshan had watched them like a hawk. It was frustrating, but regardless of anything else, Maxine still enjoyed the time spent with Emily.


    However ten minutes ago, Maxine began to feel uneasy. It almost felt like she was being watched from at least two angles. However she didn''t feel any hostility directed at her. Still it bothered her knowing that people were watching her


    Without a second thought, she scanned her surroundings with her spiritual sense to find whoever or whatever it might be. However she only found a young woman with what looked like a recording crystal. Huh? Why is she.. Oh, now I get it. She is here to confirm the rumors about Orianna andshow the proof to the young masters. Unfortunately, they will also find out that Orianna''s heart belongs to Maxwell, but I felt at least two people watching me.The other person is probably using a cloaking techniuqe.


    [Maxine, what''s wrong?] Hellen asked via spiritual sense.


    [I feel like I am being watched by someone or something. I found a young woman watching me, but she isn''t theonly source of that feeling,] Maxine admitted, [It would make me feel a lot better knowing where they are.]


    [If it will put you at ease, I will find that other person. I just need a moment,] Hellen said and a moment later she gave Maxine an answer, [I found young Buck Wilder watching you roughly twenty feet to your left.]


    [Any idea why he is watching me?] Maxine asked.It''s strange that I haven''t seen him at all for two years and now he is here watching me. It''s creeping me out.


    [No, I don''t, but I will still inform mother about this. Just continue to enjoy your time with Emily. It doesn''t seem like Buck is going to do anythingaggressive for now, but if he does, Madam Neshan should be able to stop him before he can even cross half the distance to either you or Orianna,] Hellen answered.


    [Alright, mom,] Maxine said, but she still kept awareness to her surroundings.


    "Maxine? Is everything alright?" Emily asked suddenly, "You seem tense."


    "There are people watching us," Maxine said calmly.


    "What?" Emily said as she looked around carefully.


    "It''s a young woman watching us from the other side of those bushes to our right and that''s the one that I found on my own. The one to our left is much better," Maxine stated honestly.


    "Why are they watching you though?" Emily asked.


    "My guess is to confirm the existence of my sister for the young masters that have been harrassing me. Those fools probably want someone a bit easier to work with, but they are already out of luck. Orianna likes Maxwell," Maxine told Emily.


    "I think anyone with eyes can see that," Emily said as she glanced over at head at Maxwell and Orianna. Those two were intimately whispering to each other. Maxinehad to concentrate to avoid hearing what they weresaying. It didn''t feel right to her to listen in to such an intimate conversation. She just hoped others would return the same curtesy to her when she wanted a private talk with Emily.


    Inspired by Maxwell and Orianna''s affectionate behavior, Maxine looked lovingly into Emily''s eyes andwas about to ask Emily a questionwhen she feltintense hostility lock onto her from behind. She spun around and withdrew both of her Twilight Iron Blades from her dimensional ring to confront her attackers.


    There were two maskedpeople charging straight at her and she saw ten more werecharging atMadam Neshan out of the corner of her eye. She sensed two more were behind her attacking Maxwell, but she couldn''t spare anymore thought for anyone besides herself. She couldn''t risk the distractionsince all of the attackers were at the peak of silver stage.Fuck!


    Neesa and her sisters appeared infront of Maxine to protect her. However, Maxine knew for a fact that Neesa''s cultivation was at silver rank seven and her sisters were a rank below her. They would be able to fight and win with difficulty one of those two, but not both.


    Before Maxine could transform and join them, whip blade lashed out at the two charging masked warriors. They had to halt their charge to avoid it getting wounded."She is my prey," Buck Wilder announced as he descended from above and landed beside Neesa. Maxine was stunned. Not so much that he came to her defense, but that he spoke. She had been under the distinct impression that he either didn''t know how to speak or was an outright incapable of it.


    Her attackers looked at each other and charged once more. Maxine swiftly transformed and was grateful that her dress had quite a bit of elasticity as she charged at one of the two masked attackers while Neesa, her sisters and Buck attacked the other one.


    As soon as their weapons clashed, Maxine knew that she was outmatched. Her opponent was stronger, faster and probably more experienced than she was. She had no chance at winning if she were to continue holding back her trump cards, but she could still stall for time without having to use them. It shouldn''t take long for Madam Neshan to defeat her opponents or for others to arrive to help, but she still readied them in the back of her mind just in case.


    Maxine frantically dodged and parried attacks, but she noticed that not one of them were aimed at her vitals. Their intent was clearly to incapacitate her.They want to kidnap me!She part of her wanted to panic at that realization, but she forced herself to remain calm as she continued to defend. By some small miracle, she barely managed to maintain her defense for the twenty secondsit took for Madam Neshan to finish her opponents and unleash a powerful sneak attack on Maxine''s opponent from above.


    "That''s more than enough," Madam Neshan said coldly to the barely conscious woudbe kidnapper, "Attacking the young miss of the Kavros Clan is an act of war, even if your intent was capture and not kill. I hope that you understand that." Maxine turned to whereMaxwell was and saw two occupied craters on the ground next to him.Madam Neshan must have gone to his aide first and no wonder. Maxwell is pretty banged up.She didn''t need to look where Madam Neshan had been. She knew that those ten people were probably dead or dying. Fortunately, Madam Neshan had held back enough that Maxine''s opponent had retained their consciousness.


    "She started the war when she killed young master Adam!" the one that had been fighting Maxine roared greivously.Maxine realized it was a woman as soon as she spoke and was able to recognize her voice. She was one ofAdam Marks'' attendants during his stay at the Kavros Clan.What!?This makes no sense. Why the fuck would they think I killedAdam Marks after I made a show of banishing him from my clan? Even if I did, I had every right to based on my clan''s laws and theirs.


    "Maxine, I think you are being framed. Geteveryone back to the mansion right now," Madam Neshan said, "Let your grandparents handle this."


    Maxine didn''t hesitate or ask questions since she knew that both she and Orianna were now targets and she knew that the chances of being attacked again would increase exponentially the longer they were out in the open. She could ask any questions that she might have later. For now, she needed to get to a safe location.


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    She used her essence to grab Maxwell, Orianna and Emily as she opened a portal to just outside of Orianna''s room and pulled them all through it. She had wanted to look for that young woman that had been spying on her just before the attack, but she just didn''t have the time for it.


    Once on the other side of the portal, Maxine undid her transformation and quickly took stock of the condition of the others. Thankfully, Emily and Orianna were uninjured and Maxwell was just covered in small wounds. With that many, blood loss would become a real concern if he wasn''t treated quickly. Unfortunately before any treatment could be administered, he collapsed onto the ground.


    Without missing a beat, Emily rushed to Maxwell and started treating his wounds with Maxine directly behind her. Orianna was a weeping mess as she knelt on the ground beside him.


    Maxine retrieved a healing potion from her dimensional ring and quickly brought it''s contents to Maxwell''s lips. "Drink," Maxine ordered him. He obediently did as she told him.


    "He ... he''s hurt because he was protecting me," Orianna wept in recrimination.


    "It''s alright, Orianna. He will be fine with both of us patching him up," Maxine said soothingly and she felt that something was off. There was no way Maxwell had not lost enough blood to have collapsed this quickly. With a sudden realization, she touched his bloody wound with her finger and brought it to her lips to taste his blood to see if he had been poisoned. She wasn''t afraid of being poisoned herself due to her Twelve-Headed Hydra King bloodline. It made her virtually immune to all but the deadliest of poisons.


    Not suprisingly, she detected a quick-acting paralytic poison in Maxwell''s blood."Maxwell''s been poisoned," Maxine declared as she quickly retrieved a general antidote and this time she didn''t have to order him to drink the poition. She knew how to make a more targeted antidote, but she didn''t have one on hand. Fortunately, this one would still work, but to a lesser extent.


    "Will he be okay?" Orianna asked fearfully as more tears flooded down her cheeks. She looked as if she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.


    "He will be fine.This poison wasn''t meant to kill, just immobilize," Maxine stated as she started using her own essence to staunch Maxwell''s bleeding. She had the ability to heal others, but it was far less efficient than Emily''s was. With both of them healing Maxwell, his wounds quickly closed up and scabbed over. From the looks of it, he wouldn''t have any scars from that skirmish, but he would still feel weak from aftereffects of the poison.


    "Maxine, your shoulder!" Emily shouted once she looked up from Maxwelland Maxine followed Emily''s line of sight to find a very deep verticle gash on her left shoulder. It almost reached bone. Due to the lack of pain, she hadn''t even realized that she had been wounded. However as soon as the wound came to her attention, that was no longer an issue as she groaned from the sudden pain.


    Emily wasted no time using her essence to mend Maxine''s shoulder. She held still to let Emily work and let her arm hang loosely to minimize the pain. However Maxine''s current regeneration had already stopped the bleeding.


    Boreas suddenly appeared twenty feet awayand his eyeslanded onto Maxwell with a look of approval. Orianna didn''t even register Boreas'' presence as all of her attention was on Maxwell while she brushed his hair with her fingers.


    "Well done, young man. You managed to fend off two opponents a full stage above youwhile poisoned to protect Orianna. I can finally see why Guan approves of you and now so do I," Boreas praised Maxwell and turned to look at Maxine, "Maxine, you can be at ease. Myself and elders will handle everything from here on out. I will make the Divine Mark''s clan pay for this transgression and I don''t care if they believe you killed their young master or not."Orianna began trembling as soon as Boreas started speaking, but she hadn''t retreated from Maxwell''s side.


    Boreas didn''t leave as he did before when he upset Orianna. He seemed intent on staying. Maxine didn''t get angry at him this time. She knew that he was staying there to protect them. She just wished thata female elder had come here instead of Boreas.


    Fortunately, Madam Neshan arrivedafter a few moments and said, "Thank you, Boreas. I can take care of it from here.You wouldn''t have even needed to comeif Maxine had thought to bring me with her when she transferred everyone else."Oops.


    "As you wishand thank you for protecting my grandchildren. If there is anything you should ever need and I can provide it, just ask and it''s yours," Boreas said before vanishing in the same manner as he appeared.Damn he''s fast and it seems he knows the same trick that Guan does to avoid causing sonic booms.


    "So, what now?" Maxine asked.


    "Now, we will go into Orianna''s room and see what can be done about your clothes and injuries," Madam Neshan said as she gestured at Maxine''s left shoulder that Emily had yet to finish healing and Maxwell, whom was still on the ground, "After that, I suppose we will get dinner delivered to this room." Maxine didn''t want to move before Emily could finish her treatment. It bugged her that her main body took so much longer to heal than a clone did.Oh, that reminds me.


    Maxinehad her clone to go to the shadow world temporarily since didn''t want to explain why there was another her inside of the room to Emily or Maxwell.


    "You can''t be serious," Maxwell spoke up as Madam Neshan caused him to levitate a few feet off the ground with a wave of her hand, "We were just attacked and you are acting as if nothing happened at all."


    "And why should I get excited? None of you were killed and the injuries you sustained are relatively minor. In any case, there is little we can do to influence the war that is coming. Those fools attacking Maxine essentially ensured it that it would," Madam Neshan stated as she walked into Orianna''s bedroom with the others following her.


    "Who would be that crazy or stupid to frame me? If that kidnapping had succeeded, Guan would have definitely gotten involved and I''m pretty certian they wouldn''t want that," Maxine said as she closed the door behind them. In the next instant, Emily forced her to sit down while she continued to heal Maxine''s wounded shoulder.


    "I agree. Clearly they didn''t think things through. That is why I believe this was planned soley by members of the younger generation since they have not witnessed Guan''s ruthlessness first hand. Regardless of that, whoever framed you wants bloodshed between the two clans and the possibility that they are currently residing in the Kavros clan''s territory is too high for comfort. It is virtually the only way they could have had access to Adam Marks flight planearly enough to plan an ambush," Madam Neshan stated as Maxwell floated onto the bed, "It will be only a matter of checking to see who looked up his flight plan to find the culprit and punish them."That part makes sense.Every ship is required to issue theirflight plan ahead of time when they leave a system and are guided in by adedicated AI when they approach their destination.


    "Why did the Divine Marks clan believe that I had anything to do with it in the first place?" Maxine asked.


    "I don''t know the answer tothat question. I believe that''s why Victoria has yet to come here to check on you," Madam Neshan answered, "Oh, and don''t worry about Maxwell being here for much longer. A couple of maids should be along shortly to take him back to his room."


    "No!" Orianna roared, "I will take care of Maxwell!"


    "Orianna...," Maxine said in frustration, "He can''t stay here while I get changed and cleaned up. It would be uncomfortable for him and me."


    Oriann opened her mouth to reply, but Emily chimed in beforeOrianna could say anything, "Orianna, let''s put it this way. Would you like a man that you had no interest in staring at you while you changed clothes?"


    "Fine, I see your point," Orianna pouted, "But can I check on him later?"


    "We shall see," Madam Neshan said non-commitedly and a gentle knock on the door announced the arrival of the maid, "It looks like the maids are here."


    Madam Neshan opened the door to let two maids carrying a stretcher walk in. The two of them quickly got beside Maxwell and loaded him onto it.


    "Emily, could you go with them? I think would put Orianna at ease knowning he has a capable healer to keep an eye on him," Maxine said, but that wasn''t the only reason she sent Emily away. She knew there was a possibility of more members of the Divine Marks clan lurking nearby and didn''t want Emily to get hurt if there was another mellee.


    "Alright, I have done what I can with your shoulder anyways," Emily said as she pulled her hands away from Maxine''s shoulder and she turned to leave with them.


    "Emily, thank you for everything," Maxine said before Emily could leave the room.


    "Any time, Maxine," Emily said with a smile as she left with the maids.


    Maxine leaned back into the chair and thought about what had just happened.It''s a good thing I wasn''t captured. I can''t imagine what they would do to me. Or rather I don''t want to think about what they would do to me if they captured me. StillI wonder who had the balls to start this bullshit.I will find out shortly anyways. I can only imagine what grandma will do to that poor soul. Regardless, there is still the issue of a Shadow Demon being in the clan. I almost thought it was Buck Wilder after reading that damn book, but he doesn''thave that fear aura that Shadow Demons should possess. That just begs the question, who is the Shadow Demon?

 Chapter 95

    Maxine was in the communal baths with Orianna as she reviewed in her head what happened the past few days. The elders had been able to identifythree suspects for Adam Marks murder in only a few hours. Unfortunately, Maxine was amongst them since Neesa was one of the people that looked up his flight plan, but according to Neesa, it was to confirm that he was actually leaving. Fortunately, Maxine was quickly dismissed as a suspect since she had an ironclad alibi since she had been sparing against Maxwell and Patrick at the time of Adam Marks'' death. She just lamented that she mostly likely would not have been attacked by members of the Divine Marks clan if her sparring matches had been made a public affair.


    As for the other two suspects, they were identified as Buck Wilder and Zabel Nodd. Buck Wilder surrendered peacefully when the elders came looking for him, but Zabel Nodd was no where to be found. It made him look very suspicious to say the least. Things looked quite damning when they found a report that he borrowed one of their combat ships on the same day that Adam Marks'' ship had departed from the clan and returned with five fewer missiles than he had left with.


    Maxine couldn''t figure out why he did it. She had no memory of ever angeringZabel Nodd or doing him any wrong to give him the idea ot frame her. She had to assume that Adam Marks had enraged him somehow or that someone else simply used his credientials to borrow the ship to frame Maxine. Regardless, they would need to find Zabel Nodd in order to figure out which it was.


    Maxinewas brought back to reality when Orianna shoved a hair brush into her hand and asked, "Could you brush my hair?"


    "Certainly," Maxine said with a smile and Orianna turned around to allow her to do just that. The two of them had gotten into the habit of brushing each other''s hair after they finished bathing. She had thought it would be a good chance to talk to Orianna and at least make an attempt to bond with her. They were supposed to be sisters afterall.


    While Maxine gently brushed Orianna''s hair, Orianna asked, "Sis, could you help me get stronger?"


    "Orianna, why do you want to get stronger? There are a lot of people that want and can protect you, including Maxwell," Maxine said as gently as she could.


    "I know, but I felt so helpless when Maxwell got hurt protecting me. I don''t want hurt again while I am forced to watch. I want to fight by his side. So please, help me," Orianna pleaded as she looked over her shoulder.


    "You know how to cultivate so why do you need me?" Maxine asked.


    "I never learned how to properly cultivate. I tried to use Maxwell''s method, but I couldn''t seem to gather any essence. I was left with no choice but to let my strength advance naturally like I had with my original body," Orianna answered. Maxine froze for a moment as she looked at the back of Orianna''s head incredulously. She was able to overpower and dismember Patrick as well as kill all those people without knowing how to cultivate?! That''s insane!


    "Alright, I will teach you how once we get back to your room, okay?" Maxine asked as she finished brushing Orianna''s hair and handed Orianna the hair brush, "Now it''s your turn to brush my hair."


    "Okay, hold still," Orianna said as she took the hairbrush and brushed Maxine''s hair. Maxine felt the brush flow smoothly through her hair and every once in awhile found a knot.


    While Orianna brushed her hair, Neesa barged into the baths and announced, "Young .. erm, Maxine, the Divine Marks clan''s elder will be arriving soon.Your presence is required, so you need to get ready. Do you need any help in that regard?"Neesastill has trouble calling me by name even after more than two years. I guess somethings are hardwired.


    "I''m fine, but I really wish they had believed Boreas when he told them that I was innocent," Maxine complained as Orianna brushed out the last knot in her hair.It''s not like I don''t understand why they believedBoreas had doctored that information. But still, it''s insulting that they would think that I''m stupid enough to make a mistake like sending a video communication to Adam Marks'' ship just before destorying it. If Ihad destroyed Adam Marks'' ship, I wouldn''t leave evidence of any kindand I definitely wouldn''t have used a star ship to do it. Thatwould haveleft and easily followed electronic trail for them to follow. Instead, I would have snuck a raven into his shadow and once on board, I would have it sneak its way to the reactor before self-destructing.The resulting kaboom would cause a chain reaction of explosions.Those explosions would destroy any sign that my raven was ever there. Assuming that they found anything after all of that, all they would know for certain is there was an explosion in the reactor room.


    "I understand your greivance, but that won''t change anything," Neesa answered.


    "I know," Maxine admitted and decided to change the subject, "Did you bring my green dress?"


    "Of course," Neesa said as she flicked her wrist as the green dress that Maxine wore on the day of the attack appeared in her hands. The left sleeve had been repaired and the blood stains removed since then. She didn''t have much choice other than have it repaired. It would have simply taken far too long for a new one to be made.


    "Thank you, Neesa," Maxine said as she used her essence to remove all the moisture lingering on her body and liberated her green dress from Neesa. She took a moment to marvel at the near perfect repair job. Unless someone had a microscope on hand they wouldn''t even be able to tell it had been damaged at all.


    Maxine opened a portal to the shadow world and brought her clone through it. She had already bathed and brushed it''s hair while spending time with Orianna. She brought it out to go to meet the elder from the Divine Marks clan with grandma Victoria and Boreas while she returned to shadow world. She would wait in the shadow world until Orianna returned to her room.


    Maxine pulled a set of clothes out of her dimensional ring as she entered the portal to the shadow world and switched her focus to her clone. With her focus on her clone now, she took the dress from Neesa and started getting dressed.


    Maxine took a quick peak at what Neesa had brought Orianna to wear today. It was a dress with the same style as Maxine''s own, but instead of being primarily green, it was red except with golden lace at the wrist cuffs and hem of the skirt. She knew it would look wonderful on Orianna.


    Once they finished dressing, they walked out of the communal baths and found Madam Neshan patiently waiting in the hallway. "Come with me, Orianna," Madam Neshan said, "I believe you already know about Maxine''s obligations today."


    "Yes, I do," Orianna said and turned to Maxine as she left with Madam Neshan, "Take care, sis."


    "I will," Maxine said before she made a beeline out of the mansion.


    Boreas and grandma Victoria met her outside and lead her to a Special Assembly Hall to see what the elder from the Divine Marks clan was going to demand of them to avoid a war. Although in Maxine''s opinion, it was the Kavros clan that should be making demands since they were the ones that had been attacked.


    As they arrived at the Special Assembly Hall, Maxine had long since put up her ice queen facade and looked around themassive hall for the elder from the Divine Marks clan. She spotted him almost immediately as it was hard to miss his massive frame covered robes. He had to be at least six and a half feet tall and every inch of him covered in bulky muscle. He appeared to be in his late fifites, but that didn''t mean anything. He could be five hundred years old or older for all she knew.


    When they were about to reach that bulky man, a woman''s venomous voice resounded in Maxine''s ears, "So, this is the little slut that killed my son." A brown haired woman with romance novel cover beauty walked out from behind the bulky elder. She looked young enough to be Adam Marks sister.Why the fuck isAdam Marks'' mother here? Do these idiots want a war?


    "That was uncalled for, Nora. You have no grounds to insult or accuse Maxine of anything," grandma Victoria snapped.


    "Be grateful that is all I did. I could have just as easily attacked and killed her instead," Nora Marks said offhandedly.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    "If you had, neither of you would have left my clan alive," grandma Victoria responded back, "Not to mention Guan''s wrath would be upon your whole clan."


    "Enough," the bulky elder from the Divine Marks clan said, "Bickering like children will get us nowhere."


    "Very well," Nora Marks grudgingly said.


    "As you wish, Tiberius," grandma Victoria said.


    "Now that the two of you are done, I will list my clan''s demands," elder Tiberius said gruffly, "Your clan give ushalf of your annualearnings for ten years and your grand daughter, Maxine, must stay at the Divine Marks clan as our permnament guest."Don''t you mean hostage, asshole?


    "Absolutely not!" grandma Victoria yelled while Boreas simply answered with a firm, "No."


    "These terms are non-negotiable. Either agree to them or there will be war," elder Tiberius stated calmly as if they had said nothing.


    "You havn''t even properly investigated the death of young Adam Marks," Borea said firmly, "You have no grounds to demand anything from us until you do."


    "We have gathered sufficient evidence to make these demands," elder Tiberius retorted.


    "You mean that video communication recovered from a damaged flight recorder?" Maxine asked and continued without waiting for him to answer, "Do you have any idea how easy it is for someone to change thier appearance?"


    "That isn''t a skill just anyonecan use, child," elder Tiberius said.


    "Oh really?" Maxine said as she used her essence to morph into Nora Marks'' doubleand she made it so she even sounded like her, "If I can do it, so can others. Don''t use such flimsy evidence to condemnme without solid proof to back it up."


    "All you have done is proven that it was a member of the Kavros clan that killed Adam. Onlythose with shadow essence have the ability to change their external appearance with such ease," Tiberius stated logicallyand Maxine felt frustrated because she couldn''t deny it, "Regardless of which one of your clansmen commited this crime, my clan''s demands will not change."


    "If you were only asking five percent of my clans annual earnings and keeping Maxine as your guest for the duration, I might consider it, but I will never give intosuch absurd demands," Boreas said coldly.So, Boreas would have thrown me into the lion''s den had they been more reasonable with their demands. Good to know that he is still an asshole.


    "I would have been surprised if you had," elder Tiberius said calmly, "No matter. This visit to your clan was something that the Alliance wanted my clan to do. If it was entirely up to us, we would have started gathering our forces to mount a large-scale attack to avenge our young master. It doesn''t matter now in any case. Farewell." Boreas was scowling fiercely at Tiberius as the man began walking away. Maxine was furious.Don''t they understand their own clansmen will die as well?! Is it really worth it to loose thousands of their own kinsmen to avenge one?


    "What?! Why are we leaving without that little bitch in tow?" Nora Marks exclaimed angrily.


    "I thought I made it clear that it was highly unlikely that we would leave with her," elder Tiberius said without missing a step.


    "I don''t care! I want her to suffer for taking my baby boy from me!" Nora Marks roared in rage as she spun around and charged murderously at Maxine.


    Maxine saw Nora Marks turn into a blurr and tried to evade. Unfortunately, she was far too slow to avoid Nora Marks'' assault, and knew that once that woman reached her that she would die.


    Fortunately before Nora Marks could reach Maxine, Boreas appeared infront ofher and punched at the human blurr that was Nora Marks. When the blow connected, she was knocked unconscious and thrown back like a rag doll into the arms of elder Tiberius.


    "Take that womanand leave my clan or I will kill both of you," Boreas roared.Elder Tiberius simply looked at Boreas for a moment and left with Nora Marks unconscious in his arms.


    After they were out of earshot, Maxine turned to Boreas and asked, "Why would they make such outrageous demands? It''s like they want to start a war."


    "It''s because they do," Boreas answered.


    "What!? But why?" Maxine asked increduously.


    "Ever since most of their business partners abandoned them, they have been antagonistic towards the Kavros clan. They were under the mistaken impression that I was responsible for chasing them off, but in truth, they are the agents of their own fate. The real reason that their business partners fled is because of a simple rumor that they were responsible for hiring the assassins that killed your mother. They just couldn''t take the risk that they would get caught in the crossfire if Guan sought vengeance," Boreas explained, "As you know, Guan neversought vengeance against the Dvine Marks clan, but the damage had been done. Resulting in the the Divine Marks clan falling on hard times. Eventually they recovered,andhave held a grudge against the Kavros clan ever since."


    "That''s ridiculous to hold a grudge for that long," Maxine said.


    "I agree, but it will not change their hatred towards us. Nor will it changethe fact we are going to war with them," Boreas said sadly, but he seemed to perk up, "Although I doubt the Alliance will allow our two clans to have an all out war."


    "What do you mean?" Maxine asked.


    "Two large clans having at each other with everything they''ve got would result in loss of numberous gold and immortal stagecombatants.I imagine the Alliance will restrict our war in some manner to avoid such losses like they did last time two clans had an unresolvable dispute," Boreas explained, "If I recall correctly, they restricted thatwar to silver and iron stage combatants on an isolated planet. The looser of that limited war had to give the victor half of their treasury."


    "I see," Maxine said gloomily sinceshe knew that people would still be killing each other for something that happened more than one hundred years ago, "Do you need me for anything else?"


    "No, go back home," Boreas said gently, "Victoria, could you escort her? There is still a small chance there are Divine Marks clansmen in the city intent on kidnapping her."


    "I was already planning to," Victoria said, "Maxine, let''s go home." Maxine nodded her head and followed grandma Victoria in silence.


    Maxine barely saw anything around her as she followed grandma Victoria, but she heard all the happy voices in the city. It made her further depressed thinking about some of them vanishing forever or others crying out in aguish over the loss of a loved one.


    This was the very reason why she was always reluctant to kill another human being. She knew all too well how much it hurt to loosea loved one like that and she didn''t want to inflict that kind of pain on anyone. It just felt wrong.


    Tears threatened to fall down her cheeks when she sensed Turan talk to her via spiritual sense, [It''s unfortunate that your clan will go to war. I could convince my elders to stop it from happening, but you would have to be a developing Shadow Queen for them to put in that kind of effort.]Maxine forcibly pushed aside her depression and focused on what Turan had just said to her.


    [And how would you do that,] Maxine asked cautiously.


    [By presenting the Divine Marks clan with the real culprit,] Turan answered and Maxine felt her rage bubble to the surface. That sunovabitch! He basically admitted that the Shadow Lord''s had a hand in the murder of killed Adam Marks! Or at the very least, they are sheltering the culprit!However instead of accusing Turan of anything, she tried to remain calm.He wouldn''t have said that unless he thinks I''m a Shadow Queen. Why does he think that I am though? I havn''t shown any sign of being one. Maybe it''s because I am the only one in my age group that is a lord-class cultivator.


    [Stop the war or don''t. It''s in your hands. But if you don''t, the death that occurs during this war will be on your hands, not mine. Now I''m going to do something to minimize losses for my clan,] Maxine said coldly and swiftly asked grandma Victoria,"Grandma, hypothecially speaking, can anyone volunteer to go fight in a limited war?"


    [What are you doing?!] Turan asked in a panic, but Maxine ignored him.


    "As long as they are part of the two groups fighting. Why do you ask?" grandma Victoria asked and concern filled her eyes the next moment.


    "Because I want to fight against those unreasonable bastards," Maxine said and drew the eyes of several people around her, including a few young masters that happened to be close by. Shenever cursed in public ever since she came to the Kavros clan.


    "You will not!" grandma Victoira said in an authoritive tone.


    "Yes, I will. You know how good of a combatant I am. They will need me," Maxine reasoned.


    "I know how skilled and powerful you are, but you are still no match against someone at the peak of silver stage," grandma Victoria retorted, "Not to mention you are not yet an adult."


    "You may be right, but I am still going," Maxine said calmly and added via spiritual sense, [I have several trump cards that I have been holding in reserve and I will only be sending my clone to fight.]


    "Fine, but I will be sending several skilled warriors to accompany you," grandma Victoria said in defeat and resumed walking towards the mansion, [If you are talking about your dragon and your numberous constructs, that won''t be enough to make a difference.]


    [No, I am not talking about those things. I can fuse my dragon together with my essence armor. It boosts my strength, speed and defenses by about fifty percent and enables me to fly. I will only use it if I need it to survive and thus far I havn''t come across that kind of situation,] Maxine explained, [That is just one of my trump cards. I havea few more that I can use.]


    [Interesting. You will tell me more about your trump cards later,] grandma Victoria said and for some reason, she changed the subject, [Have you told Emily about your male clone yet?]


    [No, I havn''t found the right time to tell her just yet,] Maxine admitted.


    [You should tell her soon,] grandma Victoria said, [Preferably before ambassador Sutton leaves.]That coward wanted to leave as soon as he realized his bodyguards were not capable of protecting him and he already achieved his goal of getting some trade goods and technology for Earth.Although it surprised me that he allowed Maxwell to stay. I thought for certain that he wouldn''t allow that after seeingMaxwell''s injuries.


    [I will. Did he say when he was going to leave?] Maxine asked.


    [Sometime tomorrow afternoon,] grandma Victoria said as they finally reached the mansion.


    [Thank you for telling me, grandma. I will go find her now,] Maxine said and started to head to Emily''s room, [See you at lunch.]


    [See you then,] grandma Victoria said.I really do not want to, but I have to tell Emily about my male clone in person. I just hope she takes it well and that I don''t get yelled at too much for not telling her sooner.

 Chapter 96

    Maxine had been staring at the door to Emily''s room for the last ten minutes. She had been thinking of a safe place to reveal her male clone to her, but could only think of two places. One was the shadow world and the other was Orianna''s room.


    However she didn''t want to have a audience when she revealed her male clone to Emily. Thus she decided to use the shadow world for that purpose. But it would add another person that knew any specifics about her hideout. She wasn''t entirely comfortable with it, but she trusted Emily enough to take her there. She just wished she hadn''t told Patrick about the shadow world in the past. It had been a poor choice on her part, but she didn''t have a reason not to trust him at the time.Hopefully he hascompletely forgotten about it. Because if he remembers about it and reveals that I have the ability to travel to a place devoid of color, itwould really narrows down the planets that my hideout could be on. It would only be a matter of time before they found it.


    Maxine reached up and knocked on the door. Emily answered it very quickly. "I was wondering when you were going to knock on the door," Emily said.


    "You knew I was out here?" Maxine said.


    "Yeah, the guys put up some tiny surveilence cameras in the hallways to see who comes to visit us," Emily said, "They said they spotted you standing outside the door about ten minutes ago. Is there something bothering you?"


    "You could say that," Maxine said, "Can I come in?"


    "Yes, of course, you can," Emily said as she stepped aside to let Maxine in.


    "Thanks," Maxine said as she walked inside and looked around inside to make sure no one else was in the room before turning around to face Emily, "You were right when you said that something was bothering me. In fact, it''s something that I have been wondering how to tell you for quite some time, but I figured it would be easier for the both of us if I simply showed you."


    "Show me what?" Emily asked.


    Maxine suddenly hugged Emily and whispered into her ear, "Show you this." In the next instant, she created a portal beneath them and transfered the both of them to the shadow world. She narrowed the portal down to the size of a needle after passing through it and did it fast enough that there was no possible way that Turan could have followed them through. They exited at a spot near the mouth of the cave, so she wouldn''t have to create an additional light source.


    When they parted from their embrace, Emily looked around and asked, "Where are we? Is this what you wanted to show me?"


    "Not entirely," Maxine said, "As for where we are, I''m not entirely sure. It might help you understand if you looked outside."


    "Alright," Emily said cautiously as she moved to look outside and gasped at what she found, "What?! There isn''t any color here!"


    "Yeah, I know, but we are still in color. It''s as if this world was leeched of almost all of it''s color, but that isn''t why I brought you here," Maxine said and had her male clone come out of the shadows, "This is."


    "You have a brother now?!" Emily said in anger and surprise, "How many other secrets are there that you have kept from me?!"


    "Only those that relate to my fighting abilities, but this isn''t my brother. It''s my male clone," Maxine said and had her male clone speak in sync with her as she explained herself, "I have the ability to make flesh and blood clones, but they are unable to operate independently from my main body. Were it not for my two bloodlines improving my ability to multitask, I would not be able to control them as smoothly as I am now. Believe it or not, I''m talking with Orianna at the same time right now."


    "I don''t understand how this is possible," Emily said disbelievingly as she took a step back, "How and why did you even make clones of yourself in the first place?"


    "I made my normal clone as a stand in for my daily life in the off chance that someone tried to kidnap or attack me and my male clone was originally a decoy to draw anyone looking for ''Guan''s child'' off my trail. I discovered from Hellen that it could be used for reproductive purposes," Maxine said with a slight blush on her face, "As for how, mom, I mean Hellen, guided me through most of the process."


    "I see," Emily asked, "Why havn''t I seen anyone else in your clan with clones?"


    "Because there are far fewer people with shadow essence in my clan than I thought and if you don''t have shadow essence, you need various expensive resources to make a clone. To make matters worse, the clones they are able to make don''t have any cultivation. It''s just not worth the effort to build their clone up from scratch when they could simply make themselves stronger with the same resources," Maxine said, "I don''t have that problem. I can change the essence within a core to match my own and create a clone with just a couple liters of my blood."


    "That sounds like one hell of a cheat," Emily said, "It''s like having a bunch of extra lives."


    "Yes and no," Maxine said, "There is a limit of how many clones any person can make in their lifetime. Although that limitis different from person to person. I havn''t tested my upper limit yet, but I have a feeling that Ican make maybe one more."


    [That''s unusual. You should be able to make more. Many more as a matter of fact. It''s been proven that on average cultivators can make up to eight clones depending on their soul strength,] Hellen said to join in on the conversation, [I guess it''s possible thatboth of your two bloodlines are restricting you in this aspect.] Wait, since I have a fused soul wouldn''t that mean I have double the normal soul strength or at least close to it? That is one heavy restriction per bloodline.


    "You mean I can have up to eight extra lives like in those oldplatformer games?" Emily asked Hellen.


    [In a manner of speaking, but it isn''t an absolute thing. If, for instance, youare killed without you realizing it, you won''t be able to transfer your soul to a clone and thus you stay dead regardless of how many clones you have. It''s an another reason why most people do not bother with them that Maxine wasn''t aware of,] Hellen said, [However Maxine uses a unique method to control her clones from long distances without having to place even a fragment of her soul in them. Unfortunately, her method isn''t something just anyone can replicate since it requires the use of either spatial or shadow essence.]


    "Technically, I don''t control them over long distances. I create a tiny portal in their shadow to remove any time lag," Maxine admitted.


    "Those are still extra lives," Emily stated, "Can you teach me how to make a clone?"


    "No, I would have to ask Guan to teach you how," Maxine said, "Although be warned, he may try to teach you something wierd."


    "Wierd how?" Emily asked.


    "He may teach you how to make a male clone," Maxine said with a slight blush on her face.


    "And why the hell would he teach me something like that?!" Emily asked.


    "Hellen may have told him that I wouldn''t have children unless it was with you," Maxine answered as she felt her ears burning from embaressement.


    "Do you really hate men that much?" Emily asked.


    "I don''t hate them. I just can''t stand the thought of having sex with one," Maxine answered honestly.Having lived as a man in my past life hasn''t helped matters.


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    "Then don''t have sex with one. If you really want a baby, have artificial insemination performed on you," Emily said.


    "I would, but artificial insemination has abysmal conception rates. Add that onto the fact that the higher my cultivation becomes the harder it is for me to become pregnant. It just makes more sense to do it the natural way, even if I find the whole process disgusting," Maxine said grumpily, but her expression softened as she continued, "But if you were a man, I wouldn''t find it that repulsive at all. In fact, Imight even enjoy it."


    [That could be arranged, temporarily speaking,] a man''s voice resounded in Maxine''s head via spiritual sense. She only heard this voice once before, but there was no mistaking who it was. It was Guan.How the hell did he manage to reach me? I have a portal leading to here and to Earth in my main body''s shadow. Did he seriously send his spiritual sense through both? That would take an insane amount of control.


    [Who are you?!] Emily asked fearfully, [And what do you mean by that?]


    [I''m Maxine''s real father, Guan,] Guan said gently, [And what I mean is that I can create a potion to invert your gender for half a day.]


    [Hellen didn''t mention anything like this,] Maxine said as calmly as she could manage.


    [She wouldn''t have. It''s something that I have recently created. Iwas inspired to create itafter observing a peculiar variety of frog unique to Earth that can spontaneously change it''s gender. After observing this metamorphosis, I was able to deduce how to created a potion that can induce a similar transformation in humans. Although this change is temporary as humans were never meant to switch genders like that.I advertised it to a few female couples wanting a child to test it''s efficacy. That was a mistake. Those girls just couldn''t help, but spread the word around that I could make those kind of potions. I was swarmed with requests for it. To deter them, I had to demand rare herbs as compensation. Unfortunately,that approach backfired and every last single one of those ladies came back with rare herbs within a month. I couldn''t exactly turn them away after they went to the trouble of collecting those herbs. On the positive side, those rare herbs increased the progress on my experiments to revive Hellen,] Guan rambled and his tone changed to a very happy one, [Oh! That reminds me. I need you to open a portal to your mother''s grave.]


    [Do you mean that...?] Maxine asked hopefully.


    [Yes, I have succeeded. All of my current test subjects are healthy and do not appear to be deteriorating. In fact, they are getting increasingly more energetic. These results made me confident that I can ressurect Hellen,] Guan said.


    "What''s going on?" Emily asked and Maxine realized that Guan had cut her from the conversationjust after he told Maxine to open the portal to the shadow world.


    "Guan is going to revive my mom," Maxine said with tears of joy in her eyes as she created a portal directly to Earth to the shadow world. Within a second, Guan was emerging from it. He wasn''t wearing his mask and was smiling. She hated to admit it, but even with the scales along his jaw, his smile was charming.


    Guan didn''t even spare them a breif look before moving further into the cave. Maxine followed directly behind him while retreiving the golden bracelet that contained Hellen''s soul from her main body. Guan would need it depending on how quickly he could reconstruct her body.


    "How long will it take?" Maxine asked, but was ignored as he unearthed Hellen''s remains with a wave of his hand. So she tried a different approach that she knew would get a reaction out of him, "Daddy, please. Tell me." He shuddered breifly at hearing those words.


    "I never thought I would to hear you call me daddy," Guan said softly, but he seemed to recover quickly, "It will take a month for her body to be rebuilt. Any faster or slower and the revival process will fail. Fortunately, this process doesn''t need to be watched too closely. Howeverit cannot be disturbed under any circumstance. So, I would still appreciate you to keep a portal open from this cave to Earth, so I can monitor it." Guan did something to cause Hellen''s bones and core float into the air. A rectangular vat appeared beneith Hellen''s bones before they were lowered into it and a hole appeared in the air releasing a strange green liquid. Based on the smell, Maxine knew that it had at least twelve different herbs and all of them were extremely rare. She saw an almost instant reaction as Hellen''s bones began to look whiter than they had before.


    [Are you really able to give me a body again?] Hellen asked with barely contained excitement via spiritual sense.


    [It is, my love,] Guan said with a tone full of warmth, [And you can finally be proper mother to our daughters.] Maxine sensed them speak to each other via spiritual sense, but it happened so fast that she couldn''t even understand what was said.


    Once they stopped talking through spiritual sense, Guan finally took notice of Emily and turned to face her."I believe this is the first time we have met," Guan said.


    "It is," Emily answered him coldly, "You are the one responsible for everything bad that has happened to Maxine and Orianna."


    "You are correct. It was my lack of judgement that lead them to suffer like they had. If I could, I would go back in time and tell myself to pick someone else to look after them, but I can''t," Guan said in a steady voice, "All I can do is try to make up for my past mistakes. Although, neither Maxine or Orianna are giving me many opportunitiesto do so."


    "You could stop the war between the Kavros and Divine Marks clans," Maxine offered.


    "No, that conflict will give you valuable experience fighting humansand you will need it," Guan said and it surprised Maxine, "I won''t always be there to protect or deter those that want to bring you harm."


    "But she could die!" Emily roared, "Don''t you care about that?!"


    "I do care, but you''re mistaken if you think Maxine would die so easily. I know for a fact that she will be sending a clone instead of going herself and I doubt that anyone from the Divine Marks clan would risk my wrath by killing her," Guan said with certainty.


    "How can you be so certain?" Emily asked and Guan simply raised an eyebrow as Maxine felt him send pulses of his spiritual sense at Emily.God, I hate being shut out of conversations.


    Over the next few seconds, Emily''s expression shifted several times. However her expression became that of horror more often than any other.I wish I knew what Guan was showing her, but judging from Emily''s expressions,it''s best that I don''t know.Towards the end, Emily became enraged and Maxine knew that she was yelling at Guan.


    Their conversation lasted for a full minute before Guan spoke again, "Maxine, your chosen companion is quite fierce when she wants to be."


    "Umm, thanks," Maxine said uncertainly.


    "It wasn''t a compliment, but a warning. She will win many an argument when she decides to have her way," Guan said in an amused tone, "Regardles, I need to go back to Earth before my absence is noticed. Farwell, Maxine." Maxine couldn''t avoid his hand as he gently brushed her cheekbefore he vanished from her sight. She knew that he had already left through her portal to Earth.


    "Guan is a monster," Emily announced.


    "I know," Maxine agreed in a sad tone, and she quickly changed the subject, "So, what do you think about that potion of his? Do you want to use it?"


    "What? You mean that gender changing potion?" Emily asked and Maxine nodded, "I don''t know. Maybe. I just thought we would either adopt or one of us would use artificial insemination."


    "But Guan''s potion is there if you or I want to use it," Maxine pointed out.


    "Yeah, it is, but the idea of either of us suddenly having a dick, even if it''s only temporary, is disturbing. I''m not sure I will ever be comfortable with it," Emily said, "I''m not even sure how I feel about your male clone. But, fortunately, I don''t have to decide onany of this right now."


    "That''s true enough. Afterall we are still teenagers," Maxine said andheard someone faintly calling for Emily through her portal, "I think they are worried about you."


    "You did take me away without saying anything to them," Emily pointed out.


    "I better take you back then before they send out a search party," Maxine said as she expanded the portal back to Emily''s room at the mansion, "I need to inform grandma about mom''s revival anyways. She will be pissed if I don''t tell her and she finds out that I knew later."


    "Alright, let''s go," Emily said as she fearlessly jumped into the portal. Maxine smiled briefly before she followed right behind her.


    Once on the other side of the portal, she heard Patrick reprimanding Emily, "Emily, what the hell were you thinking leaving like that? Why didn''t you tell one of us where you were leaving somewhere with Maxine? We were worried."


    "Stop yelling at Emily!" Maxine snapped at him, "I didn''t give her the chance to say anything to you guys. So it''s my fault that she left so abruptly. If you are going to yell at anyone, yell at me."


    "Oh, I am well aware ofthe fact that you were the one that took her," Patrick growled, "But I can''t exactly yell at the Kavros Clan''s ''young miss'' regardless of how much I may want to."Huh? Is he seriously thinking I would make this a diplomatic issue? Does he really think I am that petty?


    "I wouldn''t have complained to anyone if you had. I would have deserved it," Maxine said, "Regardless, you know it''s not Emily''s fault."


    "Fine, I will leave Emily alone," Patrick sighed, "Can you at least tell me where you took her?"


    "Myhideoutand before you ask, I won''t tell you where that is. Otherwise it wouldn''t be my hideout," Maxine answered, "Now if you don''t mind, I need to go find my grandmother. See you later Emily."


    "Later," Emily said.


    Maxine turned around to leave and heard Patrick sigh in frustration as he went back to his room.I need to tell grandma about Guan''s success in secret. A good place to tell her would be Orianna''s room. As a bonus, it will save me a trip since I will be able to tell Orianna and grandma at the same time. Hopefully, Madam Neshan will let me talk to them in private and with any luck, Hellen will be revived beforemy clone is shipped off to fight in the war againstthe Divine Marks clan.

 Chapter 97

    As Maxine escorted Emily to the space port with grandma Victoria, she felt dumbfounded at how quickly the Alliance decided on when and where the war between the Kavros and the Divine Marks clans would take place. What had left her so surprised was that it had only taken them twenty minutes to decide on it. If she didn''t know any better, she would''ve believed that they had planned for this very set of events. However Maxine had seen Boreas place a communication disk on his lap just before going into a meditative state and watched as the communication disk lit up like a rainbow a moment later.


    Grandma Victoria had explained that Boreas was talking to them with spiritual sense. It would expedite the discussion since using this method would be thousands of times faster than it would by speaking orally. It made sense to her why they did it that way since cultivators could think far faster than they could speak.


    Regardless, at least she knew how much longer she had before her clone had to be sent off to go fight. Which was in three days and that was if they wanted going to make it to the conflict planet at the assigned time.


    Thankfully the planet they chose was devoid of intelligent life. The only problem was that the beasts would be just as big of a threat as the combatants from the Divine Marks clan. The few gold stage beasts that were on that planet were exclusively aquatic.


    "Do you want me to pass any messages on to Claudia or Silky?" Emily asked. That question pulled Maxine out of her own thoughts.


    "No, I have that mostly covered. I left a few of my constructs in their shadows before leaving. Although I have to speak through one of my ravens to talk to mom. I''m afraid that she would have a heart attack if I were to try using spiritual sense to talk to her," Maxine said. Although, I wish I hadn''t told Silky that she could talk to me through my ravens. Ever since she found out, she has been bugging me to let her come visit.


    "Really? Your ravens can talk?" Emily asked.


    "Yeah, it''s not that hard actually. Ravens can mimic human speech with a bit of training," Maxine said, "All I had to do was modify them to have my voice."


    "That''s incredible," Emily said in awe.


    "It''s not that incredible. My dragon is way more amazing. It can breath fire, fly and act as a distraction if I need to flee. I can also use it as my mount," Maxine bragged.


    "How did you manage to make it? Earth doesn''t have any winged dragons and the only thing that comes close is that dragon that Guan fought," Emily said and she seemed to get suspicious as she continued, "In fact, besides the color and size, they look almost identical."


    "Because that dragon is the creature I modeled mine after. Guan scanned it for me with his spiritual sense and sent all of it''s physilogical data to me. It took me awhile to absorb it all without roasting my brain," Maxine answered, "And trust me, it was not easy to scale that big boy down to a more manageable size. Although, I have no idea why it changed colors."


    Emily''s eyes started to sparkle before she asked, "Can I go for a ride on it during my next visit?"


    "Of course," Maxine said, but added via spiritual sense, [I can arrange for that to happen a day or two after you get back to Earth and take you for a short flight. Although I won''t be able to give you a ride on Earth. I don''t want to scare the hell out of people with dragon sightings. God knows how people will react to it.]


    "I look forward to it," Emily said with a smile.


    "Just be warned, I havn''t had time to fashion a saddle for it yet, so we will have to go bareback," Maxine finished her sentence at a very inopportune time as Patrick and the rest of  ambassador Sutton''s group got within hearing range. A chorus of snickering followed from everyone of them with the exception of the good ambassador. God damn those juvenile assholes.


    "And what will you guys be doing bareback?" Patrick asked with obvious amusement.


    Before Maxine could say anything, Emily answered, "Going for ride on her dragon."


    "Oh? I heard she had one of those. I was wondering why she hadn''t brough that beastie out to play during our sparing matches?" Patrick asked.


    "It would have made the arena quite crowded and it would have caused a lot of damage," Maxine said honestly, "It''s almost the size of a school bus afterall." If I brought it out, it wouldn''t have been sparring. It would have been a one-sided beat down in my favor.


    "Oh, that''s disappointing. I would''ve loved to fight a dragon," Patrick answered cheerfully.


    "You''re joking right? I can hardly keep up with my dragon. It would''ve demolished you," Maxine answered.


    "You''re probably right, but still it would''ve been interesting to fight it," Patrick answered with casually, "By the way, where do you keep that thing? I didn''t see any stable big enough to housed it while I have been here."


    "Because it isn''t. I have it roam around the planet with my wolves," Maxine lied.


    "Oh, so that''s what you do with them. I thought you just stored them in that place within your shadow," Patrick answered. Shut the fuck up! I don''t want anyone to know about that place!


    "So, what are you guys going to do once you get back to Earth?" Maxine asked to change the subject.


    "Act as bodyguards, hunt essence beasts for materials and train up the new recruits for my guild," Patrick said. Did he just say guild? When did that happen? Neither Silky or Emily have said anything to me about it.


    "You have a guild?" Maxine asked with curiosity.


    "Yeah, it''s kind of like your school. The only difference is that I stuck around to lead them," Patrick said.


    "You know why I had to leave," Maxine said, "Meagan should have at the very least told you that much."


    "Yes, she told me your version of it," Patrick answered. Oh god damn it. Please, don''t tell me he is trying to pick a fight with me.


    "It''s the truth," Maxine asserted.


    "Fine, I won''t argue with you," Patrick said casually.


    Maxine shrugged and continued walking towards the spaceport with everyone. Along the way, she felt uncomfortable as several men from within her clan kept looking at her with gazes full of curiosity. She had no idea why they were doing that since they had walked through the city many times in the past. She made a mental note to find out the reason for their stares later.


    Once at the spaceport, Maxine gave Emily a hug and a short and loving kiss. "I''m really going to miss you," Maxine said softly into Emily''s ear before parting from her embrace.


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    "I will too and you be careful. I don''t want you taking any unnecessary risks during that stupid war," Emily said.


    "I can''t promise that, but I will try," Maxine said. I really wish I could promise that to Emily, but I know that there will be situations where my new friends will be in deep shit. And I will need to bail them out.


    "You never change," Emily sighed and she noticed the impatient looks of the others, "I need to get going now. Take care of yourself."


    "I will and you have a safe trip," Maxine said and Emily nodded as she joined the others while ambassador Sutton was finishing up his farewells to grandma Victoria.


    A few moments passed before their whole group headed up the ramp into the same space ship that they arrived on. The ramp closed and the ship began to hum as it slowly rose off the ground. Maxine could only watch as the ship ascended into the sky. She kept standing and looking at the sky after it had turned into a speck in the sky and disappeared.


    "I would say something comforting, but you and I both know that you could visit her any time you wanted," Grandma Victoria said.


    "True," Maxine replied and they both stood in silence once more.


    Grandma Victoria broke that silence again by asking a question, "Are you absolutely certain that you want to participate in the war with the Divine Marks clan?" That was random.


    "Yes, I''m sure," Maxine answered, "Why do you keep asking me that anyways?" Grandma had asked her that six times so far since yesterday. It was bothering her a great dea to be asked that so much.


    "You saw those young men looking at you right?" Grandma Victoria asked and Maxine nodded her head, "Well, they were curious as to whom you were going to pair up with. After a life and death battle, it''s common for young men and women to feel ... How do I put this?..."


    "So they are hoping that my instincts to reproduce will be so high that I won''t be able to think straight, right?" Maxine said it for grandma Victoria.


    "Yes, that is one way of putting it," grandma Victoria answered, "I don''t want you being taken advantage of in such a situation."


    "Grandma, let me put this as honestly as I can. I have no sexual interest in men, at all," Maxine stated, "In fact, the only way they could get me to do anything of that nature is if they drugged me. If that happens, I don''t care who they are. I WILL kill them in the most painful way that I can imagine afterwards."


    "That''s if I don''t get my hands on them first," grandma Victoria growled, "That sort of thing is completely prohibited within our clan especially during war time."


    "I know. I memorized all of the clan''s rules," Maxine said, "So, are there any restrictions as to what kind of weaponry or constructs that I can bring to this war?"


    "Not that I can think of," grandma Victoria said, "Almost any form of attack or information gathering is allowed. The only things that are truely prohibited by the Alliance''s rules during wars are rape or the execution of prisoners." Oh, thank god. I was going to ask about those two things. I wouldn''t want to experience rape even if it''s through my clone and I really don''t want to loose my clone if I have to surrender.


    "So, I could use poison, like Guan, if I wanted to?" Maxine asked.


    "No, but dousing the edge of a blade with a debilitating poison is allowed as are the natural venoms found on the claws of your battle form," grandma Victoria said. Well that rule makes a hell of a lot of sense. A skilled poisoner could wipe out a large portion of the enemy''s forces with a single poisonous cloud. Hell, even Earth, has rules everyone must follow during a war like no using nukes, chemical or biological weapons. It''s not surprising that the Alliance has rules to conflicts as well.


    "That''s good to know. I would hate to be tried for a war crime," Maxine said.


    "Indeed. Just be sure to bring your dragon construct with you. I can imagine that it will cause severe losses to the Divine Marks clan''s forces," grandma Victoria said while smiling.


    "That it will and I will have about one hundred of my shadow wolves join in the hunt as well," Maxine said with a vicious smile.


    "Good, those constructs of yours will definitely give our clan an advantage, but not a very big one I''m afraid. There will be tens of thousands of combatants for our side and theirs," grandma Victoria said, "Now there is one other thing that I need to tell you. Boreas wants to talk to you."


    "Really? What for?" Maxine asked.


    "No idea. I only know that he wants to," grandma Victoria said.


    "Alright. Any idea where he is right now?" Maxine asked.


    "No, but he will come find us once we get back home," grandma Victoria said as she beckoned Maxine to follow her.


    It didn''t take long for them to return back to the mansion and Maxine saw that Boreas was waiting for them just inside. He quickly walked up to Maxine and took her hand before putting a particularly ugly dark grey ring on her index finger. Maxine looked at it and to Boreas as she gave him a curious look.


    "It''s to protect your chastity by giving anyone that tries to violate you a very unpleasant experience involving fire and lightning," Boreas explained and Maxine gave him a dubious look, "Even though, there are rules against rape, but not everyone follows those rules. And observers can be bribed to look the other way as well. It''s a sad, but cruel, truth and I don''t want it to happen to you." Maxine felt her heart softened a bit towards Boreas. He is looking out for me. I guess he isn''t such a bad grandpa afterall. Although I am not sure why he even bothered. Doesn''t he know that I can literately transfer my clone to the base camp with a thought? I thought that would be something grandma would have told him. No point in telling him now. It would be too easy for someone to listen in to our conversation.


    "Thank you, Boreas," Maxine said warmly. She had been very tempted to call him grandpa just this one time, but it still didn''t feel right to do that just yet.


    "You''re welcome, Maxine," Boreas said just as warmly back, "Is there anything you need or want to know before I return to my duties?"


    "Not right now," Maxine said and remembered something, "Oh! Silky wanted to come visit for the day. Is that okay?"


    "Oh? Is that your adopted daughter? She''s an arachne, right?" Boreas asked as a small smile appeared on his lips. He was clearly hopeful that Silky would call him great grandpa.


    "Yes, she is on both counts and she has been anxious about meeting her auntie and great grandparents for the past two years," Maxine said, "So can she come for a visit?"


    "Yes, of course she can, but she must be restricted to the mansion''s grounds while she is here," grandma Victoria said happily without giving Boreas an opportunity to refuse. I didn''t expect grandma to be the one to say yes. She has never voiced any feelings for Silky in the past.


    "Thanks and I already anticipated that, grandma," Maxine said.


    "Good. Now go see your sister. She will be excited to see Silky," grandma Victoria said and added via spiritual sense in one quick burst, [I will be along shortly to see your sweet little girl.]


    Maxine nodded before she headed towards Orianna''s room. She had wanted to bring over Silky while Emily was there, but the chances that ambassador Sutton would have said something were too high. She didn''t want anyone to know that she could travel between planets in an instant with little effort.


    Once in Orianna''s room, Maxine saw Orianna and Madam Neshan were in the process of playing a game of chess. "Hey, Orianna. Are you ready to meet Silky?" Maxine asked after closing the door behind her.


    "Yes, I would love to meet my adopted neice!" Orianna said happily.


    "Okay, I will bring her over now," Maxine said as she opened a portal straight to Silky''s room and sent a mental signal to Silky for her to come through. Thankfully, Maxine had run this by her mother already. She was just happy to have a break from Silky''s enormous appetite that was burning a hole through her finances.


    Silky came through the portal in her humaniod form and Maxine gave her a good look. The first thing Maxine noticed was that Silky had gotten taller to the point that the top of her head was level with Maxine''s shoulders. Silky was wearing a simple yellow dress and Maxine was pleased to see that Silky had let her hair grow out to about halfway down her back. However Maxine was a bit curious about what was in the pink backpack strapped to Silky''s back.


    Silky took a moment to look around the room and her eyes found Orianna before anyone else. In the next moment, Silky leapt at Orianna with her arms spread wide while she happily yelled, "Auntie!" Well, I see Silky still likes to hug tackle people and it''s a good thing she held back on her hug tackle. Orianna has only recently formed an essence core. She couldn''t take it if Silky used her full strength. Orianna laughed loudly as she got tackled out of her chair by Silky and Madam Neshan revealed a happy smile.


    Maxine watched Silky rub her face against Orianna''s neck for a few second before she asked, "Where''s my hug?"


    Silky laughed happily as she got off of Orianna and leapt through the air to hug tackle Maxine while shouting happily, "Mama!" Maxine laughed happily as she allowed Silky to knock her down to the floor.


    "I missed you, mama," Silky said softly while laying on top of Maxine.


    "I missed you too, Silky," Maxine said as she brushed Silky''s hair, "Now let''s get off the floor so you can tell me how your last two months have been." They got up and Maxine brought a couple chairs around to sit down on so that they could talk until grandma Victoria arrived.

 Chapter 98

    "So, how has school been?" Maxine asked Silky since it had been acouple weeks since she talked to Silky about it last.


    "My teacher, Mrs. Harrison, tries to teach me all sorts of stuff, but it gets boring because I already know everything she is teaching. She gets mad at me when I don''t pay attention," Silky sulks, but her mood becomes more cheerful, "My classmates are fun, though. They showed me how to play soccer and tag. They try so hard, but they can never catch me! Also, the boys keep asking me to climb up walls in my arachne form. Why do they do that?"Uh, oh. I never thought there would be young perverts in her class, but boys will be curious about their newest classmate that isn''t exactly human.


    "Maybe their curious about what''s under your dress," Maxine said.


    "I think they already know and are just being perverts," Orianna offered her own opinion.


    "Really, mama?" Silky asked.


    "Yes, but you should already know why you shouldn''t let them see anything," Maxine said.


    "Yep, I do," Silky said with a smile and she looked to Orianna, "Auntie, do you like any boys?"


    "Yes, I like Maxwell Adams a lot," Orianna said shyly, "He makes me feel safe and loved."


    "He''s nice to you too? That''s great! I like him because hesneaks me chocolates when grandma Claudia isn''t looking," Silky said happily.Oh, so that''s how Silky has been getting her chocolate fix since I have been away from Earth.


    "I know. He told me that he just feels like spoiling you every time he sees you," Orianna said.


    "Really?" Silky asked.


    "Yes, he can''t help himself because you are just too cute," Orianna said with a happy smile and Silky revealed a huge smile of her own.


    "She has always been cute, even when she was just a spider," Maxine agreed.


    "Oh? She evolved into an arachne from a spider-type beast?" Madam Neshan asked.


    "Yes, she didand from what I have heard, it extremely rare for something like that to happen," Maxine replied, "Regardless she is now my daughter and if anything were to happen to her, I don''t know what I would be capable of."I would probably go on a murderous rampage, but they don''t need to know that.


    "That is how it is with most parents," Madam Neshan said.At that moment, grandma Victoria came into the room and disrupted their current conversation.


    Silky''s eyes widened all six of her eyes upon seeing grandma Victoria and leapt through the air at her to give her a hug tackle. Unfortunately, grandma Victoria rushed at Silky to give her a hug at the same instant.Maxine winced as the two collided with a loud thudand was surprised when she didn''t hear Silky''s nose breaking from the impact.


    "Oh, you are so sweet to give your great grandma a hug," grandma Victoria exclaimed happily. Silky looked as if she was in heaven with how wide her smile was.


    "Oh, yeah!" Silky said as she suddenly broke her hug with grandma Victoria and fished something out of her backpack, "I have something for you great grandma." Silky pulled out a purplescarf and handed it to grandma Victoria.


    "Why thank you Silky. Did you make it with your silk?" grandma Victoria asked.


    "Yep! I made scarves for auntie and mama too," Silky said as she pulled out a red and green scarves from her backpack.Maxine gently took the green scarf from Silky and gave her sweet little daughter a hug. Weshould be the ones giving her gifts not the other way around.


    "I love it," Maxine said to Silky and noticed Orianna was already pushingher silkenred scarf up against her face, "Look, your auntie Orianna loves her scarf too." Silky only showed a huge smile as her response.


    After a few more moments, Silky finally released Maxine and turned to Orianna to ask her, "Auntie, can you show me around this place? Mama told me this place was huge and I don''t want to get lost." Maxine stiffened up at Silky''s request and saw grandma Victoria do the same. They both knew that Orianna rarely showed anydesire to leave her room unless it was to spend time with Maxwell.


    However out of their expectations, Orianna smiled and answered, "Of course, I will." Maxine released a breath she didn''t know she was holding.


    "Yay!" Silky said happily as she leapt to the bedroom door and patiently waited on Orianna to show her around. Orianna got to her feet and gently took Silky''s hand into her own, but she hesitated as she reached for the door. She looked over her shoulder pleadingly at Maxine.


    Maxine was moving before Orianna fully turned her head and took Silky''s free hand. She smiledencouragingly at Orianna. Orianna smiled gratefully to Maxine before she opened the door and lead the way.


    While they walked to the main hall, Silky was happily looking around with awe on her face as she stood between Maxine and Orianna. Orianna appeared nervous as she lead the way, and Maxine was certain that shehadn''t realized yet that Madam Neshan and grandma Victoria were trailing behind the three of them.


    While they walked through the halls, a few maids spotted them and they quickly moved in the direction Orianna was going in. Maxine observed them with her spiritual sense and saw them shoo away any males in Orianna''s path. They even managed to redirect Zephyr after explaining that Orianna was coming that way.It seems grandma has told filled them in on what to do if they see Orianna leave her room.


    Once they reached the women''s communal bathing room, Orianna gestured towards the door and explained, "That is the girl''s bathing room. Would you like to see the inside of it?"


    "Um, okay," Silky said with a confused look on her face. She is probably used to the bathrooms on Earth.


    Orianna lead her into the room and as soon as Silky saw the huge hot spring pool, she said, "That''s a pool."


    "That''s actually a hot spring pool used for bathing," Maxine pointed out.


    "Cool, I''ve never been in a hot spring before," Silky said, "Can we take a bath in it later?"


    "I don''t see why not," Maxine said as she looked at Orianna. Whom nodded her head in assent.


    Silky''s stomach growled very loudly and Maxine showed a bit of concern. Didn''t mom give her enough to eat earlier?"Can I get something to eat please?" Silky asked.


    "Of course, you can," Orianna said, "Let''s get you to the Dining Hall." Maxine used her spiritual sense to let the chef know to make a large meal of various meats for Silky and to get a few other servings of food ready for everyone else.


    When they arrived, Silky ran ahead and sat down at the table. Maxine and the others sat down as well while Silky waited anxiously for her food. All six of her eyes widened in surprise and delightat the sight of a large plate filled with sausages, steaks, meatballs and meaty ribs.Maxine could only watch in awe as Silky devoured it all with gusto and she continued to devour a second plate stuffed with just as much food as thefirst one. Each of those plates had been more than three times what Maxine could normally eat in one sitting.Holy shit. Her appetite has actually increased! No wonder mom sent her away. Feeding anyone with an appetite that big can be both exhausting and be a major drain on the finances.Finally, Silky finished eating and burped loudly.


    "Doesn''t Claudia feed you enough?" grandma Victoria asked.


    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    "Yes, she does but for some reason, I''m extra hungry today," Silky said.I wonder if she is going through a growth spurt. Thatmight account for her increased appetite.


    "Well, are you full now?" grandma Victoria asked.


    "Yep!" Silky said happily, "What else is there to see here, great grandma? And where is great grandpa?"


    "Oh, he will come by to see you later when you are not visiting Orianna," grandma Victoria said, "You see she is terrified of men and it would upset her quite a bit if he were to come here right now."


    "Oh? Why is she afraid of boys?" Silky asked, "They aren''t scary."


    "Maxine didn''t tell you?" grandma Victoria asked and Silky shook her head, "Some men did very horrible things to her. Unforgiveable things that left a scar on her that can''t be seen, only felt."


    "Who?" Silky said angrily as all six of her eyes became tinted with red.


    "Orianna doesn''t talk about what happened and I can''t really blame her for not wanting to either. I wouldn''t want to talk about it if I was in her shoes," Maxine said and gave Orianna''s shoulder a comforting squeeze.


    "They should still be punished for hurting auntie!" Silky said angrily.


    "I never said that they wouldn''t be, Silky," Maxine said. She had been looking for those particular men the day she revived Orianna to give herself peace of mind. She had to know if they were vile men before everything went to hell. If they were, she would administer her own brand of justicebefore they could hurt anyone else. Unfortunately, she had no luck finding them. It was quite possible that they were not even in the samearea anymore.


    "Good," Silky said and the red tint in her eyes faded.


    "Enough talk about those things. Would you like to see the training courtyard?" grandma Victoria asked, "I believe even Orianna has yet to visit there."


    "Yes, please," Silky said.


    They got up from the table and left for the training courtyard behind the mansion. The servants were encouraged to train there in an attempt to trigger a breakthrough to silver stage. With that increase in strength, not only would their standing within the clan increase, but they would also strengthen the clan as well.


    Maxinewent therea few times herself to train, but after the third time that she went there, she avoided it. She didn''t like it when the servants started gossiping about her ''overly aggressive'' fighting style.I learned how to fight in an extremely agressive enviroment. Fighting honorably is a quick way to get yourself killed. Only idiots or green horns choose to engage in honorable combat. Fighting dirty on the other hand increases the odds of survival by a fair margin.


    Once they arrived, Maxine saw a few off duty maids were lightly sparring with each other and on the far side of the courtyard, the butlers were doing the same. Reflexively, Maxine turned her head towards Orianna to soothe her, but she wasn''t freaking out. She only got somewhat nervous as she moved closer to Maxine andsqueezedSilky''s hand tightly.


    "It''s alright, auntie. If any of those boys get too close, I will chase them away," Silky said comfortingly.


    "It''s okay. I need to get used to them," Orianna said shakily, "And Maxwell''s over there training. Ijust want to watch him." Maxine looked over and saw Maxwell sparring with three of the butlers. He was using his strengthening technique to only increase his abilities by fifty percent.He is training his endurance and combat skills at the same time. That''s a rather efficient use of his time.


    "Just let us know when you have had enough," Madam Neshan said.


    "I will," Orianna said as she dragged Silky over to a stone bench and sat down to watch Maxwell. Maxine decided to watch him spar as well. He was doing quite well considering how much he was holding back.He''s improving his form on the spot. I probably won''t win the next time we spar. Not unless, I decide to go all out by using my draconic essence armor.


    "Uncle Max is really strong, isn''t he auntie?" Silky asked innocently. Maxine nearly choked on her spit mid-swallow at Silky''s sudden statement.


    "Yes, he is and we aren''t married just yet," Orianna said while blushing fiercely, "My grandma, and your great grandma, wants us to date for awhile longer before that happens."


    "Why are you not letting them get married, great grandma?" Silky asked after facing grandma Victoria.


    "I just want to make sure Orianna is really in love with that young man. That''s all," grandma Victoria said, but Maxine knew that was a lie. She was doing it for appearances. It would be odd if Orianna fell head over heels in love with Maxwell on first sight, especially considering her fear of men.


    "Oh, okay," Silky said and turned her head back to watch Maxwell, "Look. Max is coming over here!"


    "Shall we go meet him halfway, Orianna?" Maxine asked.


    "No," Orianna said swiftly, "Let''s stay here and let him come to us."Well, I can''t blame her for not approaching him. That would put her closer to the butlers afterall.


    "Good afternoon, ladies," Maxwell said once he got close enough to be heard. Although, Maxine wished he had stayed a bit farther away. His sparring had caused him to work up quite a bit of sweat and the resulting body odor was quite potent. However, she did her best to ignore it.


    "Hello, Max!" Silky said happily and unexpectedly she didn''t try to hug tackle Maxwell. Maxine belatedly remembered arachne, like spiders, have a very sensitive sense of smell. She probably didn''t want to get any closer to Maxwell either due to his strong body odor.


    "What? No hug?" Maxwell asked.


    "You are too stinky for hugs," Silky said honestly as she pinched her nose and Maxine showed an amused smile.


    "Yes, I agree," Maxine said, "Maybe he should go take a bath." Maxwell looked defeated and he started to move closer to Orianna for a hug.


    "No!" Orianna giggled as Maxwell hugged her, "You stink!" However Maxwell just rubbed his face against hers, which caused Orianna to giggle louder.


    "Well, it looks like Orianna will need a bath if this keeps up, right Silky?" Maxine asked.


    "Yeah, she will!" Silky announced and suddenly hug tackled Maxwell, "Now, I need a bath too!" Maxine rolled her eyes at Silky''s antics. Grandma Victoria was laughing lightly off to the side.


    "Get off him, Silky," Maxine told Silky, "You will only end up being as stinky as he is."


    "Okay, mama" SIlky said obediently and came back over to Maxine, "Do we get to have our bath now?"


    Maxing glanced at Maxwell and Orianna, whom wandered a short distance away to flirt, and answered Silky, "No, not yet. It may be a little while since your auntie is busy flirting with Maxwell." Silky looked over at Maxwell and Orianna and walked up to them.


    "Auntie, stop flirting so we can go take a bath," Silkydemanded and both Maxwell and Orianna blushed fiercely. However the next instant theystartedlaughing.


    "Alright, Silky, but I want to spend some more time with Maxwell. How about we have a bath after dinner, okay?" Orianna asked.


    "Yay!" Silky said happily and seemed to get confused, "When''s dinner?"


    "A few hours away," grandma Victoria said, "But, you will be busy until then. There are a few people that want to see you. They heard about how cute you were and wanted to make dresses for you."I see grandma already wants to spoil Silky.


    "Really?" Silky said with wide eyes.


    "Yes, they are right over there," grandma Victoria said and pointed over at half a dozen seamstresses and tailors. Silky waved at them with a huge smile on her face.


    [Do they need to get her measurements? Or can they figure out her sizes with just a glance?] Maxine asked grandma Victoria via spiritual sense.


    [No, don''t be ridiculous. Even cultivators need to take measurements to make a dress properly. It should take a few hours for all of them to have their turn. Some even brought dresses that had already made in advance. Isuggest that you stay with her since some of these craftsmen may be tempted to do something stupid once they realize she is an arachne. They will be less inclined to try anything infront of the patriarch''s grand daughter. And don''t worry about Orianna, Madam Neshan can always escort her back to her room,] grandma Victoria said.


    [Alright, grandma,] Maxine answered and turned her attention back to Orianna and Maxwell. Those two lovebirds had resumed their flirting.


    "Sis, is it alright if I leave with Silky? We will meet back up at dinner time," Maxine said.


    Orianna looked at Maxine for a moment before she replied, "Yes, of course. I will spend alittle more time with Maxwell before Ihead back to my room."


    "Alright, then. I will see you at dinner," Maxine said and took Silky''s hand as they walked to the amassed seamstresses and tailors.


    Those craftsmen immediately lead them to an empty room before they pulled out various measuring tools. It surprised Maxine how many different measurements were required to make a dress. A couple of them even brought dresses and had Silky change into them to see what adjustments needed to be made to them. All in all, it took them a few hours to finish taking all of Silky''s measurements.Holy shit. I never knew that they would measure how big around her arms were every few inches. What is grandma asking them to make besides a dress? A form-fitting body armor?


    Once Silky was free of those people, her stomach growled in protest. It wasn''t quite time for dinner, but Maxine still smiled as she said in mock disbelief, "You''re hungry again?"


    "Yes, I am, mama," Silky said.


    "Alright, let''s head to the dining hall then. It''s almost dinner time anyways," Maxine said and started to lead the way.


    As she walked to the dining hall, Maxine knew that she would have to send Silky back just after dinner. It had amazed her just how quickly the day had gone by for her, but she wouldn''t trade that time spent with Silky for anything. It had been good for the both of them.


    Regardless, she needed to do a few things before she sent her clone off to fight the Divine Marks clan. She still needed to make a few dozen high quality healing potions for emergencies, harvest some precious herbs from her medicinal garden in the shadow world, train her various techniques and see if she knew anyone that would be sent to fight in the war as well.It was a lot to do in only two days, but she was confident that she could do it all. However she wondered what kind of ship her clan would use for transporting so many combatants. The only ship class she has seen so far was the one that transported to the Kavros Clan.I don''t see us having too many of those. Even if they double up people in those tiny rooms, they won''t be able to move more than sixty people per ship and I know for a fact that there will be more than ten thousand warriors just from my clan. How will theytransport everyone to the conflict planet?

 Chapter 99

    It had been a week since Maxine sent Silky backto Earth and she was feeling cramped and grumpy. Shehad been forced to share an eight by eight foot room with five other girls on a huge transport ship. When she first got on this ship, she had originally been sharing it with just Jenifer Krell, but as they made additional stops on worlds controlled by the Kavros Clan, it had gradually filled up.


    Maxine could only complain about the tight quarters to herself. Boreas had explained that they only had two of these massive ships and the second ship was to be used only in case of an emergency that required them to aid the Alliance against either the Hive or the Evil Races.


    They were going to arrive to the conflict planet today, and she couldn''t wait to get off of this ship. She had enough of listening to the extremely loud snores of her roommateseach night. It made it hard to get a decent night of sleep which was why she opted to meditate while she was out of bed.


    "Hey, Maxine. You have been in a fight against other people before, right? What should we expect?" a girlnamed Nina Cervantes asked and brought Maxine out of her meditation.


    She opened her eyes to stare at Nina. It still surprised her that someone had an eye color that matched her silver grey hair. Unfortunately,Nina''s hair was raven black and the bright silver of her eyes tended to draw Maxine''s gaze.


    Maxine shook her head slightly and quickly realized that all of the other girls in the room were looking at her expectantly."Imagine fighting something thathas unknown special abilitiesand skills and you have to instantly adapt to fighting them on the spot," Maxine answered, "If you can''t adapt, you better pray that you are more powerful than your opponent or you are in for a really rough fight. That''s assuming that it''s only a one on one fight. When there are more people, you have to constantly be aware of your surroundings to avoid getting attacked from behind."


    "That sounds terrifying," Jenifer Krell said.


    "It is," Maxine agreed, "Although, it getsless terrifying with experience."


    "That''s not reassuring," Nina said, "What about if we are captured? What''s the worst we can expect?"God damn, I hate explaining things like this. It reminds me about what happened to Alice in the other timeline.


    "If the worst comes to pass, you will be raped by every man in the Divine Marks clan''s forces one after another until you either get rescued, commit suicide or there is a prisoner exchange after the war ends," Maxine answered with brutal honesty, "And assuming you live through that nightmare, you willprobablyhave a baby in your womb and you won''t know who the father is." All of the girls went pale.What''s worse is that our clan is strictly against abortions of any kind. Although I think it has more to do with the Shadow Lords pulling the strings in the background so that they don''t loose a potential shadow king or queen.


    "That''s horrible," Nina said softly while trembling, but Maxine didn''t know if it was fear or anger..


    "But there are rules against that!" one of the girls in the room added, "The observers sent by the alliance wouldn''t allow that!"


    "They would if they were paid enough to look the other way," Maxine retorted, "Not everyone plays by the rules, so do your best not to get captured. Although I probably won''t have to deal with that nightmare. I have daddy dearestandthe Patriarch to thank for that blessing."


    "I bet. They would be too scared of your father''s wrath to try anything like that," Jenifer Krell said.


    "It helps, but that''s only a deterent. It won''t actually stop them if they stop thinking with their brains," Maxine answered, "Thankfully, the Patriarch gave me a ring to protect my chastity that can only be removed by myself or him. It gives whomever tries to touch me in a lewd manner a powerful electric shock and anyone who tries push through the pain of being electricuted gets the offending limb wreathed in flame."Lastly, I could always give those assholes a nice acid spray to the face as long as I stay in my battle form. The only drawback to that strategy is that I will have to eat a lot more since my battle form requires more calories to maintain.She noticed that all of the girls there were looking covetously at the Chastity Protection Ring. She didn''t blame them. She just wished she had a few spares to hand out to them, but Boreas only gave her the one ring.


    Thier conversation was interrupted when the intercom sounded, "This is Commander Brackstone. We are going to land in ten minutes. So get your gear on and prepare for landing. Because once we are on the ground, I expect all of you to get to your assigned posts. I want our base up and running as quickly as possible. Remember the sooner we get it built the sooner we can get to killing our enemy."Finally, I''ve had enough of being stuck in this sardine can of a room.


    "You heard him. Get your equipment on," Maxine told them. She was still surprised that Boreas had given herpermissionto act independantly from the main force, but she still intended to work with Commander Brackstone rather than against. Jenifer Krell, on the other hand, was assigned as the squad leader for the rest of the girls in this room.


    Maxine got her gearequiped while her roommates did the same. Her equipment was a nearly identical copy to what her Shadow''s Embrace armor. There were a few differences between them. Firstthe face mask could be removed if she wanted to. Next, the armor had been modified to accomodate her battle form should she choose to transform into it. She was particularly happy about the slit in her pants to allow for her tail to form without the impediment.Last the clan''s symbol was clearly displayed on her back and on the left side of her chest. She didn''t wanther allies to mistake her for an enemy during a melee.


    They were all geared up in less than three minutes. Since they were ready to go ahead of time, it gave Maxine a moment to satisfy her curiosity as to what kind of weaponryher roommates used. She was surprised to find that Nina used a battle axe.Wow, never took her forsomeone that uses a battle axe. That''s usually a weapon a man would use.Jenifer Krell still had her halberd and short sword and the others used swords of various lengths. Well they brought the right weapons to fight other humans. Swords are typically the best when against lightly or unarmored opponents and if the Kavros Clan is anything to go by, most of our opponents will be wearing some kind of cloth or leather armor of some kind for highermobility. Although there can be oddballs that wear heavierarmor like Patrick.


    "Maxine, what''s it like to kill someone?" Jenifer Krell asked nervously.Fuck, why does she drop the hard question on me mere minutes before we enter a warzone?


    "Depends on the person, but for most people, they never forget the face of the first person that they kill, ever. They remember every detail for as long as they live and it will haunt them for years after," Maxine answered as honestly as she could, "It helps some if you don''t view your enemy as human, but as a human shaped monster instead."


    Maxine''s answer stunned them into silence and it was only a few moments before the intercom resounded once more, "Alright everyone, disembark and get into position." She slipped the face mask on and headed out to the cargo ramp as was everyone else in the ship.


    It was annoying as she forced her way to the exit ramp and finally got the see the sky of this world. She got quite the surprise. The sky was green.Well, there can''t be blue skies on every planet.


    Without missing a beat, she released five of her ravens from her shadow to scout the surrounding area and to keep an eye out for any sudden attacks made by the Divine Marks clan. If she were in charge of the enemy forces, that would have been the first thing she would have done. Not many people would expectan attack to be made beforeeither side had first built some kind of defensive fortification to at least fend off the beasts of the land.


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    Before her ravens got that far away, Commander Brackstone sent her a message via spiritual sense, [Come to the command tent.]What does he want so soon?She shrugged and looked for a tent large enough to be considered a command tent.


    As soon as she found it, she went to it and walked inside of the tent. The first thing she saw was Commander Brackstone looking at a holographic display of some kind. He was a relatively handsome middle aged man with a full head of light brown hair.


    "Icame as you requested. Now, why did you call me here?" Maxine asked.


    "I asked you here to make sure you don''t act recklessly because it''s my responsibilty to mount a rescue mission if you get captured," Commander Brackstone said, "If I don''t, the Patriarch will have my head."


    "I''m not stupid. I''ll mostly be scouting out the enemy forces and performing raids using my constructs while I remain hidden. I have already started scouting the surrounding area with five of my flying constructs," Maxine answered, "If I find anything, I will let you know in the next breath."


    "Good," Commander Brackstone said with an approving nod of his head, "I heard you had combat experience against other humans, but I didn''t realize you had experience in warfare as well."


    "I don''t have any experience with warfare. I just did what I thought was right," Maxine answered.


    "Regardless,that was the correct course of action," Commander Brackstone said, "Now, I would appreciate it if you could help with the construction of the walls surrounding the camp before you do anything else."


    "I have something else in mind," Maxine responded, "If I can find the enemy base camp, I was thinking about taking out some of their sentry posts since I doubt they would expect an attack this soon."


    Commander Brackstone showed a very small smile before he answered, "That''s an interesting idea. It would thin out the enemy forces and give you an idea of their defensive abilities at the same time. But it would put you at risk of being captured."


    "I''m aware. That''s why I will beriding on my fastest construct to escape if need be. Also, I have another reason to scout their camp myself. We need to have a rough evaluation of their troop numbers. The Alliance never set a limit how many cultivators could participate for each side," Maxine added and she saw real concern on Commander Brackstone''s face.


    "If they havetwenty percent morepeoplethan we do, this could be catastrophic, even if their average strength is weaker than ours," Commander Brackstone stated as his face filled with even greater concern, but he quickly recovered, "Go, find the enemy base camp, but make sure this is strictly a scouting mission. Do not engage the enemy and try to avoid detection. They should be to the southwest. To our north and east, there is nothing but oceans after one hundred kilometers."


    "Thanks, I''m on it," Maxine said as she left the tent and redirected her ravens to search to the southwest. Next, she looked for an open area large enough to bring out her dragon. She found one nearby and began to slowly bring her dragon through.God, I hate having to do this so slowly, but I need to keep up the charade that I can only bring my dragon out at this speed. But seeingthe Divine Marks Clan''s base camp for myself is a must. There are always details lost when I view anything indirectlythrough my constructs and my dragonshould be way faster than a peak silver stage cultivator. Flying beasts will always have insanely superior speed compared to anything that fliesusing a formof energy.


    Once it had fully emerged, she leapt onto it''s back and ordered it to take flight. She looked back at the base camp and saw she had gained quite an audience. She only shrug to herself as her dragon veered to the southwest as it ascended. Things like that were bound to happen since only one ina hundred members of the Kavros Clan could use shadow essence and of those only one in a thousand could actually make constructs.


    She flew for a couple hours over dense forests at near the speed of sound before she spotted the Divine Marks Clan''s base camp. The only reason she spotted it at all was the fact that their drop ship was taking off out of the corner of her eye. She had her dragon ascend even higher so that it would only appear as a barely visible in the sky to anyone on the ground, even if they had essence enhanced eyes.After it veered towards the enemy base camp, she got a good look at it. She knew for certain that it wasconsiderbly largerthan the Kavros Clan''s one.


    However her face when pale when she felt numerousdifferent spiritual sense signatures lock onto her.OH, SHIT! I''ve been spotted!Even from here, she saw three dozen figureslaunched violently off of the ground andbegan hurtling towards her at frightening speeds.


    Her dragon spun around on a dime and nearly threw her off it''s back before it quickly began to accelerate. She gripped the spines on her dragon''s back as the air thundered around them when her dragon quickly broke the sound barrier several times, but her persuers were still gaining on her.


    After she regained a more stable spot on her dragon''s back, she started to feel desperation clawing it''s way to the surface of her mind since her persuers were gaining on her. She had to find a way to slow them down until her dragon got to it''s top speed and she became determined to do just that as she drew one of her Twilight Iron Blades from her dimensional pouch. She readjusted her seating to facethem while maintaining her seat and unleashed a Crescent Moon Blitz at them. She knew they were too far away for it to do any real damage. She was only hoping that the attack spooked them enough for them to dodge involuntarily. Fortunately it worked as they reflexively dodged her attack and that gave her dragon just enough time to reach it''s maximum speed.The bad news was that her persuers were able to match pace with her dragon.Fuck! I didn''t think they could fly this fast. It''s a good thing I''m not heading towards my base camp. I would hate to give these assholes an idea of which direction it''s in.


    It only took her persuers a minute to realize they weren''t gaining on her any more and they started hurling attacks at her dragon''s wings. Quickly she drew her other Twilight Iron Blade and unleashed Crescent Moon Blades in a frenzy to intercept their attacks. Defending like that was draining her essence and mana fast, but she couldn''t risk them destroying one of her dragon''s wings. Once she lost her flight speed advantage, being captured was almost a certainty.


    However as soon as she believed that her efforts were paying off, they switched targets. A myriad of attacks were coming straight for her.Oh, shit!She unleashed one Crescent Moon Blade after another to desperately ward off their attacks. She was quickly loosing strength andwas worried that a few attacks would get through if this kept up.


    She saw a wind blade coming right at her and leaned to the right. However her attempt to dodge failed somewhat as it cut her left arm as it pass by her. Before she could recover, an earthen spikepierced through her stomach and out of her back before it bounced harmlessly off her dragon''s horns. She barely managed to avoid the spearlike projection of essence aimed at her headby leaning her head to one side.She only suffered a shallow cut on her cheek instead of having her head exploded. Oddly the attacks ceased after that before she could suffer any more injuries or be thrown off her dragon from her frantic attempts to dodge. She looked up and saw that her persuers had lagged behind quite a good distance. Apparently they had drained too much of their strength by attacking her while maintaining their speed. That was close.A few minutes later, they gave up chasing her when it was obvious that she had too much of a lead.


    Once they were out of sight, she collasped onto her dragon from both physical and mental exhaustion.I''m a fucking idiot. I nearly got myclone killed. All because I wanted to see their base camp for myself.What I should have done when I saw the enemy base camp is get my dragon on the ground and used a stealth technique to get closer a closer look. If that didn''t work I could always modify one of my ravens to look like a local bird. Even if they destroyed it, I would''ve gotten abetter idea of how many people they have than if I hadn''t seen anything. Not that it matters now. I hope Commander Brackstone has some good ideas on how to fight a larger force because I havn''t got the faintest idea as to how.No matter how much she wanted to go back to the base camp for medical attention, she couldn''t just yet. She had no idea how far their spiritual sense could reach and decided to fly in this direction for a while longer.


    Maxine forced herself to sit up. She retrieved a potent healing potion from her dimensional pouch before downing it in one swift motion. Her wounds stopped bleeding almost immediately as the potion took effect and she lowered herself back down torest on her dragon''s back.


    After an hour of flying in this direction, she ordered her dragon to return to base camp. She didn''t know how long she laid on her dragon''s back before she heard the faint sounds of shouting over the wind passing by her ears. A few moments later, she felt a series of gentle impacts signalling her that her dragon had landed.


    Maxine tried to move her aching body, but failed miserably as pain crippled her from the wound on her stomach every time she tried. Thankfully a slender pair of hands lifted her up and put on a stretcher of some kind before she was taken to a medical tent. The tent was filled with a few female healers that seemed surprised to have someone to heal so soon.One of them peeled her shirt up just enough to reveal her stomach wound and Maxine heard the woman gasp as the bloody sight. A moment later Maxine felt several streams of essence mending her wounds.


    As they used their essence to heal the worst of the damage, Commander Brackstone entered the room filled with fury. "What the hell happened? I thought I told you to only do some scouting and not to engage the enemy!" he roared.


    "That''s exactly what I was trying to do. But I messed up and they spotted me. I tried to get away, but they were able to keep up with my dragon. I honestly didn''t believe that they would be able to that," Maxine answered weakly, "But forget that, I need to tell you something. I saw the size of the Divine Marks'' base camp and it''s bad. We are outnumbered by at least three to one."

 Chapter 100

    Commander Brackstone looked grim as he responded, "That''s far more than I anticipated. Did you count them with your spiritual sense? Or is this onlyan estimate base on the size of their camp? I only ask this because they could have assembled additional structures to give the false impression that their numbers were far greater than they actually are."


    "I didn''t confirm their numbers, but Ihave sent my flying constructs to get a more accruate count. It will be a few hours yet before they get there. Although they will only be able to count them and not much else. There are just certain details that are lost when I see through my constructs," Maxine answered.


    "What kind of details?" Commander Brackstone said, "And are those details why you went there yourself?"


    "Well, yes.The eye sight of my constructs isactually quite poor. I''m not really sure why they can''t see very well after one hundred and fifty feet. That''s why I had to go myself. It would just beodd if a group of birds got that close to a very active camp," Maxine admitted, "Anyways, can you bring me a map? I still need to tell youthe location ofthe enemy base camp."


    Commander Brackstone looked over his shoulder to a young man Maxine hadn''t even seen and ordered him, "Fetch us a map."


    "Yes, sir," the young man said before he ran out of the tent.


    "Are there any details about their camp that you can rememeber?" Commander Brackstone asked,"I don''t care if it''s just where they dug their latrine pits. Anything is useful." Maxine closed her eyes and recalled the moment when she saw the Divine Marks Clan''s base camp.She was viewing that singular moment as she would a picture. She magnified the ant-like spots inside the camp and saw that most of the cultivators there still looked like teenagers.


    "One out of one hundred lookto be seasoned warriors like you while the rest appear to be in their late-teens. The majority of them prefer swords, but there are a few that use various polearms," Maxine said without opening her eyes and shifted her focus onanother section of the base camp, "And they have fifty people wearing high tech armor that constantly changes colors."


    "That''s very good," Commander Brackstone said, "Anything else?" Maxine continued to scour her memory of that base to find something else that would be useful.


    "Yes, they have large generators neara machine a that look like a four legged crab. Only instead of pinchers,it has weapon mounts," Maxine answered.


    "What color is it?" Commander Brackstone asked.


    "Metalic green and brown," Maxine answered instantly.


    "Damn," Commander Brackstone said in a barely audible voice, "That''s a mark five Xinthian battle mech. That machine is as powerful as a peak silver stage dragon. It must be their trump card if things go poorly."


    "But we have our own trump cards, right?" Maxine stated.


    "Yes, we do," Commander Brackstone affirmed and the young man from earlier came back with a data pad.


    "Sir," the young man said as he held out the data pad and Commander Brackstone took it from him before he turned back to Maxine.


    "We know that the enemy base is to the southwest. So I need you to tell me how far away it is and tell me any identifying landmarks near it," Commander Brackstone said.


    Maxine did the math in her head before she answered, "Roughly, one thousand five hundredmiles southwest by west in a large clearing roughly a kilometer across. Other that that it''s completely surrounded by forest with three lakes to the east."


    After a few moments of fiddling with the datapad, Commander Brackstone asked as he showed the data pad to Maxine, "Is this the spot?" He had it zoomed out to the point that the clearing was only the size of a dime on the screen. She looked at the local geography on the map. She wasn''t that was where it wasuntil she saw a small lake in the shape of a tear drop twenty kilometers to the east of the clearing. She had passed over that lake while she was fleeing.


    "It looks like it," Maxine answered.


    "Good, butI will still have to send another scout to get confirmation before we act on this information," Commander Brackstone said, "I''m not insulting your capabilities. It''s just protocol to confirm all intelligence."


    "It''s fine," Maxine said and a moment later, shefelt sleepy as the healers retracted their hands from her wounds. She scanned her body briefly to seehow much they were able to heal herwounds and to find the cause for her sudden sleepiness.


    Her muscles, skin blood vessels in her stomach had been knitted back together, but they were still not fully healed. They would easily pull apart if she tried to get up in her current state. Her shoulder was only grazed earlier and the healers had already tended to it enough that it wouldn''t open again unless she did something strenuous. The cut on her cheek was extremely shallow and wouldn''t have left a scar even if they hadn''t mended it.


    As for her sudden feeling of sleepiness, it could be just unexpected side effect of the healing potion she drank earlier. Afterall, she didn''t have all of the materials for it''s original recipe so she had replaced it with something that was ninety percent similar to it that grew locally in the shadow world.Then again, it could just be that I''m dead tired from the physical and mental strain that I went through earlier.


    "Good. Now I will leave you in the hands of our capable healers, young miss," Commander Brackstone said and turned around to leave.And here I was hoping he would be the exception and call me by name.


    As soon as the tent flapclosed behind Commander Brackstone, the healer that remained helped Maxine sit up and helped her take off her damaged tunic.It needs to be cleaned and repaired. Not to mention it keeps the healers from keeping an eye on my wounds.


    While the healer worked, Maxine asked her, "So, when will I be back on my feet, doc?"


    "I was going to say it would be at least five days even with your ... abnormal regenerative powers, but you seem to have drinken a top-quality potion. So you should be on your feet in two," the female healer said as she pulled Maxine''s leather tunic off.I know you were about to say freakish.


    "I know what you wanted to say and frankly I would prefer it if you were more open with how you felt about me," Maxine said.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    "I''m sorry, young miss, but I can''t do that," the young woman said, but Maxine received a spiritual sense message from the woman, [Truthfully, I wish I could figure out how to make everyone in our clan heal as quickly as you do. It would shorten the time certain young men are in my care. I''ve been on enough hunting expeditions to know thatthose boys will use pain induced delirium as an excuse for grabbing my butt and breasts. I don''t want to put up with that any longer than necessary.]


    "Oh, well. Can you at least tell me your name?" Maxine asked and added via spiritual sense after giving the healer''s impressive endowments a quick glance, [I can totally see that happening.]


    "Yes, I can. It''sBillie Manning," the healer answered as she lowered Maxine back down onto the bed, "Do you need anything for pain, young miss?"


    "No, I''m fine. I just need to get some rest," Maxine said and added via spiritual sense, [The other healers are giving you wierd looks, so we should wait for another time to talk some more.]


    "As you wish, young miss. Just call out if you need anything,"Billie Manning said as she covered Maxine''s shirtless upper body with a blanket, "I will send your armor to our crafters to have it cleaned and repaired. It should be done before you have to return to your duties."


    "Thanks," Maxine said gratefully beforeBillie Manning left to take her leather tunic away. Maxine decided to make good use of her time in bed and closed her eyes to make it appear she was sleeping before she turned her focus to her ravens.


    The first thing she did was trace her route back to the Divine Marks clan''s base camp. On the way there, she had them look for any local birds and she found several on the way there. However only one of them fit her needs. It was a violet andblue bird that was the same size as her ravens and they flocked in small groups of no more than seven.


    Maxine had them land and modified them remotely. It was hard, but still doable.After their transformation completed, she had her ravens return to approaching the Divine Marks clan''s base camp.


    It took her ravens longer than she expected to reach that place, but she didn''t have them fly over it. Instead she had them give it a wide breadth as if they were afraid of the humans within that camp. She had them glance periodically towards the camp and saw that the cultivators on sentry duty on the walls were keeping an eye on her transformedravens.Damn, they are even keeping track of approaching wildlife. I guess I will just have to look for a weak spot to get a better look inside of their base camp.Still she was able to get a good look at their base camp while having her ravens fly around it and started counting the people inside of the Divine Marks clan''s base camp.


    While circling the perimeter, she noticed that there were some changes since she saw this place last. Before, the walls had a pair of sentires every four hundred feet, but now there was a group of six every one hundred feet. And there were now automated quad-barrel turrets inbetween each group.However some of those turrets were still being assembled, but it looked like they would be operational before nightfall.Wow, I never thought getting spottedwould cause them to beef up their defenses to such a level. I have seen fortress cities in the other timeline that would have been put to shame by the heavy defenses I''m looking at now. Although, the Divine Marks clan has way more resources than those fortress cities had.Still, I don''t see anyone getting close enough to do any damage. We will have to wait for them to come looking for us before we can whittle down their numbers. That might be something to include this the next time I talk to Commander Brackstone or his aide.


    After flying around the base camp''s perimeter almost all the way, she found the weak point that she was looking for. There was agirl amongst a group of five that seemed to be fond of birds. She kept whistling towards her transformed ravens while offering them a handful of bread crumbs in her hand.


    Maxine had her transformed ravens land on a tree a couple hundred feet away from that girl and had them watch her cautiously.This is great. Now I have a means to get a betterlook inside their base camp, but I will have to approach that girl slowly. I kind of feel bad for conning that girl. Maybe I could spread her description around so that no one kills or tortures her for information. That would be a good way to pay her back for conning her like this. In any case, I better inform Commander Brackstone on the total number of troops that they have.


    As Maxine returned her focus back to her clone, she sense that someone was approaching over her. She opened her eyes and saw that it was Jenifer Krell.


    "How are your wounds?" Jenifer Krell asked gently.


    Before Maxine answered, she tried to contact Commander Brackstone with her spiritual sense to give him an update. However her spiritual sense couldn''t go through the fabic of the tent. Well, that makes sense. This is the women''s medical tent afterall and they would want to preserve the modesty of any women being treated here.


    "I will be up and about in two days," Maxine answered, "Although I wish I could move around sooner."


    "I understand entirely. I couldn''t stand being bedridden for very long either," Jenifer Krell agreed, "Anyways, I heard Commander Brackstone announce that we already know where the enemy base camp is. I think we have you to thank for that."


    "Yeah, but as you can see, I got spotted. So they know that we know where they are," Maxine replied, "Although, they have no idea where our base is so we have that advantage. We need as many of those as we can get. We are heavily outnumbered."


    "The commander didn''t mention that," Jenifer Krell said, "How badly are we outnumbered?"


    "Depends. How many combatants do we have?" Maxine asked.


    "Around thirteen thousand five hundred," Jenifer Krell answered.


    "Well, the enemy has fourty-two thousand three hundred fifty-two troops. Of those, only five hundred twenty-three of them are silver stage," Maxine said grimly, "And they brought a lot of tech to bolster their forces even further." Jenifer Krell paled as Maxine finished.


    "That''s insane," Jenifer Krell said, "How are we supposed to beat that?"


    "I don''t think we are able to beat those kind of odds on our own, but there are ways around that," Maxine answered, "That reminds me, could you go fetch Commander Brackstone''s aide? I need to tell him the exact number of troops that the Divine Marks clan has."


    "Why didn''t you tellthe commander earlier?" Jenifer Krell asked.


    "Because I didn''t know it earlier. My ravens were only able to count them all just recently," Maxine answered.


    "Alright, I''ll be right back," Jenifer Krell said as she left the medical tent. A few moments later, she returned with the commander''s aide in tow.Maxine relayed the exact number and their cultivation levels to the commander''s aide through spiritual sense. It took a few moments to relay it all, but as soon as she was done, he left quickly to report to Commander Brackstone.


    "Now that that''s over with, I could use something to eat. Got anything on you?" Maxine asked since she started to feel hungry.


    "No, but I could tell the healers that you need something to eat," Jenifer Krell answered.


    "I would appreciate it," Maxine said gratefully.


    "I will on my way out. I''ve been away from my squad for long enough. I just wanted to check on you. See you later," Jenifer Krell said as she walked away from Maxine.


    "See you later," Maxine said loud enough for Jenifer Krell to hear her.


    After Jenifer Krell was out of the tent, Maxine let out a tired sigh. She knewthings would get intense after she was back on her feet. Commander Brackstone seems competent enough. He will probably start initiating guerilla tactics in the next week or so. Or however long it takes his scouts to return with confirmation of the enemy base location. That would be the correct choice militaristically, but if I was going to give the enemy a hard time, I would incite a large group of beaststo attack their base camp repeatedly. It would be an effective way to thin out their numbers without having to fight ourselves. Unfortunately, I''m not in charge, but I can still tell Commander Brackstone my idea. Although he may not agree to do it. It is sort of a dirty way to fight, but it works. Even if he doesn''t agree to it, I can still do it on my own. That way all the dishonor is on me and not him. In any case, I can''t do anything before my clone is healed. So, I might as well enjoy a bit of extra time with Orianna without having the constant distraction of someone''s obnoxiously loud snoring. Ijust wish I could afford to ignore my clones for awhile, but I can''t. I don''t want them to have any instances ofshitting or pissing themselves just because I was too lazy to keep track of that stuff. Or god forbid, they die from lack of food or water. Like Hellen said, they are my extra lives so it would be stupid of me to waste them like that.

 chapter 101

    Maxine was searching for a particularly large group of beasts called Wind Woves. There were one of the few beasts on this world that lived in excessively large groups. These creatures lived in groups of hundreds, sometimes thousands if it was lead by a particularly strong alpha. And as it''s name implies, it has the wind element infused in it''s core, which made it terrifyingly fast, buttheir speedshould still be just shy of her own unless they had a cultivation within silver stage. Thankfully they typically don''t get much stronger than the peak of iron stage. There were only a handful of alphas that strong on this planet.


    She already had a plan on how to lure these beasts to the enemy base camp and that was to steal one of their alpha''s pups. The biggest worry was during the chase. She knew she would have to avoid a barrage of wind blades.


    The reason she insisted on doing this mission herself was because of Nina Cervantes'' harrassment over the past couple days. Maxine had woken up two days in a row with Nina hovering over her with an odd smile on her face. It had been somewhat unnerving to say the least, but whatscared her was when she woke up with Nina laying down next to her. She didn''t know why Nina was behaving like this, but she knew that she had to get away from Nina at that point. Thus she ran to Commander Brackstone with her idea to thin out the Divine Marks clan''s numbers.


    Commander Brackstone''s reaction wasonly somewhat surprisingwhen she suggested her plan of attack. She had thought from his enraged expression that he would have said no, but he actually agreed to it after calming down.


    "Those Divine Marks cowards have already thrown honor out the window by bringing such excessive amounts of people and technology. If we hinder ourselves by remaining honorable, we will only suffer for it. So go. Find others of a like mind to lure beasts to attack them," were the words he used before sending her off.


    To minimize losses from either stupidity or lack of speed, Maxine had selected a dozen silver stage cultivators to out of several hundred to assist her. She had sat them all down andlaid out her plan. Each of them would find a large group of beasts and find a way to lure them into portals that lead directly into the enemy base camp all at the same time. That way their defenses would be bypassed altogether and they would suffer heavy losses. To do that, they would meet up with Maxine, so that she could open the portals. The only problem was that they would have to get within three hundred feet of the enemy base campto minimize her essence consumption.She needed every last bit of her strength to escape if she were discovered prematurely.


    Unfortunately being that close to the enemy base camp also meant that they would be in range of the automated turrets and she would have to stop masking her mana and essence to open those portals. She didn''t look forward to what she would expect would be a hail of weapons fire for the few moments that she would be detected.


    Still, finding an alpha Wind Wolf with pups is no easy task. Any kind of wolf is notoriously gifted at hiding their pups from predators, especially so for Wind Wolves. They can use their wind element to prevent the scent of their pups from leaving the den. Checking every hole in the ground with her spiritual sense is out as well since the beasts would view it as an act of an aggressor and rush to defend the den. This meant she had to look for the den the old fashion way. She just hoped the others were having an easier time of finding their targets.


    A gentle vibration from her dimensional pouch signaled her that one of the others found their target. It was Maxine''s idea to use communication discs to notify each other that they found their target and they were supposed to send this signal to everyone in their group. They would only move to grab their targets oncetwelve vibrations were felt by everyone.


    Thankfully, Maxine found the den of a female alpha Wind Wolf by accident when one of her ravens spotted it leaving it''s den. To her surpise, it had a cultivationof silver stage rank three.Wow, that would explain why each my constructs have hadto dodge over a dozen groups of patrolling Wind Wolves in the past twenty minutes. If I consider the density and the territory range of these beasts, there has to be at least three thousand ofthem in this area, probably more.With another look, she saw that it had swollen mammory glands as well. It was clearly rearing some pups.


    This was literately a nearly perfect choice for the plan she had in mind, but she hesitated. The more powerful the beast, the more likely that it was sentient. If it was sentient, she would feel terrible for causingit such distress by stealing it''s child and she would earn an enemy for life on top of that. She had to make sure that it wasn''t. The only way she could though was to briefly touch it''s mind to read it''s surface thoughts, but that came with a risk. If it realized it was being spied on and it was sentient, it could lash out at her with it''s own spiritual sense and it could seriously injure her. Regardless, she had to check if for no other reason than to give herself a peace of mind.


    Maxine very gently extended out her spiritual sense to brush against the alpha Wind Wolf''s mind. She found that it''s thoughts were relatively simple. The wolf''s hunger and thirst were very prominent within it''s mind and it didn''t appear to have any more complex thoughts than those.She retracted her spiritual sense from it''s mind andreleased arelieved sigh.Ireally didn''t want to have to look for another group of beasts.


    She used her communication disc to send the vibration signal to the other twelve to let them know she was in position. Now all she had to do was wait and hope that the Wind Wolves didn''t pick up on her scent.


    While she waited she reviewed what she was going to do.Ok, the easiest way to go inside that den is to instantly scan the interior of it with my spiritual sense and in the next moment shadow step in. After I grab one of the pups, I will use shadow step again to go just outside of the den and run for it. That way I will leave a nice trail for the Wind Wolves to follow. The biggest drawback to this is that I will have to dodge wind blades from several different directions at once. Thankfully inside this dense forest there are plenty of shadows for me to use to shadow step out of the way. Seems safe enough, but it still carries some risk. However it isn''t nearly as bad as what the others will have to deal with. I just hope they can make it to the rally point with relatively few injuries.


    Even after waiting for four hours, only half of her team found a suitable group of beasts to lure to the Divine Marks Clan''s base camp. She hated waiting while simultaneously evading discovery by Wind Wolves. She doubted the others liked waiting any more than she did under these conditions.


    [Maxine, we need to talk,] Hellen said via spiritual sense.


    [I figured you would. I''m not exactly doing something safe with my clone,] Maxine said while half expecting to get yelled at for volunteering forthis mission.


    [I''m not going to yell at you for doing something to keep our kinsmen from dying needlessly. I don''t want them to die either,] Hellen said calmly.


    [Then what did you want to talk about,] Maxine asked curiously and felt her dimensional pouch vibrate again.That''s seven so far.


    [How would you feel if Claudia were pregnant?] Hellen asked.Wow, that''s a wierd question to ask.


    [I would feel happy for her,] Maxine answered honestly, [But why did you bring this up? Isn''t she sterile?]


    [Not anymore. Your father made it so she could have children as a gift for taking such good care of Silky,] Hellen answered, [And she is currently one month into her pregnancy.]Maxine froze. She was both happy for her mother and confused at why Silky didn''t tell her.Wait, Silky wouldn''t have known what was going on. She may have smelled a change in mom''s hormones but wouldn''t have known what it meant. Also mom may not have even known she was pregnant either.


    [That''s great! I will have to congratulate her,] Maxine said happily.


    [See that you do,] Hellen said, [Now, I best check on Orianna again before I return to my dormant state. I need all the energy I can muster for when your father places me into my new body.]


    [Alright, mom. Take care,] Maxine said.


    Since she still needed to wait for the others to give her the signal, she decided to place her focus back on her transformed ravens. They were eating bread crumbs off of the wall that the girl from earlier left them. She peeked through their eyes to look inside the base camp. It confirmed what she already knew andit gave her a good view ofexcellent warp in locations for herself and the other members of her team.


    Just as she was about to switch her focus back to her clone, she noticed that there was a young demi-human boy wearing next to nothing running towards the wall. His forearms and shins were covered in snow white hair that had black leopard print spots. She spied a set of leopard ears on to the top of his head with a matching tail trailing behind him.Oh? What is that little guy doing here? Is he someone''s kid here? Wait, the way he is moving doesn''t indicate that.


    However she knew the truth of the matter when the boy collapsed in apparent agony while grabbing at a black collar round his neck. A moment later, a large man appeared and a young woman that shared the boy''s race appeared trying to shield him as the large man started beating the boy.I can''t believe what I am seeing. Those motherfuckers are keeping slaves!


    This scene reminded Maxine of her own childhood as her rage threatened to take control, but she managed to just barely keep it in check. Now was not the moment to strike. Instead she had her transformed ravens fly over the outer edge of the base camp to keep an eye on where the two leopardkin were taken. When her team lured the beast horde to the Divine Marks clan''s base camp, she would use the chaos of the attack to murder that bastard and free those two leopard beastkin.


    After another half hour of waiting, the remainder of her team sent their respective signals. Without hesitation, Maxine shadow stepped into the Wind Wolf den and grabbed one of the pups before shadow stepping just outside of the den to leave a nice scent trail for the beasts to follow.She hadn''t even taken a step before she heard the alpha Wind Wolf howl in rage.


    Without missing a beat, Maxine ran straight towards the Divine Marks clan''s base camp as every Wind Wolf within several miles charged at her.Now for the tricky part.She knew that she would be dodging wind blades in the next few moments and prepared herself mentally for it as she extended her spiritual sense in a sphere around herself.


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    She had run roughly seven hundred feet before she detected the first wind blade coming from her left. It would miss her, but just barely. Thus she ignored it. However that first wind blade acted as a signalfor a dozens of other wind blades to be unleashed at her from almost every direction except for directly infront of her.She started dodging as smoothly as she could without slowing down, but that was a very difficult prospect.


    Some of the wind blades only required her to lean to the side slightly. While others required her to duck, jump hard to theside or leap to avoid them. It had only been mere seconds since the attacks had started and she had already dodged at least twenty wind blades. Her armor was becoming increasingly more damaged as it kept absorbing glancing blows that she wasn''t able to entirely dodge in time. Thankfully, she was only forced to use shadow step once.


    She began to regret volunteering for this mission. Or even, suggesting it. She had never really thought that it would be this bad. However she got some reprieve when she managed topull ahead of the Wind Wolvessince the attacks were now only coming from behind her.I don''t care what anyone says. Dodging attacks from multiple directions is fucking hard, especially when those attack are almost fucking invisible. Still, these critters are the best choice when it comes to thinning out the Divine Marks clan''s forces. They are nasty up close, are used to working as a team, and have their own ranged attacks. I just wish that it wasn''t so dangerous to lure them.


    Maxine continued to narrowly dodge the barrage of wind blade coming at her from behind while maintaining a certain distance from the Wind Wolves. If she got too far away from them, they would give up on the pup that she stole from them. Animals in the wild are far more practical than humans in that respect and are not nearly as vengeful.


    Fortunately she didn''t have to maintain this for much longer. She was arrive at the Divine Marks clan''s base camp in a few minutes at this pace. Fortunately those turrets wouldn''t be able to spot her visually due to the dense foliage, so they would have to target her via equipment used to detect energies from beings of sufficient size. Hence she used an essence and mana masking technique, but if those automated turrets managed to lock on to her through that technique, this mission would go from difficult to down right suicidal.


    She didn''t have time to check it now as she entered the automated turrets targeting range.Moment of truth.Her transformed ravens almost immediately signaled her that the turrets were turning to aim in her direction. She prepared to dodge the ensueing weapons fire, but she released a relieved sigh as the various projectiles sailed over her headat the Wind Wolves behind her. However right before the projectiles pounded into the Wind Wolves, they were diverted to either the ground or into the sky five feet away from the Wind Wolves.


    Maxine narrowed her eyes at that scene.That is something I would expect from intelligent beings. How are they able to do that? I checked them earlier. They are just dumb animals.She quickly scanned the Wind Wolves behind her to find the one directing them, but instead, she discovered something that she missed earlier. They were all linked through a strange form of spiritual sense. It was almost as if they had a hive mind.Oh god. This is bad!I''ve never encountered a beast that could do that before. In this situation, they could collectivelyremember me for stealing one of their pups. FUCK!Might as well make the most of it now and avoid their territory like death in the future.


    She was within five hundred feet when she sensed the others approaching the rally point. All of them were wounded to some degree and were carrying the young of various beasts.


    Maxine looked through her transformed ravens'' eyes for a moment to mark several destinations before she quickly opened thirteen separate portals into the Divine Marks clan''s base camp foreveryon in her team to enter. She ran into theportal directly infront of her and entered the enemy base camp.


    She immediately activated a stealth technique and ran past a few Divine Marks clansmen before depositing the Wind Wolf pup nearby. The others would find an opportune moment to flee out ofa portal that she made or find another means to leave the Divine Marks base camp without being seen if possible. But Maxine wasn''t going to leave just yet. She still had to free that leopardkin woman and boy.


    Fortunately, the beast horde was wreaking havoc within the Divine Marks clan''s base camp and that gave her enough of a distraction tofind those two. The Divine Marks clansmen just didn''t have the time to findthe culprits for this mayhem right now.


    Maxine checked with her transformed raven to see which building that large man draggedthose two leopard kin into and made her way to it while avoiding the now panicked Divine Marks clansmen that kept narrowly missing her. Thankfully, it wasn''t that far from where she infiltrated into the Divine Marks clan''s base camp.


    Once inside, she saw that this place was empty, but she smelled something oddly familiar. However she couldn''t quite place what it was. Whatever it was, it made her angry for some reason. She immediately heard ae faint sound of meaty smacks.Is that bastard still beating that boy?! I''ll killthat him in the most painful way possible!


    Maxine charged through the nearly empty building to the source of the sound behind a door. When she opened it, her fury erupted like a volcano at what she saw. The large man from before was bare from the waist down andthrusting his hips violently betweenthe leopardkin woman''s spread legs. The leopardkin boy was off to the side covered in so many injuries that Maxine wasn''t sure if he was still even alive.


    The large man looked over his shoulder and he growled, "What is it? Can''t you see..." Maxine didn''t let him finish as she used tendrils made of shadow to bind him to a wall and gag him as she shut the door. Judging by how easily she was able to restrain him, she guessed that his strength was no more than iron stage rank seven.


    She was surprised at herself at how calmly she was acting considering the amount of rage she felt. She walked over to the leopardkin boy to see if he was still alive. She saw the weak rising and falling of his chest. She retrieved a healing potion and gently fed it to him. The leopardkin woman came to her side and Maxine realized that she was his mother due to the similarities of their faces.


    Maxine stood up from the leopardkin boy while his motherspoke soothingly to himand she faced the large man, whom was still quite aroused. In her fury, she quickly transformed into her battleform and slashed the bastards dick to bloody shreds with her claws. His muffled screams were a delight to her ears, but she couldn''t fully indulge her fury. She didn''t have the time for it.


    She walked closer to that bastard to look him in the eye before she asked, "How do I remove those collars? Answer me now or pain will follow."


    She removed the gag from his mouth, and listend to what he had to say, "You crazy bitch! Do you know who..." Maxinereplaced the gag without letting him finish and grabbed his left testicle before crushing it into meat paste inside of his scrotum. He jerked and screamed through the gag as sweat started pouring off of him like a river. However she calmly waited for him to finish screaming.


    When he finally calmed down enough to speak, she said, "Answer my question. Or do I need to make it so you can never have children again?"


    She removed the gag once more, but this time he was much more cooperative as he wept, "The data pad... in my dimensional storage pouch. The password is ... Jekral3. It can send a ... signal to release them. Please, ... don''t .. don''t ruin me."


    "I won''t as long as you have spoken the truth," Maxine said as reapplied the gag. She looked around briefly and found his dimensional storage pouch on the floor along with his pants. She retrieved the datapad and keyed in the password. She found that these two leopardkin weren''t the only two enslaved in this place. There were at least fifty others that he was in charge of. She quickly keyed in a few commands to free all of them at once and heard as well as saw the collars on the two leopardkin in the room fall off.Good. Now to gatherall of these poor souls and get them out of here. But I know my clan won''t be able to take care of all these people. That gives me an idea. I could use a bit more population for my village in the shadow world.


    "You, go get all of the others enslaved in this place and gather them in the hall. I will take you out of here," Maxine told the leopardkin woman, "And don''t worry about being seen. The rest of the Divine Marks clan members here have their hands full dealing with a beast horde."


    "What about my son?" the leopardkin woman asked.


    "He will live for now, but only if we can get him out of here. Now go!" Maxine yelled at her and after she left, Maxine turned back to face the large man. However, he was having some kind of seizure.


    She quickly scanned his body with her spiritual sense and found that his blood vessels and nerves were being destroyed by the venom from her claws. While at the same time, his essence was trying to heal the damage inflicted by it. The whole process was causing him to be in tremendous pain. Without help, he would be dead within two hours or ten minutes after his essence ran out.Wow, so that''s what the venom on my claws does. It''s brutal, but this bastard deserves it and more.


    She looked at the bastard in the eye. He still had some semblance of awareness and she noticed that he wanted to say something. So she removed the gag to see what he was going to say, "Antidote... please."


    "I don''t have one. In fact, this is the first time I have ever seen what happens to someone affected by the venom from my claws, so I have no antidote," Maxine stated, "But, if you are lucky, your clanmates might find youin time to save you, butI doubt it. They are rather occupied at the moment and even if they gave you a general antidote, I don''t think it would have much effect on my venom." She saw the dispair in his eyes before she released the tendrils holding him onto the wall. He flopped down bonelessly onto the ground. Even without the bindings, he didn''t appear to be able to move, so she ignored him.


    Maxine walked over to the leopardkin boy to pick him up and left the room. In the hallway, she saw various demi-humans looking at her hopefully. Most of them were women, but there were a few men and children amongst them as well. There was even a lamia in the back.Wow, I know I have said this before at one point but what kind of sick pervert wants tohave sex with a snake? I don''t care if the upper half is that of a beautiful woman. The bottom half is still that of a snake.


    "How are we going to leave this place?" the leopardkin woman said as she gently took her son from Maxine.


    "I have a means to teleport us out, but before I do, I have a question for all of you. Would you people rather go to my clan or to my territory?" Maxine asked them.I need more people to defend it. Canis and the others are doing a great job, but if they are attacked by a large enough force, they will get overwhelmed. They need numbers.


    "Is there a difference? Eitherway we will beslaves. The only difference iswho our master will be," the lamia in the back said.


    "No, you will not," Maxine answered, "My clan abhors slavery and will try to return you to your homeworlds. However there is still a chance you will be recaptured if you go that route, but if you come to my territory, I promise that as long as you live there no one will make a slave of you. You will be free to do as you wish."


    "Lies!" the lamia said angrily.


    "I swear upon my mother that my words are true," Maxine said resolutely and noticed the sounds of fighting from outside were starting to get less intense, "Decide now. We don''t haveany more time to discuss this. Who wants to go to my territory and who wants to go to my clan?" Within seconds, most of them said that they wanted to go to Maxine''s territory. Only an older looking foxgirl and the lamia wanted to go to the Kavros clan.


    "This will only take a moment," Maxine said as she expanded her shadow. She warped the lamia and the older foxgirl to the Kavros clan''s base camp and the rest to the shadow world just outside the village where her shadow clone was waiting to heal the leopardkin boy. She hadn''t been lying when she said he would need more help than her potion.


    Maxine followed right behind the two going to the Kavros clan''s base camp.I wonder how the commander will react to me bringing those two back to our camp and that I released fifty members of their brothel. I bet loosing those girls will effect their moral. Too bad this sneak attack with the beast horde will only work once and they will probably modify their auto turrets to target using thermal optics from now on as well. I just hope they took some heavy losses from this attack.

 chapter 102

    Maxine had stayed in her assigned quarters for nearly a week since she came back from her mission, but It wasn''t because she was tired or injured. There had been an incident on her return from her mission.


    She hadn''t realized just how damaged her armor was when she had returned and only noticed it when Commander Brackstone pointed it out. There were enough holes in it that it looked like it was hit with a shotgun blast. Some of the damage was around her breasts, but thankfully,the arachne silk bindings that she used as a bra hadn''t been damaged. Otherwise many of her male clanmates would have gotten quite the view.


    Still, it bothered her clanmates more than it bothered her. All they saw was a bit a of skin and not even any of the more interesting parts. What was seen caused most of the young men to blush before they quickly looked away since none of them had seen anything more than the faces and hands of girls within the clan. Commander Brackstone made a point to avoid looking at her body altogether and politely told her about the state of her gear. Maxine acted as if it was extremely embarrassing when she was not by showing a shocked expression and cloaking herself in shadow essence before fleeing to her quarters. It would have struck them as odd if she hadn''t. Thankfully, she managed to give her report on the mission before that happened.


    On the plus side, shemade Nina Cervantes tell her why she was acting like a stalker. Apparently it was to get safer duties by making it seem as if she was Maxine''s lover. Maxine just wished Ninahad told her aboutwanting to avoid combatinstead of creeping her. Maxine may have gone along with it. Regardless she couldn''t blame Nina for wanting to avoid combat. There were at least a dozen others that were injured from scouting and patroling duties that day as well. It had probably scared the poor girl into realizing there was a very real possibility that she could die.


    As for the new residents for her village, they were welcomed with open arms. Canisadjusted his plans for expanding the village on the spotand altered them to incorporate some additional housing to accomodate thenew villagers that Maxine found for him. She only found out laterthat a few of those former slaves actually had a craft like leatherworking and bow making. It wasvery foturnate find to help the village in it''s expansion. Unfortunately there were none that knew anything about herbs or how to tend to them.


    Nia, the leopardkin woman whose son she saved, had sworn an oath of fealty to Maxine once it was clear that her son would survive.That had been out of Maxine''s expectations. She should have known Nia would do that though. In the other timeline, beastkin on Earth were well known for honoring debts, and showing tremendous loyalty to those that earned their trust.


    Maxine stopped thinking about what happened the last few days and decided to check on Emily. The last time that she had checked on her, Emily was a few hours from landing on Earth and that was two days ago. She figured now was a good time as any to give Emily a ride on her dragon.


    Emily was sitting down on a couch watching TV with General McKenzie. Maxine smiled at that scene and shesaid to Emily via spiritual sense, [Are you free?]


    [I will be soon,] Emily answered, [I''ve been looking forward to seeing your dragon.]


    [And I have been looking forward to see you again,] Maxine said flirtingly, [I''ve missed you.]


    [I''ve missed you too,] Emily answered, [Can you give me another hour before you bring me over? You can use that time to get anything you want ready.]


    [Sure, see you then,] Maxine said while smiling. There isn''t that much to prepare though. Still it would be a good idea to check on the villagers in the meantime. It''s been awhile since I have personally visited them.


    Maxine focused back on her main body, which was currently sharing a room with Orianna. "Do you really need to go?" Orianna asked.


    "Yes, like I said earlier, I''ve made a promise to Emily and I''m going to keep it," Maxine stated, "Anyways I should only begonefor around four hours, but don''t hold me to that. My date with her could easily take longer."


    "Alright," Orianna said and a suggestive smile appeared on her face, "Maybe I could invite Maxwell to over while you are gone."


    "I doubt grandma would allow that without a chaperone and you know it," Maxine reminded her.


    "You''re probably right as usual," Orianna said with disappointment in her voice, "I will be fine here. Enjoy your date."


    "I will try," Maxine said happily as she opened a portal to the shadow world just outside of the village before jumping into it.


    As usual, she arrived to the shadow world. However, she quickly heard as well as saw many of the beastkin that she freed coming out of the village to greet her.Nia appeared in the front of the crowd.


    "Hello, Nia. How are you adjusting here?" Maxine asked.


    "Wonderfully, m''lady. Everyone is very nice here," Nia answered, "May I ask how long will you be staying? I only ask because Elder Canis may want to serve you dinner if you will be staying long."


    "A few hours, possibly longer. It all depends on how long my beloved wants to stay for her visit," Maxine answered.


    "He must be one lucky man to have earned your love, m''lady," Nia said.


    "Sheis. Even death would not make me forget my love for her," Maxine admitted.It''s already happened, but they don''t need to know that.


    "I didn''t know you favored women, m''lady," Nia said while looking uncomfortable, "Is that why you saved me?"


    "No, I didn''t save you for that. I''m only attracted to my beloved," Maxine answered to allay Nia''s concerns, "Now I have seen the villagers working on a mansion for me through one of my shadow clones. I would like to go see it. Could one of you lead the way?"


    "Certainly," Nia said.


    "Lead on," Maxine said as nia took the lead.


    The village had changed considerably since she had last been here in the flesh. The houses were still made of wood and tile, but they were much larger than before. And there were more of them. She saw a recently constructed tanning hut as well as a bowyer''s sign hanging over one of the doors.It appears that Canis has wasted no time getting those built. He must really want these ladies to feel welcome.


    However when her eyes landed on the mansion theyhad built for her, she was quite surprised. It had two stories, ten rooms and looked like an oversized, albeit beautifully made, log cabin.


    "What do you think of your new home, my lady?" Canis asked as he just appeared by Maxine''s side.


    "It''s wonderful," Maxine said honestly.


    "I''m glad you are pleased," Canis said happily with a slight bow of his head, "Some of our newcomers have offered to keep it maintained, but the final decisionon who is yours."


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    "Whoever is most competent," Maxine replied, "I trust your judgement."


    "As you wish, my lady," Canis said with a slight bow.


    "Now, let me take a look at the inside," Maxine said as she walked up and opened the double doors into the mansion. The main hall was smaller than she anticipated with totem-like pillars to either side with an arched staircase that lead to the second floor.


    Nialead her around the mansion and opened each of the four doors lining either side of the main hall. The first room showcased an empty library. The second was a sitting room. Third was adining room and finally the last door was a kitchen.


    The top floor had six bedrooms and two bathing rooms. All of the furniture was expertly carved. This would be something a noble in the medieval period would enjoy as their main residence.


    "It seems our furniture makers have outdone themselves," Maxine commented.


    "I will pass on the comment, my lady. I expect that your beloved will be here soon?" Canis askedas he looked at Maxine and after Maxine nodded her head, he turned to Nia, "Could you start making dinner since our lady is going to host her beloved? I''m certain that the two of them would enjoy some of that pasta you made the other night."


    "Of course," Nia said as she made for the kitchen.


    "She is good woman. It pains me to know what she and her son have been through," Canis said sadly as Nia got out of ear shot.


    "I know. I wish I could have gotten to them sooner, but no amount of wishing will change what has already happened," Maxine lamented and decided to change the subject, "I believe her son will be back on his feet in another week."


    "Yes, he should be. It amazes me at how easily you were able to save that lad, my lady. You have many gifts that your mother goddess did not," Canis said.


    "It was nothing," Maxine said and remembered Hellen''s soon to be revival, "Oh, that reminds me. My father is in the process of reviving my mother."


    "What?!" Canis said incredulously, "Your father can revive the dead? Is he a god of life and death?"I still wish he didn''t believe that I''m a child of a goddess. I have even told him that directly several times, but he still believes it.


    "No, but many have called him a god of alchemy," Maxine answered.


    "Ah, that would explain your other talents with potions," Canis said as he nodded his head.


    "Yes," Maxine said and was signaled by the Shadow Wolf in Emily''s shadow that Emily was ready, "Ahh, my beloved is finally ready to visit me. Could you give me a moment to bring her over?" She started walking to the main hall to summon Emily to the shadow world.


    "Certainly, my lady," Canis said with a bow of his head as he walked towards the main door of her mansion.


    [You ready for me to open a portal?] Maxine asked Emily via spiritual sense.


    [Yeah, I had to tell grandpa that I''m going to spend some time with you. He wanted me to warn you not to let me get hurt,] Emily said.


    [I bet he did,] Maxine said as she nodded her head and opened a portal up at Emily''s feet that lead to a spot right infront of her, [Jump on in. The villagers here have made me quite a large home to live in.]


    [Okay,] Emily said and a moment later, she appeared out of the portal, "Wow, you weren''t kidding. This place is bigger than grandpa''s house. It''s all very well made and beautiful."


    "Yes, they didn''t seem to think it was right to put me in an ordinary house," Maxine explained, "I hope you are hungry. Canis, the village elder, decided that a meal was necessary for your visit."


    "I would love to eat here. Grandpa''s not the best cook," Emily said, "When will it be ready?" Maxine checked the kitchen with her spiritual sense and found that the wood burning stove hadn''t even gotten that hot yet.


    "It should be another hour or two before it''s ready. They have to make everything from scratch," Maxine said.


    "Oh, alright. So we have time for a flight on your dragon then," Emily said.


    "Of course. Just follow me," Maxine said as she lead Emily through the double doors. However after opening the double doors, she noticed that Emily froze behind her.Huh? What''s wrong with her? OH! She is probably wondering where all of the beastkin came from.


    "Is that a dragonewt?" Emily asked incredulously as she pointed ata reptilian beastkin girl walking on the road.Well, she does have draconic scales, horns and breathes a weak flame. So I guess sheis a dragonewt.


    "I believe so. Her name is Dracia. Do you want to talk to her?" Maxine asked.


    "No, thanks. Where did she and these other monster girls come from?" Emily asked.


    "I saved them from the enemy camp in the battlefield that my clone is participating in," Maxine answered honestly, "They were being treated poorly."


    "I see," Emily said.


    "Do you want to get a ride on my dragon now?" Maxine asked to change the subject since she didn''t want Emily to broach the subject on how they were being treated poorly.


    "Yes!" Emily said happly as she nodded her head. Maxine smiled as she whistled loudly. Tiamat, her dragon, roared as it gently came from thesky and landed infront of her.


    Maxine leaped up onto her dragon''s back and beckoned Emily to join her, "Come on up." Emily jumped up and landed right behind Maxine. "Hold on tight. I don''t want you to fall off by accident," Maxine said as Emily put her hands on Maxine''s waist, "Tiamat, take flight!" Her dragon beat it''s wings several times to get off the ground before soaring up higher.


    Emily began laughing as the wind started blowing through their hair. Maxine couldn''t help, but smile at Emily''s reaction. It was very similar to her own when she first flew on her dragon.


    They had been soaring through the air before Emily asked via spiritual sense, [Can it go faster?]


    [Yes, it can,] Maxine answered as she signaled her dragon to fly faster. Emily renewed her happy laughter as Maxine''s dragon surged forward with greater speed. The landscape seemed to fly by so fast that it seemed as if the ground had turned into a blurr.


    They continued to fly around for a full hour before Emily began to get tired. Thankfully Maxine hadn''t wandered far from the village and they landed back on the ground in short order.


    "That was amazing. Do you do that every day?" Emily asked once they had landed.


    "Not every day. In fact, I don''t fly unless I need to. I don''t want to draw jealously by flaunting my dragon around," Maxine admitted as she got off her dragon and Emily jumped down after her.


    "That makes sense," Emily said, "Now you mentioned a meal earlier? Is it ready yet?"


    Maxine checked the kitchen briefly before she answered, "No, it''s not ready yet. I did say it would take one to two hours. What would you like to do until it''s ready?"


    "You could.. umm .. show me your bedroom in that place," Emily said as a light blush appeared on her cheeks as she gestured towards the mansion, "I want to talk to you about something in private."


    "Just talk? Or did you have something else in mind?" Maxine teased.


    "Maybe I do," Emily teased back with a smile on her face or at least Maxine thought she was teasing back.


    Maxine chuckled and lead Emily to the primary bedroom. It had a king-sized bed with a four bed post canopy against one wall and a large dresser with a mirror to the left of the room. Where they got a mirror that size Maxine had no idea. On the other side of the bed, there was a walk in closet to house any dresses she might have. It was an impressive sight. It would have been even better if anything had a shred of color.


    After they were both inside, Maxine closed the bedroom door and face Emily before she asked, "So, what did you want to talk about that we needed to be alone?"


    "I hadsome time to think about that potion that Guan made on my way home on your clan''s ship," Emily said shyly, "A lot of time actually. It was basically the only thing I was thinking aboutthe whole trip. I know your parents, both biological and adopted, want you to have a baby. I just want to know if it''s what you want. It just seems to me like they are pushing you into it without a care for your feelings." What Emily was sayingthrew Maxine off. She hadn''t expected her to say those things at all.Maxine certainly wanted to have a baby with Emily, but she wasn''t sure now was the time for it. There was a lot of things she had to worry about and becoming pregnant was something she couldn''t risk right now. However she really did want to have a baby with Emily.


    Maxine extended out her hand as a loving expression filled her face and she stroked Emily''s cheek before she answered, "No one could pressure me into anything. You know that. I really do want to have a baby with you, but only if you want to have one too."


    Emily stared at Maxine''s eyes for some time before she answered, but not with her words. It was with her actions instead as she kissed Maxinegently. Their gentle kiss gradually transformed into a more passionate one as Maxine felt a need forming within her and her hands were unconsciously carressedEmily''s every curve. Emily hugged Maxine''s neck tightly to deepen their passionate kiss.


    When they finally parted from thier kiss while breathing heavily, Emily gently tugged at Maxine''s dress. Maxine looked at Emily in the eyes and asked, "Are you sure?" Emily only nodded her head in response while displaying a shy smile. "Alright," Maxine said as she pulled Emily to the bed. Emily pulled out a potion, but Maxine gently stopped her from drinking it. She hadn''t even needed to look at it to know that it was the same potion that Guan had mentioned before. Although Maxine wasn''t sure when or how Emily had gotten one. "It''s not the best time for us to have a baby just yet. It would be better after the war my clan is going through is over, okay?" Maxine asked softly.


    "Okay," Emily said.She looks almost relieved that I said that. Iguess she is more nervous about this than I am.


    "Now where were we?" Maxine said as she smiled lustfully and kissed Emily before pulling her onto the bed.

 Chapter 103

    Maxine woke up in her quarters at the Kavros base camp feeling amazing. She had last night''s activities with Emily to thank for that. Just thinking about what they did brought a light blush to her cheeks. However the conversation they shared afterwards while they cuddled was important as well.


    Theyhad talked about when they would have their babies. Emily had explained that she didn''t want to have hers until after she was finished with school. She wasn''t worried about money since she already had a job lined up as a healer at the cultivator treatment center on Earth for when she graduated. However Emily had revealed that she wanted to further her education by studying human anatomy in order to be a better healer.


    Maxine was more than happy to oblige her in that regard, but in a different way than Emily expected. She transfered all of the knowledge on human and beastkin anatomy to Emily via spiritual sense that Guan had insisted that Maxine memorize. It had taken nearly an hour for Emily to absorb it all. Bythat time their dinner had been long since ready to eatand they had both got dressed to dine on the cold meal.


    A knock on the door got Maxine''s attention back to the present and she asked through it, "Who is it?"


    "Maxine, it''s me," Jenifer Krell said from outside the door, "Commander Brackstone sent me to fetch you."


    "Did he say what for?" Maxine asked as she quickly put on her spare set of leather armor. The one she wore the day before had been sent to the leatherworkers for repairs and wouldn''t be completely repaired for another few days. .


    "Sorry, but no," Jenifer Krell said.


    Maxine finally finished gettingher armor on and opened the door to the hallway. "I guess I will find out when we get there. Lead the way," Maxine said. However Jenifer Krell gave Maxine a wierd look before leading the way to the Commander Brackstone''s newly constructed command center.


    "Did anything happen between you and Nina last night?" Jenifer asked.


    "No," Maxine said while feeling a bit confused, "Why?"


    "Well, it''s just you have the same wierd smirk on your face that my mother does the day afterdad comes home from a long mission," Jenifer Krell said with a knowing smile on her lips, "And I was wondering who it was that you spent the night with."


    "It''s none of your business to know who I spent the night with," Maxine chided.


    "So there was someone!" Jenifer Krell said in an excited tone as she slowed down, "So who was it, if not Nina? Was it Sara? Jasmine? Orwas it one of the boys in the camp?"


    "It''s. None. Of. Your. Business," Maxine reiterated, "Now if I''m not mistaken, Commander Brackstone is waiting on us."


    "Oh, right!" Jenifer Krell said and shedoubled their pace. Due to the faster pace, they arrived after only a couple more minutes.


    "Thanks for the escort," Maxine said with a smile as she walked inside of the command center. Like in the tent before, the center of the large building was occupied by a holographic image of the surrounding terrain. Only this time, there were a lot blue dots moving across it. She quickly recognized them as the positions of various patrols moving around the base camp.


    "Young miss, up here," Commander Brackstone said from a raised platform. Maxine looked around for an obvious means to get to him and used the stairs to her left to reach him.


    "May I ask why you wanted to talk to me, commander?" Maxine asked as respectfully as she could. She really hated to abide by military discipline. She had been betrayed by soldiers almost every time she dealth with them. The only real exception being General McKenzie, Emily''s grandfather. In any case, the commander appeared to have a loose sense of discipline and hadn''t given Maxine any bad vibes yet. Not to mention it wouldmean his very painful deathif it was discovered that he had caused her greivous injury intentionally.


    "I thought you might want to know how successful your mission was," Commander Brackstone said with an obvious smile on his lips, "Those beasts decimated their forces by killing three times their number. Those bastards weren''t even able to mount a proper defense. Although it''s quite hard to mount a defense against a surprise attack inside your own base."


    "How many troops did they loose?" Maxine asked expectantly.


    "Almost twelve thousand were killed and fifty of those were silver stage. To top it off, only one of our people came back heavily injured. I couldn''t have asked for better results," Commander Brackstone said almost gleefully, "Too bad that method of yours was a one time trick. They would''ve come up with some countermeasures for it by now."


    "How exactly would they do that?" Maxine asked. She couldn''t think of any means to keep it from happening herself.How exactly do you eliminate a shadow? It doesn''t matter what you do there will always be one.


    "It''s actually quite easy. Theymixed glowstone powder into a paint and painted every surface visible from the outside their base with it. It runs under the principal if there is no shadow, there will be no portals," Commander Brackstone said, "The only draw back to that tactic isthat every surface painted with that stuff never stops glowing, so they may have trouble sleeping at nights."


    "Well, that can also be beneficial to us," Maxine reasoned, "Sleep deprivation will effect their combat prowess."


    "Not enough, I''m afraid. They still outnumber us almost three to one," Commander Brackstone said, "But now our chances of victory are far more feasible."


    "Indeed," Maxine said, "Now, what''s our next step?"


    "Hit and run tactics for now," Commander Brackstone said firmly, "And that is the other reason why I have called you here." Shit. I knew he didn''t just want to tell me about my success. He wants to use me to thin them out some more. I just hope I don''t have to go anywhere near those Wind Wolves'' territory.


    "Just tell me what you need. I will see what I can do," Maxine said.


    "Good to hear. The enemy is searching for use quite aggressively in large numbers. They are currentlyeight hundred miles to our northeastand each scouting force is spread out quite thinly with very little overlap of their spiritual sesne. Each of those scouting forces areat least fifty strong, but only the larger groups are lead by a silver stage cultivator. Your mission is to eliminate as many of these scouting forces as you can before they can discover us. Use whatever means you deem necessary as long as they do not violate any Alliance rules," Commander Brackstone said.


    "If there are any groups larger than one hundred, I won''t be able to beat them with just my constructs," Maxine said, "I''m assuming that I notify you or your assistant commander if I were to encounter one such group?" That isn''t entirely true. I could face a force larger than that, but I would have to reveal a few of my trump cards to get the job done.


    "That is correct. Any other questions?" Commander Brackstone asked and Maxine shook her head, "Good hunting, young miss and please be sure to cover yourself if your armor gets damaged again." Maxine didn''t have to fake her anger as she used her essence to make a light blush appear on her cheeks.


    "Don''t EVERremind me of that again!" Maxine yelled angrily and stormed out of the command center. She continued her angry walk up until she returned to her quarters and instantly relaxed all of her muscles.I hate having to fake having the same level of modesty as the rest of my clan members. Hell, I would feel fine running around in just a bikini, but that would be too much of a distraction for our own troops to be a good idea.


    "Maxine? Are you okay in there? You seemed angry when you left the command center," Jenifer Krell asked through the door.I wasn''t aware that Jenifer followed me back.


    "Yes, I''m fine. The commander reminded me about the state of my equipment last week," Maxine answered, "In any case, I have a mission to attend to. I will be dropping by the quartermaster soon to grab a month worth of food and water. Could you let them know I''m going to be headed that way?"


    "Sure, no problem," Jenifer saidbefore she left.Finally, now I can think of an attack plan.


    She looked around and shoved a few itemsinto her dimensional storage pouch on the off chance that she will need them.Attacking at night is out. My failed attempt at scouting unseen proved that. So, ambushing them is the only choice I have. Now all I have to do is figure out how. I could lay in wait for a group, but I''ll have to accurately determine where each group that I can handle will pass through. That could be a problem. Or I could lure a group in a killing field that I prepared ahead of time. Both methods of ambush have their merits, but luring them into an ambush can always backfire. They couldcall forreinforcements and they could arrive while I''m still dealing with the first group. That would lead to my constructs being heavily damaged if not outright destroyed.


    Maxine finally finished gathering her things when she opened the door to her quarters to find Nina Cervantes reaching up to knock on the door. "Uhh, hi," Nina said.


    "Hello, Nina," Maxine said with a smile, "Sorry, I can''t chat today. I have been assigned a mission. It''s not one you would want to join me on. Trust me. It''s going to be rough."


    "It''s fine," Nina said casually, but she seemed to get somewhat nervous as she added, "Do you mind if I escort you out?"


    "Of course, you can," Maxine said with a smile as she snatched Nina''s hand and dragged her along to the base camp''s exit. They drew the gazes of several clanmates, but regardless of how they felt about it, there wasn''t a soul that did anything about it.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    She only did this to solidify their fake relationship. She knew it was far safer for everyone if Nina didn''t see any real combat. Chances were that if she saw combat that she would flee and that would leave several team mates open to an attack. Playing the role of Nina''s lover avoided such a scenario from happening.


    They made it to the northern exit to the base camp without any issues. Maxine turned to face Nina and said, "Well, I need to head out now. I will see you when I get back. Stay safe."


    "You too," Nina said with a dazzling smile.Wow, she is really doing a great job acting. Either that or she really does like me. I better make sure she understands that I am only doing this to prevent future problems.


    Maxine turned and left the base camp through a set of huge doors. She quickly made her way to the northwest. It would take her several hours traveling by foot, but if she encountered a lot of beasts along the way, it could take her several days.I could use my dragon to traverse most of the distance, but I need to approach that area from the west. I don''t want to give them any idea of where our base is by coming straight to them.


    Maxine quickly summoned her dragon and took flight to the northwest. She couldn''t take the risk that the enemy forces had really spread out their more than the commander made her believe. She only flew for six hundred miles before she had her dragon land.


    She quickly dismissed her dragon back to the shadow world before summoning 120 shadow wolves. She would use half of them to look for the scouting forces. The rest will be her escorts to keep local beasts from bothering her.


    It didn''t take her Shadow Wolves long to finda scouting group. They were nearly four hundred miles to the west from where Commander Brackstone had said they would be. Fortunately this group numbered only seventy and surprisingly it wasn''t lead by a silver stage cultivator.


    She made a note of which direction they were heading in and traveled to a spot just outside of their spiritual sense to setup an ambush. All of her Shadow Wolves leaped into various shadows and Maxine masked her presence as best as she could. She had a feeling they were on guard against such tactics.


    She didn''t have to wait long before they approached her spot. The young men in front acting as the vanguard were chatting with each other.


    "... personally find out which one of those bastards came up with the idea to lure that beast horde into our base. I lost my best friend to that attack," one of them said.


    "I heard that it was their young miss thatcame up with that.And we both know that that the Patriarch''s wife wants that girl captured aliv. What she has planned for that girl will be far worse than anything we could come up with," another one of them said, "Especially after what happened to her cousin."Huh? Did I miss something? The only guy I killed was that bastard raping Nia. Was that her cousin?


    "Wasn''t he the one operating that brothel on the west side of our base?" the first one said.Sohe wasNora Marks'' cousin. That''s a surprise. It''s strange how both her son and cousin are scum. Not that she is that good of a person either to allow them toget away with that shit. I wonder if the rest ofher family are just as bad. On second thought, I rather not know.


    "Yeah, that was him. Their young miss must really favor those animals. Why else would she kill him with that cruel poison," the other one said, "The alchemists couldn''t even figure how to even counter it. I think I heard one of them say it was very similar to hydra venom, but due to the wierd essence empowering it, the antidote that they had on hand was useless." Hm, that makes sense. Certain types of essence react differently with physical objects, or in this case, venom. The current antidote for hydra venom neutralizes both the venom and negates poison essence at the same time. But I have both essence and mana. Wouldn''t that meanthe venom of my battleform is harder to neutralize? Regardless, I don''t have time to think about that now. Those guys just reached the perfect spot for my ambush.


    With a thought, she commanded her Shadow Wolves to leap out of the shadows they were hiding in. Each of the Divine Marks clan''s warriors had at least two Shadow Wolves attacking them. Half of them didn''t even have time to react to the sudden sneak attack before they were brutally slaughtered. The remainder, except for one, were able to block the first Shadow Wolf pouncing on them, but not the second. The last man standing was quite skilled since he was able to knock both of the Shadow Wolves attacking him before grabbing onto a badge pinned to his armor. However that was the last thing he did.


    Maxine fired a crystaline essence dart straight through his heart from behind him. She knew it was cowardly, but she didn''t want to take any chances that he might be able to counter attack. However even with a wound through his heart, she was still hesitant to approach him and had one of her Shadow Wolves approach his body instead. She had no idea if there were any trinkets that might attack anyone or anything that approaches his body as a final fuck you to his killer.


    After nothing happened, Maxine quickly started gathering up various dimensional pouches from the corpses that now littered the ground. There was no telling what sort of treasure they kept on themselves. Unfortunately that last man standing might have sent out a signal through his badge for help. If that was the case, she had only a few minutes to gather whatever she could before she had to leave, or she would be swarmed by several scouting groups. That would be well beyond her ability to fight.


    While she gathered the dimensional pouches, she ordered her Shadow Wolves to enter her shadow. If someone got close enough to scan this place with their spiritual sense. They may not detect her due to her stealth technique.


    After stuffing the last dimensional pouch into a backpack she brought with her, she bolted off away from the battle site as quickly as she could. She doubted they would be able to track her without her physically being there. They would be able to if they had a single tracker amongst them, but that was unlikely. Even amongst her clanmates, she hadn''t once encountered a tracker that used their ordinary senses to track an animal. It was something Maxine had learnedout ofnecessity in the other timeline before she learned to use spiritual sense. So long as she got far enough away before they arrived, she would get away without having to fight a prepared opponent. She could still win if she had to, but she would suffer injuries to her constructs or herself.


    While she ran, she was constantly on guard. She eventually found a cave hidden behind a tree and quickly ran into it. Thankfully it wasn''t occupied. She knew from experience that rock of any kind inhibited spiritual sense. It was a boon when she saw realized the cave wasn''t straight. It curved sharply after about twenty feet in.


    She went well behind the curve and waited. After only a minute of waiting, she heard at least two groups rush pass the entrance of the cave.It will be at least a few hours before they stop looking for me. This activity definitely proves that the leader from scout group reported being attacked by wolves that jumped out of shadows. That will let them know that someone with the shadow attribute is on the battlefield, but it won''t tell them who. There are at least twelve in my clan that can use constructs within my age group that are fighting in this war. Although only two besides me can control more than one hundred. Regardless, I can get away with an ambush like that one or two more times before they start developing a countermeasure for it. However most of the countermeasures that I can think of require them to either have the scouting forces closer together or make them larger. Either way it will slow down their progress considerably. So I still win.


    Maxine was drawn from her thoughts when she heard a distinct sound of shifting gravel. She peeked around the corner and saw a woman chasing a huge wolf of some kind. It had to be at least three hundred pounds and it appeard to be carrying a wolfkin child on it''s back.


    "Come back here you miserable bitch!" a woman roared as an spear shaped essence attack struck the hind legs of the wolf causing a bloody hole as big around as Maxine''s wrist.The wolf collapsed onto the ground and the wolfkin girl was thrown off painfully to the ground.


    "Don''t hurt my Mommy!" the wolfkin girl screamed as she got back to her feet and shielded the injured wolf with her body. The woman smiled sadistically as she approached them. Maxine''s rage boiled to the surface when she saw that sadistic grin, but she didn''t move. She was still unsure if anyone else was with the woman. She didn''t want to risk discovery.


    "I wouldn''t have hurt her if she hadn''t decided to run away," the woman said as her smile widened, "Now you will both have to be punished." The woman finally reached the wolfkin girl with a spear raised high as if she were about to club the wolfkin child with it.


    Maxine checked behind them one last time to seeif any others were coming and didn''t see anything. Which was just as well since she couldn''t tolerate what was happening anymore and shadow stepped directly behind that villainous woman. "No, you will not," Maxine said coldly as she grabbed the back of the woman''s head and her chin before twisting her head around violently to face Maxine.A look of shock was plastered all over that woman''s face as the life faded from her eyes..


    She released the woman and the woman''s corpsefell down limply on the ground. She spat on the vile woman in disgust before looking at the wolfkin girl and the injured wolf.The wolf was bleeding badly and had lost way more blood than it should have. It wouldn''t last much more than another minute or two and that was being generous. There was little Maxine could do. Her potions took much time to work.


    "Please, help my mommy!" the wolfkin girl pleaded. The wolfkin girl only looked to be around ten years old now that Maxine could see her better, but that only made it worse.


    "I''m sorry. There is nothing I can do," Maxine said apologetically and the wolfkin girl started crying as she clutched the dying wolf in her arms..


    [Please, I beg of you. Take care of my Luna,] a woman''s voice resounded in Maxine''s head and she realized that it was the dying wolf.


    [I would have even if you hadn''t asked,] Maxine responded to the dying wolf.


    [Thank you,] the wolf answered as it closed it''s eyes and died a couple moments later.


    "MOMMY! DON''T LEAVE ME! I STILL NEED YOU!"Luna wailed in agony and started to cry as she hugged the now dead wolf.


    Maxine knelt down next to Luna and pulled the weeping child into her embrace. Gently she stroked the child''s hair as her shoulder quickly began to get damp. "It''s alright. Your mommy is at peace now. No one can hurt her anymore," Maxine said comfortingly.


    After awhile Luna stopped crying and said hatefully, "I want them all to die!"


    "Believe me when I tell you that won''t make the pain go away. It will only make you feel hollow inside afterwards," Maxine advised Luna as she remembered her own quest for vengeance when Alice died in the other timeline. It hadn''t taken much effort for her to find the culprits. It was like they wanted to get caught and she was only too happy to show them what cruelty really was.


    She had tied them to boulders with steel cables with their asses exposed and in the air. Next she captured several essence beasts and fed them potent aphrodisiacs. The result was almost too painful to watch, almost. Each of those bastards had gotten mounted by those beasts and were begging for death before the beasts even started thrusting their hips.She ignored their pleas andwatched as those beasts violated those foul men over and over again until theessence beasts died from exhaustion two days later. Then and only then did she kill the men that raped and killed her sister. She completed her vengeance, but it hadn''t made her feel any better.


    "I don''t .. care. I want them to die," the little wolfkin girl said hoarsely.


    "I know, but you are not the warrior that I am. Leave it to me. I was going to kill theDivine Marks clansmen in large numbers anyways," Maxine said firmly, and whenLuna tried to speak again, Maxine cut her off, "Enough of that. Do you have any other relatives?"


    "No. C... can I stay with you?" Luna asked fearfully.


    "We shall see but for now, I will send you somewhere safe. Everyone there is extra nice and you will always have plenty of food to eat and time to play," Maxine said."


    "Really?" Luna asked hopefully.


    "Yes. In fact, they are having venison tonight," Maxine said, "Are you ready to go there now?"


    "Yes, but can I bring mommy? I want to bury her,"Luna said.


    "Of course," Maxine said as she sent both Luna and the wolf''s corpse to the shadow world. Luna arrived not five feet from Maxine''s shadow clone.


    Once Luna was with her shadow clone, Maxine faced the exit to the cave with a determined expression on her face.If any group or people did this before I was fused with the original Maxine, I would have slaughtered them. I''ve become a coward. All I''ve done is made excuses as to why I shouldn''t go all out, but that''s all they are. No more. I won''t let those bastards hurt beastkin any more. Time for a fucking slaughter. So long as I don''t show off my Shadow Lord form, or rather my Shadow Queen form, everything should be fine.

 Chapter 104

    Maxine was utterly enraged. Luna hadn''t been the only abused beastkin child amongst the scouting groups of the Divine Marks clan. She had wiped out seven groups in the past two days that had either a wolfkin, foxkin or catkin child of some kind in each group. They were using those children as trackers when they weren''t beating them.


    She hastened her hunting speed using two of her three shadow clones. One of her shadow clones had merged with a raven and the other merged with a Shadow Wolf. Her harpy shadow clone performed ambushesby scattering Feather Bombs to be detonated remotely once enemies walked over them, and her wolfgirl shadow clone was leading the majority of her Shadow Wolves to perform ambushes from shadow while hurling crystaline essence darts.


    Right now both of her shadow clones were following a particularly large scouting group that numbered at least one hundred twenty and there were two young wolfkin boys at the lead of it. Both of them were covered in scrapes and bruises from obvious abuse. She wanted to charge out and rescue them, but against that many she couldn''t guarantee their safety, or her own for that matter.


    Maxine pulled out her communication disk to contact Commander Brackstone. "Commander, I spotted a group of one hundred plus roughly four hundred miles to the north from our base. Please advise," Maxine said to the communication disk as soon as it connected.


    "Will they pass close enough to our base to confirm our location?" Commander Brackstone asked.


    "Their current course will go wide of the base by roughly fifteen miles. If they use their spiritual sense to scout around them, they will spot our base easily," Maxine answered.


    "Stall them if you can. A force of five hundred is being redirected to intercept them in the next two hours," Commander Brackstone said.


    "Can they get here sooner?" Maxine asked and paused for a moment before adding, "They have two injured wolfkin boys acting as their trackers. It''s very hard for me to stand here and do nothing while they suffer under those Divine Marks bastards."


    "Young miss," Commander Brackstone''s voice said sympathetically, "I know you have a soft spot for the beastkin, especially for their children, but you must endure. We can''t risk you getting capturedin a foolhardy attempt to rescue those two. Your life is more important." His answer pissed her off and she didn''t even bother answering him as she stowed the communication disk back into her dimensional pouch.


    In an attempt to distract herself from those two boy''s suffering, she focused on her male clone for a moment to see what kind of treasures came out of the dimensional pouches that she pilfered from her fallen foes. Most of the contents of the pouches had been nothing more than food stuffs or water. The rest of it had been their personal effects. There were weapons and potions mixed in, but most of them didn''t even have a potion to use. The weapons that they had were subpar and were almost not worth the effort of storing. Only the leaders of each scouting force had any interesting items in their dimensional pouches. One of them had a pendant that gave a ten percent boost to cultivation speed. She wanted to give it to Emily, but didn''t think she would want it after finding out how Maxine got it. So she simply sent it to her main body to wear.


    Unfortunately, Maxine needed someone to appraise the rest of the items she found. That pendant had a slip of paper with it describing what it did. If it hadn''t had that, she wouldn''t know what it did.


    After making sure everything was sorted out, she switched her focus back to her clone. It had been over an hour and the two wolfkin boys had fresh bruises declorating their faces. She nearly lost control of herself then and there when she noticed. She had to take several deep breaths in and out to calm herself. Unfortunately her efforts disappatedlike smoke in the wind the very next moment.


    A sharp barely audible cry of pain resounded in her ears as the scouting group came into her sight. Her eyes locked onto the source of that cry and saw one of the wolfkin boys holding the top left side of his head as blood seeped through his fingers. His ear had been sliced off and was laying right next to him.


    "There is someone or something wiping out my people in the area and I don''t have time for your excuses. Find the Kavros Clan''s base!" the leader of the scouting force roared at the wolfkin boys while holding a sword with a trace of blood on the edge of it, "Or do I have to cut off your other ear?"


    Maxine''s vision became tinted with red as her rage demanded for that bastard''s death. Her essence armor formed nearly on purereflex and she summoned her dragon to fuse with it. She had never fused her dragon with essence armor while in her batle form before and she didn''t know what kind of boost she would get. However she didn''t care. She only wanted to kill them all in the shortest time possible.


    With a bloodcurtling draconic roar, she ordered both of her shadow clones to initiate their attack. Her harpy clone scattered hundreds of Feather Bombs above the group while her wolfgirl shadow clone charged into battle withoverone hundredShadow Wolves in tow.


    Maxine kicked off of the cliff with all of her strength causing the cliff to explode into a cloud of rock and dust. She hurtled towards the bastard that cut off the wolfkin boy''s ear with terrifying speed. The man looked up at her just in time to see what was going to hit him and as a bonus she got to see the moment when he realized that he was a dead man.


    Maxine threw her draconic claw at his face with every ounce of her strength and just before her claws made contact, everything slowed down to a crawl. Shewatched her draconic clawed hand tore through his flesh and bite into bone in slow motion. His head distorted as his skull fractured before it exploded into a spray of blood, bone and brains.


    Everything resumed back to normal speed as her claws finished passing through what was left of his skull and the next thing that she knew, she was crashing into the warriors behind that bastard. Those men were thrown back with bone breaking force the instant that she made contact with their bodies, but oddly all she felt were impacts. Her thick draconic scales were cushioning the impacts significantly. When she finally came to a stop, she was roughly in thecenter of their entire formation.


    Maxine opened the mouth of her draconic essence armor and unleashed a gout of silver flame as she spinned in a circle. She could smell charred flesh almost instantly. In an attempt to stop her, her enemies unleashed a barrage of attacks at her, but none of them were able to get through her draconic essence armor. In fact, they were having a hard time just damaging it since all their attacks only resulted intiny scratches onher draconic essence armor.


    "It''s a dragon king! Run for your lives!" one of her enemies screamed as he desperately ran away. That scream was enough for Maxine to regain her senses. Dragon King? But I only have two cores, not three.However Maxine didn''t have time to figure it out since she was still in the middle of a battle.


    Once her enemies had gotten out of fire breathing range, Maxine cut off her fire breath and launched herself at the closest opponent claws first. She caught up with him far faster than she thought possible and she swiped her claws at the poor man''s waist. Her claws struck flesh and the man was quite literately torn in half.What?! Since when is a peak iron stage cultivator so squishy?!Again, she didn''t have time to contemplate the answer when she sensed someone attacking her from behind with an axe. She flicked her tail at her attacker''s head, but unfortunately it was a moment too late. The ax landed at the same time as her tail struck his head.


    Maxine felt a sharp pain between her shoulder blades and fell to the ground. She expected to get hit again before she could counter attack, but instead she heard a thump behind her. She turned her head to see a very muscular headless corpse still clutching onto an ax.


    She stared at the corpse as her constructs were chasing down what was left of the scouting group and looked at the others she killed not a few moments ago. What the actual fuck is going on?! I''m no where near that powerful or durable. I''ve heard of king class beings pulling off this kind of bullshit, but I''m lord class.


    Maxine looked at her hands for a moment before it struck her.Holy shit. Don''t tell me that combining with one of my constructs counts as me becoming a king class cultivator. Too bad it has severe limitations. I can''t maintain that level of strength for more than a few minutes.She quicky released her draconic essence armor and sent her dragon back to the shadow world. She felt extremely drained from using it for less than three minutes. To save time, she ordered both of her shadow clones to quickly loot the bodies and disperse with the other constructs.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Maxine finally remembered the two wolfkin boys and looked around for them. However they were no where in sight. She quickly extended out her spiritual sense and found them five miles away from the battlefield running at top speed. If they kept their current pace and direction, they would encounter the reinforcements that Commander Brackstone sent, but she wasn''t sure how they would treat thetwo boys.


    She walked over to pick up the wolfkin boy''s severed ear before she shadow stepped to a spot just ahead of the two boys. They both came to an abrupt stop and just barely avoided colliding into Maxine. Theone with a missing ear was trembling in terror, but the other one lashed out ferociously with his claw-like nails. Maxine admired the boy''s spirit as she moved to defend herself.


    She caught his wrist and spun him around while maintaining her grip. She shoved his arm up his back, but not enough to actually hurt him. She leaned in close to his left ear and said gently, "I''m not here to hurt either of you. I only want to help."


    "Liar! You just want to enslave and hurt us just like those other people!" the wolfkin boy roared.


    "Why would I need to lie? I''m far stronger than you. If I really wanted to do those things, would I even bother to talk to you?" Maxine asked calmly, but the wolfkin boy still struggled in her grasp, "Fine, let me prove it then." Maxine released the wolfkin boy and walked over to the one with the missing ear. To avoid any issues, she used shadow tendrils to immobilize both of them.


    The wolfkin boy with the missing ear trembled violently in fear as Maxine approached. She sighed as she knelt down next to him and cleaned his wounded ear with her essence. She did the same with his severed ear before very carefully lining it back into place on his head. She used white essence to slowly mend the severed ear back onto the boy''s head. Reattaching severed nerves and blood vessels was a meticulous and delicate process, but she was managing to do it with some difficulty. She had plenty of practice healing her own injuries.


    Once the wolfkin boy''s ear was reattached, he started crying with joy. "Thank you," the now healed wolfkin boy said hoarsely with an oddly feminine voice.


    "You''re welcome," Maxine said as she stroked his cheek and felt that his skinfelt slightly off. She couldn''t place what it was though. It wasn''t the dirt or scabs from previous injuries on his face that felt off. She probed his skin with her spiritual sense out of curiosity and discovered that his face was covered in a partial illusion, an extremely cleverone at that. It made tiny changes to his appearance to make him appear more masculine.Why would he had this kind of illusion on him? Unless ... he is a she and she didn''t want to be violated.She discreetly used her spiritual sense to confirm her suspicions.


    Maxine stood back up and looked at the wolfkin boy behind her. There was no waythis little girl was able to create an illusion of this caliber without a mirror or without being able to use spiritual sense to see what she was doing. This boy must have done it. But how? If he did, he would have to maintain it and I didn''t see any such connection earlier.She scanned the space between the two wolfkin children with her spiritual sense and found an almost imperceptible thread of essence connecting the two of them. But it oddly enough it also was filled with spiritual sense.What the...? Wait Guan''s notes mentioned something like this. It''s the Gemini Effect. They share each other''s power and can communicate with each other regardless of the distance. But it only occurs primarily between twins, and even then, it only appears in very rare cases.


    She released both siblings and instantly the wolfkin boy quickly moved inbetween Maxine and his sister with surprising speed. Sheapproved of his actions toprotect his sister and remembered her own desire to do just that in the other timeline. Out of respect, she didn''t come any closer and waited for him to calm down.


    However the chances for that to happen were dashed as the wolfkin boy became even more tense and at the same time, she heard movement behind her. She belatedly remembered the reinforcements Commander Brackstone was sending.


    "Easy, calm down. They won''t hurt you," Maxine said soothingly as she held up her hands.


    "What the hell is that thing?" she heard someone say behind her.


    "Don''t know. I''ve never seen a beastkin like that before, butsheappears to be an ally. She is wearing our clan''s symbol," another one said.Huh? Oh, right. I''m still in my battle form. She quickly reverted back to her normal state and looked over her shoulder.


    "Hey guys. You took too long so I took care of those guys by myself," Maxine said. None of them said a word and appeared to be stunned to silence. After a moment, someone pushed his way to the front of their forces.


    "Apologies, young miss. None of us were informed that you had a combat form," a young man with a badge denoting him as abattalion leader. She rememebered seeing him in Command Center before embarqing on this mission.


    "It''s alright. It''s a mistake anyone could make. What''s left of the enemy force is that way," Maxine said and pointed in the correct direction.


    "What? Do you mean to tell me you took out over one hundred opponents by yourself?!" he asked incredulously.


    "Yes, I am telling you that. Check it out for yourself if you don''t believe me," Maxine said as she turned back to the wolfkin twins.


    "You''re injured!" the man said and hequickly pulled out a potion.So, it took him that long to notice.


    "It''s fine. It looks worse than it actually is," Maxine said offhandedly and quickly swat his hand away when she saw him reaching for her wound, "I can treat the wound myself."


    "But if your wound isn''t treated quickly, it will leave a scar. The Matriarch will be furious if such a mark declorates your body," the platoon leader said with worry filled tone and he finally gestured with his eyes for his troops to go on ahead of him. They left at a steady pace to the place she demolished the large scouting force.


    "Don''t worry about it. I have a few potions from my father to take care of it. If it will make you feel better, I will drink one of them right now," Maxine lied and drank a potion from her dimensional pouch to silence the battalionleader. Even without it, she knew she wouldn''t have any scars. Her Twelve-Headed Hydra King bloodline would make certain of that.


    The battalion leader looked visibly relieved and asked, "What would you like us to do with those two?"


    Maxine looked at the two wolfkin children before she answered, "I want to take them home with me after this war is over with. I want to find them a good family."


    "As you wish, young miss. If you will, excuse me," the battalion leader said before running off to catch up with his men.


    "Do you mean it?" the wolfkin girl spoke with a disturbingly similar voice to Luna''s.


    "Yes, i do," Maxine said with a smile as she face the little girl and allowed her curiosity to get the better of her, "Do you know wolfkin girl by the name of Luna?" Their reaction was instant as their eyes widened.


    "Luna?! Where is she?" they both asked perfectly in sync, "And where is our mother?"What? I thought that mommy business was from the wolf adopting Luna, but now that I look closer at them... They heavily resemble Luna.


    Maxine avoided their gaze for a moment before she answered them, "Luna is in a safe place, but I have to confirm something. Is your mother a large grey wolf?"


    "Yes," they both answer in sync yet again, "What happened to our mother?!"


    "I''m so sorry. She died several days ago," Maxine said and she scooped them both up into her arms. They were both so shocked at Maxine''s statement that they didn''t resist at all, but it wasn''t long before both of them were crying.God damn Divine Marks clan. They separate and enslave families for no more reason than they are not ''human.'' Their emotions and feelings are human enough for me and they deserve to be treated as such. At least I can reunite these three siblings and I will do everything I can to keep them from being separated again.


    While the two wolfkin children wept on her shoulders, she noticed a small, incredibly detailed tatoo of a magic circle inside of the wolfkin boy''s ear. Warning bells went off in her head instantly, but it was too late for her to do anything. It detached from the wolfkin boy''s ear and expanded to surround all three of them. She tried to jump out of it with both of the wolfkin children, but she couldn''t move. It was as if the very air around her hardened into steel. She didn''t know what this thing was going to do, so she transformed into her battle form to prepare for whatever comes.


    A bright light blinded her for a moment and the next thing she knew, she was completely surrounded byhundreds of men wearing clothes with the Divine Marks clan''s symbol. She took a quick look around and saw that everything was giving off a slight glow. It only took her a moment to realize where she was. She was somehow in the Divine Marks clan''s base camp.A teleportation trap?! Those are not allowed in this war. They require a gold stage cultivator to place one.


    "So the rumors were true. You do have a soft spot for beastkin children," a very familiarwoman''s voice stated behind her. Maxine turned her head and saw someone that shouldn''t be here: Nora Marks.There is another rule broken by the Divine Marks clan. Gold stage or higher experts are not allowed to even touch down on the planet for any reason. She had to have bribed the observers to pull this off.


    Maxine glared at Nora Marks, but she wasn''t able to maintain it. Nora Marks vanished a split second after she started glaring at her..SHIT! Maxine pushed the wolfkin twins away from her just before she was hit hard on her right breast. She flew and smashed into the side of a building. Her breast felt like it had been smashed to pulp and she wasn''t even able to groan in pain before the wall that she smashed into collapsed onto her. Only her head and shoulders remained above the debris.


    "I hope you enjoyed that little love tap. I have so much more planned for you before my rage is satisfied," Nora Marks said sadistically, "And in the unlikely event that you manage to escape from here, those two animals will suffer in your place."Maxine felt her rage boil at that statement, but she knew she needed to calm down in order to come up with an escape plan.I''m surrounded, out matched in strength, at less than fifty percent essence, and have two children to protect from these fuckers. I have a potion to restore my essence and mana back to full strength, but that won''t fix the other problems. I guess I will be finding out just how powerful my draconic essence armor really is. At the very least,I should be able to create a big enough distraction to warp those two kids out, but I doubt this bitch will leave me an opportunity to warp out myself. It seems I will just have to wait for an opportunity to present itself.

 Chapter 105

    "Get on your feet. I don''t believe for a moment that my cousin and son''s murder is this weak," Nora Marks said in a tone that just oozed venom. Maxine debated whether or not to leap out of the debris and summersault in the air to land on her feet. But she decided against it. For one, it would aggrivate her wounded right breast, which was hurting enough as it was, and second, it would be a waste of energy since Nora Marks clearly wanted to take her time.


    Since Maxine had a moment or two before Nora Marks became impatient, she debated whether or not to bring Guan or one of her grandparents here to deal with Nora Marks.I can''t risk it. If she sees my portal, she would, without a doubt, attack it to wound or kill whoever is inside of it. Even if I can bring someone here safely, there would still be collateral damage that will probably include those two wolfkin children. Not to mention since I am a technically a member of the Kavros clan, bringing someone here through one of my portals would still count as the Kavros clan violating the rules. It wouldn''t matter to those stuck up assholes in the Alliance that the Divine Marks clan did it first. As long as they don''t directly punish me, they will feel safe that Guan won''t do something violent. It''s just not worth the risk to my family. I will just stick to my plan A and hope that it works.


    As Maxine dragged herself out of the debris, shesneaked a recording crystal into one of her boots and activated it. Afterall, she needed proof that Nora Marks was actually on the planet.Now all I need to do is stall for time so my healing potion can repairsome of this damage. That reminds me.She retrieved a Essence and Mana Restoration potion from her dimensional pouch and drained it in one smooth motion before tossing the bottle back into her dimensional pouch.She needed every ounce of power that she could muster to pull off her plan.


    "Fine, I admit it. I killed your vile rapist of a cousin, but I had no hand in your son''s death. If you had bothered to properly investigate the matter, you would have known that," Maxine growled back and saw Nora Marks'' face darken with rage, "Still it''s strange that your clan''s elders let you come here. What did they think would happen when you put a mother near her child''s supposed killer?"


    "I don''t care what any of them think about this. You killed myson and I will make you pay for it," Nora Marks growled in return.It''s like talking to a fucking wall, but at least I know she is acting on her own.Now that I think about it. There is no fucking way she would be able to bribe all of the observers, not with just her personal wealth.


    "How many times do I have to tell you that I had no part in your son''s murder?" Maxine asked while she was relaying everything that was going on to Grandma Victoria through her main body. If she was lucky, grandma Victoria or Boreas would be able to notify whoever was in charge of the observers for this limited war and Maxine would get to watch Nora Marks be either killed or appreheneded. Although it wouldn''t change the fact that she was currently in the middle of the Divine Marks base camp. It would still improve the chances of her clone''s survival.


    "Idon''t care to hear your lies any longer. You are going to die one way or another," Nora Marks said coldly as she walked towards Maxine.


    "Are you stupid?" Maxine asked as she backed up in an attempt to distance herself from Nora Marks, "I don''t care how much you paid those observers off. They won''t let you just kill me. They should know that daddy would kill them for standing aside while you murder me."That''s right. Keep that stupid bitch talking and not attacking me. My strength has almost completely recovered.


    Nora Marks simply laughed. "They don''t even know that I''m here," Nora Marks said while smiling as the air warped around her as sheresumed walking towards Maxine, "It''s so easy to bend light and manipulate the surrounding energies to make it appear as if there is no one here.I doubt they can evensee those two animals. Enough talk. I have given you plenty of time to recooperate as it is."Oh, fuck me. She has spatial essence. That would explain where the fucking teleportation trap came from. Now I''m really happy I didn''t try to bring anyone over here through one of my portals.She mightbe able to destabilize my portal killing whoever isstill inside ofit.Maxine looked around for help from the Divine Marks clansmen. Shewas half expecting one of them to come forward to at least try to convince Nora Marks to stop, but none of them moved. Each one of them was looking at Nora Marks with varied degrees of fear.I see. It''s not like they don''t want to stop her. They can''t.


    Maxine barely saw it when Nora Marks charged at her, but that was only because she was ready for it. All she saw was only a faint blur, but that was enough as she lashed out with her tail at Nora Marks while jumping to the side. She thought she actually hit Nora Marks when she felt something connect, but it was Nora Marks smacking Maxine''s tail to the side an instant before swatting Maxine into the ground.


    Maxine rebounded off the ground on her right side and was kicked into the building damaging it further. Her right side ached horribly, but none of her vital organs or bones were damaged.She''s toying with me.I''m not sure if I should be pissed or happy about that.


    As Maxine fell to the ground, she activated her essence armor and tried to call forth her dragon from her shadow. Only it didn''t heed her call. It took her a moment to realize why. She didn''t have a shadow on the ground since it was glowing along with everything else. Before she could think of another way to fight, she was kicked in the gut and slammed through a wall before coming to a crashing stop against an interier wall. The collapsing wall created a small dust cloud.


    The dust cloud caused Maxine to go into a coughing fit as a coppery taste filled her mouth. She started silently cursingas she noticed that the interior of the building, the smaller pieces of debris and even the dust cloud around her were glowing.Fuck. This trap is way too fucking thorough. I have no opportunity to get away.The only things that are not glowing are the Divine Marks clansmen and me. Hmm, that means I can use the shadows on my body, doesn''t it?A smile came to her lips as she summoned her dragon to fuse with her essence armor through the shadow under her braid.


    Maxine used the glowing dust cloud as cover to complete the transformation of her essence armor. When her draconic essence armor finished forming, she saw Nora Marks'' sillouette in the opening on the side of the building. Maxine didn''t even think about it as she kicked off the ground aiming her claws at Nora Marks'' heart. She was confident that her strike would land at least a grazing blow and that''s all she would need for her venom to do it''s work. But Nora Marks'' arm moved to defend at least three times the speed Maxine was traveling at. Maxine was dumbfounded as her wrist was caught a mere inch from Nora Marks'' chest.Holy shit! Just how high is this bitch''s cultivation for her to move that fast? Is she a peak gold stage cultivator?


    "Oh, my. That is quite the power boost," Nora Marks said in mild surprise, "Too bad it isn''t enough to save you." Nora pulled back her other hand to hit Maxine, but Maxine wasn''t done yet. She lashed out with her tail, but it was caught inNora Marks'' free hand. Thank you for being predictable.Maxine ignored Nora Marks'' condiscending smile and she unleashed a fire breath at point blank. She watched withdisbelief as the flames splashed harmlessly off of a barrier that appeared around Nora Marks'' face, neck, chest and arms.Fuck, shemust have watched me destroy that scouting force earlier. I can''t see her making a barrier that fast without prior knowledge of it.


    After Maxine ceased the fire breath, Nora Marks gave Maxine acruel smile before releasing Maxine''s wristand pulled her tail into an overhead swing. Maxine plowed through the wall and ceiling above Nora Marks and was slammed into the ground painfully. Unfortunately Nora Marks wasn''t done as she summersaulted in the air while still holding Maxine''s tail and slammed Maxine into the ground again. After that, Nora just kept using Maxine like a flail and slamming Maxine into the ground. She felt her bones rattle and creak each time she hit the ground. With one last powerful slam on the ground that created a small crater, Maxine was in so much pain that she couldn''t move and was only able to groan weakly in pain. She would have an easier time finding a spot that didn''t hurt than to list what did.


    However Maxine wasn''t completely stunned. Everyone was looking right at her and Nora Marks. No one was looking at the wolfkin siblings. She used this moment when all eyes were on her to discretely create a portal to the shadow world and warp thewolfkin children out.


    While Maxine did that, Nora Marks released Maxine''s tail and grabbed Maxine by the throat before lifting her off the ground. The recent bout of violence left Maxine too battered and broken to resist Nora Marks'' grip. "What? All the fight beaten out of you? That''s too bad. I wanted to enjoy beating you some more, but it''s not fun if you can''t fight back. Oh well. It looks like I will haveto entertain myself by your suffering in a different way. How about I force feed you aphrodisiacs until you''re begging to be fucked by my clansmen and considering your injuries, it will be quite painful. Best of all there is no rule against sexual acts between to consenting individuals," Nora Marks said with sadistic glee, "I''ll enjoy watching as your mind break once you come back to your senses. I can already hear your screams. Now all I have to do is wait for your strange technique to wear off and the next phase of your torment begins."I think she is misunderstanding those rules. Aphrodesiacs count as a poison and you can''t poison prisoners. But she is right about one thing. My draconic essence armor won''t last that much longer.


    Maxine finally warped the two wolfkin siblings away.I only have one move that''s both big enough and that I''m actually able to do in this state that would cause enough of a distractionfor me to escape. I just hope it does the trick sinceit will use almost everything that I have left.She gathered as much essence into the shadow beneith her braid as she could in preparation for her escape and infused each of the teeth in her draconic essence armor''s mouth with spatial Crescent Moon Blitz attacks. She opened the jaws of her draconic essence armor and roared out thebarrage of spatial Crescent Moon Blitz attacks. Block that, bitch.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Nora Marks instantly released Maxine and crossed her arms to block Maxine''s attack. Maxine used that opportunity when they weren''t touching to create an egg shaped bubble of shadow essence around herself and used the lack of light to shadow step ten miles outside of the Divine Marks'' base camp. She would have gone farther, but that is the maximum distance she could shadowstep.


    She knew that she had mere seconds to work with before Nora Marks catches up with her and she didn''t have the spare strength in this body to perform another shadow step. As her body fell to the ground, she created a portal straight to the Kavros clan''s base camp to a point just outside of the women''s medical tent. She released her draconic essence armor by sending her dragon back to the shadow world and reverted back to her normal state tofree up the essence and mana necessary to keep the portal open.


    As her body entered the portal, she sensed a very enraged Nora Marks at the edge of her spiritual sense. Nora Marks'' upper body was covered in shallow cuts and her top was a tattered mess. Her once waist length hair had been shortened to shoulder length hair. It didn''t appear that Nora Marks saw her just yet.


    A smile spread across Maxine''s lips as sheshifted her right arm and flipped off the bitch defiantly just before she vanished into her portal. She didn''t care of Nora Marks saw it or not. She just felt like doing it.


    In the next moment, she found herself laying face down on packed dirt as her essence armor finally gave out. She didn''t even have to wait for even a second before someone shouted in obvious shock and another handful of seconds before she was picked up and hauled into the women''s medical tent.


    She was quickly laid down on a table of some kind and her leather armor was rapidly cut away.Damn it, I just had that fixed.Once leather armor was pulled apart, she heard someone groan sympatheticallyand she felt a very strong urge to look at her injuries. However someone pressed down her forehead to prevent her from seeing.


    "Don''t look, young miss. Just let us work," Billie Manning said in a professional tone.


    Within moments, the rest of her armor and clothes were torn off as sauves and bandages were quickly applied to her various wounds. At this point, Maxine was having trouble maintaining consciousness and the room was beginning to spin.I need to tell them about the recording crystal in my boot before I pass out.


    Withevery ounceof her willpower, Maxine grabbed Billie Manning and struggled to say, "I have a ... recording crystal in... my left boot. Give it... to the commander." With that, Maxine passed out and her consciousness was thrust out of her clone.


    Maxine had returned her focus back to her main body. She waslaying down on Orianna''s bed and was trying to block out the pain being experience from her clone as she began to sweat from resisting the pain. Part of her was happy that her clone still lived, but at the same time, she was furious at herself for falling for such an obvious trap.I''m a fool. I should''ve known they would pull something like this once they found out that I can''t stand to see any child suffer, even if they are not entirely human. She felt frustrated and angry. The only saving grace from the wholemess was that she got proof that the Divine Marks clan was violating the terms of the limited war.


    "So? Were you able to save your clone?" grandma Victoria asked with a tone laced with concern.


    "Yes, but it''s badly injured. I have no idea how long it will take forit''s wounds to heal," Maxine admitted.


    "Thank the maker, that''s far better than your clone being dead," grandma Victoria said as she placed her hand over her heart, "I need to give Boreas an update. We will make her pay for this."


    "Alright, grandma," Maxine said as she stayed on the bed and grandma Victoria left to update Boreas. Might as well use this time to send my constructs back to the shadow world.


    Just as Maxine finished sending her constructs back to the shadow world, she turned to look at Orianna, whom looked like she wanted to rip something apart. "Orianna? Are you okay?" Maxine asked nervously.


    "No, I''m furious," Orianna said.


    "I am too. I got to experience a heavy beating and I still feel my clone''s injuries," Maxine said in a strained voice.


    "I''m sorry. I wish there was something I could do," Orianna said helplessly before she started tearing up, "The only think that I know how to do is hurt people."


    "That''s not true. You know how to make Maxwell happy right?" Maxine reminded Orianna and Orianna smiled.


    Before either of them said another word, grandma Victoria returned. "As you undoubtedly guessed, Boreas is livid at what Nora has done. When I left, he was in the process of presenting his complaint to the Alliance. It shouldn''t be long before they come to a decision on the whole matter."


    "What will happen?" Maxine asked.


    "I don''t know. No one has ever been dumb enough to violate the rules so flagrantly. The least we can expect is for Nora Marks to be exiled from the Alliance and believe me when I say this, that is worse than killing her. As for the Divine Marks clan, I believe they will be penalized in some manner for not properly controling Nora," grandma Victoria said, "With any luck, the Alliance will deem that they automatically lost this war due to Nora Marks'' interference."


    "We can only hope, grandma," Maxine said and suddenly gasped at a sudden sharp pain from her clone. God, I hope that my clone heals quickly.


    Grandma Victoria pulled out a cloth andgently wiped the sweat off of Maxine''s face while Orianna gently stroked Maxine''s hand.Both of them were giving her looks of concern.I don''t like seeing their expressions like that. I need to find a way to shut out this pain.


    [Maxine, I know you are in pain right now, but I need you to open up the portal to the shadow world for me,] Guan said via spiritual sense to Maxine, [I will also need your mother''s bracelet. You know why.] Forgetting her pain, she checked on Hellen''s regenerating body. It was very close to being fully regenerated. Some muscle groups were still missing and it didn''t have much skin. There as just enough on it for Maxine to know that it was definitely Hellen''s body.


    [Okay, one second,] Maxine answered through the pain and widened the portal from Earth to the shadow world, [Do you need me to come there?]


    [No, I don''t. All I need is the bracelet,] Guan paused for a moment and added, [It will still be another week before Hellen will be capable of moving around, and I need to watch over her carefully until she can. Although she may be able to talk as soon as tomorrow.]


    [Just let me know when she can talk,] Maxine said as she sent the golden bracelet containing Hellen''s soul to the cave within the shadow world, [I would love to hear her voice with my ears rather than with my spiritual sense.] She could have sworn she heard Guan chuckle through their spiritual sense connection.


    [I understand that sentiment entirely,] Guan said in a content tone, [Now rest and don''t bother trying to shut out the pain. Learn to tolerate it. Otherwise you may loose your clone. Just remember, this won''t be the last time one of your clones experiences severe injury.]


    [Fine, but can you find a way to punish Nora Marks? She violated the rules of that limited war,] Maxine complained. She really didn''t expect Guan to be able to do much about it.


    [I already have. Now for the last time, get some rest,] Guan said before severing the spiritual sense connection.What does he mean by ''I already have?'' Anyways, I may as well see about assessing how badly injured my clone is and patching it up until I find out what Guan did.


    Maxine checked the extent of her clone''s injuries.Hmm, there are a lot of torn muscles and ligaments. That will take awhile to heal up. And there are dozens of small fractures throughout my clone''s skeleton. Most of those injuriesprobably happened when she decided to use me like an oversized mallet in a game of wack-a-mole. Now to check on the organs. Good, all the vital ones are intact. Wait... That vindictive bitch!Both of her clone''s ovaries had been pulverized. She had no idea when Nora had done it.


    She quickly recalled everything she knew on how to repair damage like thatfrom Guan''s notes and it was disheartening. Only creatures with extreme regenerative powers such as the hydra were able to regrow reproductive organs, but that process often took decades. There were a few potions that could do the same thing faster, but their effects were so potent that only gold stage cultivators and above could safely drink them.If that wasn''t my clone, I wouldn''t be able to have kids, at least not for a few decades and that''s assuming that my Twelve-Headed Hydra King bloodline provides me with that ability. The only other way to completely heal me is through the use of divine essence.


    Maxine boiled with rage, but she forcibly calmed herself. She knew that she was too weak right now to deal with Nora Marks and it wasn''t in her best interest to reveal that she had clones.


    Once her anger had finally subsided enough for her to think straight, she widened the portal in her clone''s shadow slightly to send healing energies to it. However as soon as she did, someone hijacked her portal and began to widen it.Who?!


    She quickly changed her focus to her male clone, which she was using as a relay point for her portals, and looked around. Guan was the one that had hijacked her portal and from what little she could see of his face, he looked livid.


    She quickly checked the area around her clone and detected Nora Marks just above the medical tent with a raised dagger in her hand. In that moment, Guan struck his fist towards her portal. She felt a powerful focused shockwave go into her portal.


    Nora Marks had just torn through the top of the tent when Guan''s attack struck her. Both of her arms exploded into bloody mist along with the dagger she had been holding. Guan attacked through the portal again and Nora Mark''s legs exploded.Maxine was in complete awe of Guan''s destructive power and he hadn''t even used his full strength.


    Several bulges appeared on Guans arms and swiftly turned into finger thick serpents that launched themselves into the portal. While they latched onto Nora Marks, Guan roared into the portal, "Did you honestly believe that I would allow you to kill my daughter? Iletyou beat her to teach her a valueable lesson to never drop her guard, even around children. Originally, I was going to let the Alliance deal with your stupidity." Guan paused as his serpents dragged her to the portal andhe continued with barely contained rage, "Butyouweren''t satisfied with simply beating her. You ruined her chances of having children when you destroyed her ovaries. You will suffer for that as will all that allowed this to happen."At that moment, several very narrow beams of light flashed by the top of the tent.Looks like someone is running for their lives. I wonder why Nora Marks isn''t trying to save herself? She could disrupt the portal to sever those serpents from Guan''s arm.She scanned Nora Marks to see why and found out very quickly. Each of the serpents was injecting a venom that paralyzed her essence pathways. She couldn''t fight back if she wanted to.


    "My husband will...," Nora Marks started to say through her pain, but she was cut off by Guan, "Will do nothing more to endanger his other son by trying to save you. He has indulged your madness enough as it is." Nora Marks started screaming for help, but to no avail. She was brought to the shadow world and was force fed a strange potion by Guan before passing out.


    However Guan hadn''t relinquished his control over Maxine''s portal yet. "Take my daughter to Earth and find Emily Herst to heal her wounds. That girl is the only one that you can reach in time to fully restore Maxine''s reproductive ability. Do not give Maxine any more healing potions. Only give her nutritional potions," Guan said before he finally allowed the portal to close.What?! He does realize that more than half the people on Earth hate me, right? And why the hell didn''t he just let me warp my clone there?! I don''t know what''s going on in his head, so fuck it. I will play along. I just hope this doesn''t bite me in the ass. On the plus side, I will get to see Emily, mom and Silky. Although, Idon''t look forward to the earful that I will get from all three of them.

 chapter 106

    Maxine was minutes fromarriving toEarth and she was amazed at how quicklyshe had gotten to Earth. She had expected it to take more than a week, but instead it took just three days. Apparently the conflict planet was far closer to Earth than it was to the Kavros clan''s homeworld.


    Maxine was rather excited to see Earth again, but also nervous about what kind of reception she would recieve since neither Emily or Silky would tell her anything about how most earthlings felt about her. However their silence was more than enough to let her know that she wouldn''t be getting a warm welcome from Earth. At best, she would be ignored and at worst, they would riot and protest outside of the hospital that she would be staying at. Still regardless of how welcoming or unwelcoming her reception is, it would still be wonderful tobe back on Earth.


    As for the shadow world, Maxine didn''t focus her attention too much in that direction since Nora hadn''t stopped screaming from the moment she woke up. Guan''s potions caused her to have nightmarish halucinations for hours on end and he only gave her short breaks to ensure her mind didn''t break. It was obvious he wanted her to suffer for a very long time. The last time she had a moment of ludicity she tried biting her tongue off, but it was a futile effort. Guan had given her a Hyper Regeneration potion that healed her wounds almost as fast as she could cause them.


    Maxine had almost reverted to calling Guan by his name again after seeing his cruel side, but she knew the desire for vengeance better than anyone. So she gave him plenty of slack, but she felt uncomfortable watching what he was doing to Nora Marks. Thus she tried her best to keep her awareness to her clone at a minimum.


    At least, she understood why the Alliance didn''t bother administering any punishments on Nora Marks. Falling into Guan''s hands was a bad enough punishment for anyone.


    Oddly, the Divine Marks clan saved themselvessomewhat after announcing that Nora Marks was no longer part of their clan. They explained that they kicked her out because she had become too unhinged for them to tolerate her any longer. This announcement was mere moments before Nora Marks was captured by Guan.


    As for their punishment from the Alliance, they were deemed to have automatically lost the war with the Kavros clan and were be placed under observation by another clan to ensure that they didn''t break any other laws. It was a lenient punishment to say the least. Under normal conditions, the offending clan would have their ruling family annihilated and have more than half of their wealth given to the injured party.It was the recording crystal that Maxine provided that made their punishment as light as it was.


    As the ship landed, she was jolted slightly and pain surged throughout her body. She knew her clanmates hadn''t done it intentionally. Her obvious pain didn''t stop them from moving her quickly out of the ship. Thankfully, they didn''t have to take her out of the medical pod and moved her while she was still in it for which she was grateful. She wasn''t fully clothed. In fact, besides some bandaging and a sheet covering her, she was completely naked inside of the medical pod. No one had wanted to aggrivate her injuries further by putting any form of clothing on her.


    It took them less than a minute to get her out of the ship and into the building they landed on top of. She knew that this facility was the one that Emily worked in part time and it appeared to have all the latest medical technology available on Earth. However the medical pod she was in was at least a century a head of anything in the building.


    She was quickly moved into a hospital room to wait until Emily arrived. She finally noticed a few beastkin children had taken up a few seats in the room along with Nina Cervantes. All of whom looked worried about her. She had no idea why Nina was there, but she understood why the beastkin children were there. She had promised to reunite them with their families if she could find them and they had wanted to stay with her to make sure she upheld her word.


    The TV was turned on by a nurse and it was showing the news. "Breaking news: The mysterious Kavros Clan has brought one of their wounded to one of our Medical Centers specifically made for cultivators. As you can see in this image," the news anchor said in english as a blurry image of Maxine in her medical pod occupied most of the screen, "The woundedindividual is clearly a woman, and due to the low quality of the picture, we are unable to ascertain her identity. Our on the scene reporter is attempting to get a statement from the Kavros clan."Wow. That was fast. I''ve barely been here more than five minutes and I already made the news. Strange how they neglected to mention the beastkin children. Still, it feels odd to hear english spoken after over two years of living at the Kavros clan.


    "Maxine, you''re awake!" Nina Cervantes exclaimed in alliance common when she noticed Maxine''s eyes were open and rushed to the side of Maxine''s medical pod, "You don''t have to endure the pain for much longer. The healer will be here soon."


    "I know she will," Maxine said as she felt her constructs hiding in Emily''s shadow rapidly approaching, "I sense her coming."


    "What?" Nina asked as Emily threw the door open before running to Maxine.


    "Hey, Emily," Maxine said in english and she felt Emily''s spiritual sense probe her body. It focused where her ovaries were or what was left of them.


    "You idiot! Why didn''t you tell me you were hurt this bad!?" Emily yelled at Maxine, "I don''t even know if I can heal this or where to even begin."


    [Completely restoring her reproductive ability will be nearly impossible, but as long as you follow my directions, you will be able to restore sixty to eightypercent function back to Maxine''s ovaries,] Guan said calmly to Maxine and Emily.


    [If you know how to do it, why don''t you do it?] Emily asked angrily.


    [I do not possess divine essence and if I were to try without it, I would only be able to restore ten, at most twenty, percent functionality to her ovaries. I might be able to triple that if I had the proper healing potions on hand, but that is my limit,] Guan answered, [Divine essence is perfectly suited for healing whereas my poison essence is more suited to killing.]


    [Fine, but I won''t be able toheal Maxine''s ovariesin one sitting. The damage is too extensive and I don''t have the essence reserves to pull this off,] Emily said firmly.


    [Don''t worry about that. Maxine can mimic divine essence and can provide the raw energy that you need. You simply need to direct it. As for why she can''t heal herself, it would take almost all of her focus to tolerate the pain caused by this procedure and produce divine essence,] Guan explained.I would be surprised if it didn''t hurt. Emily will be literately putting all of my scattered eggs back together into their proper place while reconstructing my shattered ovaries.


    "Could you and the children leave the room?" Emily asked as she opened the medical pod and placed her hands on Maxine''s stomach as she told Guan, [Okay, just tell me what to do.] Nina Cervantes and the beastkin children left the room quietly, but Maxine noticed a strange jealous glare directed at Emily from Nina.Fuck! She really is into me. I need to set her straight as soon as I can.I do not need drama of any kind right now.


    Guan started telling Emily what to do. Maxine couldn''t care less what was said since she felt a sudden sharp pain in her lower body. It took every ounce of willpower to keep herself from screaming as she started to convert essence from her clones, main body and constructs into divine essence. She felt Emily gently direct her converted essence to where it needed to go.


    It was a grueling experience. She grit her teeth to better tolerate teh pain and watched Emily heal her through her spiritual sense. The scattered fragments of Maxine''s ovaries were slowly moved back into place as if they were part of some elaborate jigsaw puzzle as they were healed back into place.


    Even through all of the pain, Maxine marveled at how skillfully Emily worked. She wasfar more skilled at healing than Maxine could have imagined.Emily must have been healing people regularly ever since I left Earth to be this good at it. I''m proud of her.


    Once the last fragment of her ovaries were healed back into place, the sharp pain from her lower stomache subsided leaving only a dull ache in it''s place. She tried moving slightly and immediately regretted it since it felt like she had just been stabbed. She was still very tender.


    [Maxine, the procedure was a success. Emily was able to repair your ovaries to eighty percent functionality,] Guan said happily, [Although as you have noticed, you will be tender for the next day or two while your healing factor, as the earthlings call it, repairs the rest. Your remaining injuries should be fully healed in six days as long as you drink one of your healing potions.]


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    Maxine opened her eyes to see Emily panting and covered in sweat as she staggered over to sit in a chair.Even with me providing most of the energy, it still took a lot out of Emily.I wish I could do something nice for her.


    "Thank you, Emily," Maxine said weakly.


    "You''re welcome," Emily answered.


    Maxine was about to tease Emily when the door opened and Silky poked her head into the room. Unfortunately, Silky saw Maxine andtears started falling down her cheeks as she ran towards Maxine.


    Maxine clenched her teeth expecting Silky to leap on top of her and cry in earnest. Thankfully that didn''t happen. Instead, Silky grabbed Maxine''s handwith tear-filled eyes before saying, "Mama, please, tell me you will be alright. I don''t like seeing you hurt."


    "I will be alright. I just need some rest and I should be on my feet soon enough," Maxine reassured Silky, but that didn''t seem to calm Silky down at all.


    "But, but isn''t there a way to make you better faster? Can''t Emily heal you?" Silky asked and she looked at Emily off to the side.


    "She already healed the worst of it. She is too tired to do anymore today," Maxine said soothingly, "Maybe tomorrow, she will have recovered enough to heal the rest."


    "Okay," Silky sobbed and all of her eyes opened as they turned red, "At least tell me who hurt you. I want to make them hurt just as bad!" Maxine almost laughed at that, but stopped herself because she knew it would hurt to laugh.


    "Grandpa Guan is already taking care of it. Trust me you don''t want to know what he is doing to the lady that hurt me," Maxine told Silky and thankfully, her words seemed to have calmed Silky down.


    "I heard you got injured again, but I didn''t think it would be so bad that it would leave Emily exhausted from trying to heal you," Claudia, her birth mother, said as she walked into the room, "And I thought after you leftto go to your ''clan'' you wouldn''t have to fight again and here you are covered in injuries. At least, you managed to save those kids from thosecruel people."Someone seems to have very loose lips. I wonder who told her where those kids came from.


    "I couldn''t just watch them being beaten," Maxine said defensively.


    "So,you did save them!" her mother said smuggly and Maxine felt dumbfounded, "I saw the bruising on the arms of that little fox-eared boy just outside your room and I made the assumption that you saved him since we both know you would never hit a child."Well shit. I guess mom knows me best afterall.


    "You''re right. I wouldn''t hit a child," Maxine said and decided to change the subject, "So, when will my new sibling be born?"


    "Not for another six to seven months according to the doctor," her mother said while gently stroking her belly, "I only hope I''m not being used as an incubator again."


    "Guan didn''t say anything about that to me," Maxine said honestly, "In fact, I think he may have given your body a little push to make it so that you could have kids on your own."


    "Good, he owes me that much for raising you," her mother said.


    Maxine was in a great mood even though she was in pain. She was surrounded by her loved ones, but that joy turned to anger once she saw who was on the TV. Zabel Nodd was talking to a reporter. Someone had muted the TV, but she was able to read his lips, "That''s the young miss of my Kavros clan. No one else within our clan, aside from the Matriarchs relatives, have that silver hair and they all possess abnormal height except for Maxine." For the breifest of moments, Zabel Nodd''s eyes turned scarlet while he talked.That bastard! Not only did that fucker cause the war, but he is fucking me over again while I''m too injured to deal with him.At least we know where he ran off to now. But why Earth? He could have gone literately anywhere else, and no one would have found him. Is he really that stupid? Or is he just crazy? And I definitely didn''t like how his eyes flashed red for a second. God, I hope he isn''t a Shadow Demon. Regardless, he needs to be punished for causing that senseless war.


    Maxine reached out with her spiritual sense and found Nina Cervantes, [Tell the others that Zabel Nodd is on Earth.]


    [What?! How do you know that?] Nina Cervantes asked.


    [Turn on the TV and switch to the local news channel. You will see him,] Maxine answered.


    [They have been informed,] Nina Cervantes said after a few moments, [Is it alright if we come back in? The children are worried about you.]


    [Give us a few more minutes. I still want to talk with my birth mother for awhile longer,] Maxine answered.


    "Maxine, what''s wrong?" Her mother asked with concern.


    "I just spotted a criminal from the Kavros clan and I needed to tell one of my companions about it. That''s all," Maxine said reassuringly, "So, do you have any names picked out yet?"


    "A few, but...," Claudia said while looking sad, "John wants a paternity test to make sure it is actually his. I can''t believe he doesn''t trust me even after everything I have done for him."


    "Mom..," Maxine said weakly since she didn''t know what to say.


    "You should divorced that asshole," Emily said bluntly, which drew everyone''s gaze straight to her, "He beat both you and Maxine for years and you didn''t tell anyone about it. That should''ve been enough to prove how loyal you are to him and yet he still pulls that shit. He doesn''t deserve you."


    "Grandpa Johnathan beat mama and grandma?" Silky asked disbelievingly before angry tears started falling down her cheeks, "Why?! Did you do something wrong?"Mom didn''t tell her? That''s surprising.


    "No,we did nothing wrong, It was all him. He drank beer and wine to get drunk and he became violent," Maxine said sadly as memories of his abuses came to the forefront of her mind.


    "But he always regretted it after, Maxine," Claudiasaid without any real strength behind her words.


    "If he really regretted it, he would have stopped drinking that filth a long time ago," Maxineretorted harshly.


    "That''s right. He should have," Emily agreed. Claudia looked at the ground in shame.


    "Hello? Is it okay to come in?" Nina Cervantes asked in english.


    "Yes, Nina. Come on in," Maxine answered since they were more or less done with their current discussion, but she immediately regretted it when the beastkin children rushed up to her. Their little hands were grabbing onto herwounded arms causing her to wince in pain.


    "Easy, now. I''m not all the way healed yet," Maxine said to them through gritted teeth.


    "Sorry," a foxkin boy said poorly in english as the threebeastkin children released her, "We worried."


    "I know, but I havn''t forgotten about you three. My clanmates should be looking for your relatives, so you just need to be a bit patient," Maxine soothed them and even though it was painful, she lifted up her hand to stroke their cheeks one at a time.


    "''Kay," the foxkin boy said.


    "Who''s she?" Emily asked out of the blue as she looked at Nina Cervantes.


    "Oh, I''m sorry. I completely forgot to introduce you to each other," Maxine said apologetically, "Emily this is Nina. Nina this is Emily, my beloved." Emily blushed lightly. Maxine hoped Nina would take a hint from that one statement and not persue her any further. If not, she would have to say it directly.


    "I think most people know that by now,"Emily said.


    "Seriously? How did they find that out? We weren''t that open about it before I left Earth," Maxine said in confusion.


    "Former ambassador Sutton revealed thatwe were still a coupleand that verbal slip has made my life difficult," Emily complained, "You wouldn''t believe the amount of grief I have gotten from all of my non-cultivator patients."


    "He is definitely never getting reinvited back to the Kavros clan any time soon," Maxine said coldly, "By the way, which country is he from?"I''m going to make sure that idiot pays for his stupidity.


    "No idea," Emily answered, "But he is no longer the ambassador to the Kavros clan. That''s why I said former ambassador. In fact, I think he is a low end clerk now."


    Maxine started laughing and immediately stopped as she winced in pain, "Ugh, please, don''t make me laugh again."From respected ambassador to lowly clerk. I couldn''t have come up with a morefitting punishment! I wonder who arranged that to happen.


    "I wasn''t trying to," Emily said.


    "Well, it still hurt," Maxine complained to no one in particular, and decided to see how things have been going for Emily and the others, "So, how is everything going with you guys?"


    That prompted Emily to talk about her studies. She was taking several advanced courses in human anatomy and biochemistry while still in high school. To Maxine, it was very boring since she already knew most of it from Guan''s notes.


    Silky on the other hand had been making arachne silk dresses and suites to be sold to the wealthy once a month to pay for all the food that she eats. Maxine was worried at first, but the more Silky explained, the more relaxed she got. Apparently someone had tried to kidnap her already, but the arachne twins, Mikari and Kena, dealt with that problem rather swiftly. The wouldbe kidnappers had their arms and legs broken before they were turned into the police. Maxine was grateful that was all that they did. She knew all too well what they did was extremely lenient compared to what they usually do to kidnappers.


    After nearly an hour of chatting, a nurse came in and said, "Sorry, Emily. I know you want to talk to your girlfriend, but we need you for another patient. He''s hurt pretty bad."


    "Alright, Liz. Be right there," Emily said to the nurse before turning back to Maxine, "Well, I knew I wouldn''t be able to talk to you all day. See you later, Maxine. Just press the call button if you need anything." Emily quickly left.


    "Well, we best be heading home too, Silky. We promised Mikari and Kena that we''d make them Chicken Strips for dinner. And Maxine try to get some sleep," Claudia said before giving Maxine a gentle kiss on the forehead.


    "I''ll try mom," Maxine said, "Take care of grandma, Silky."


    "I will, mama," Silky said as she left with Claudia.


    "So, did they find him?" Maxine asked Nina Cervantes after everyone had left.


    "No, they didn''t. He vanished mere moments before they got there," Nina Cervantes answered.Well, at least he isn''t stupid, but why appear in the first place. Unless,... he wanted to lure my bodyguards away. But why? If he''s smart enough to figure out how lure my bodyguards away, he wouldn''t kill me since that would just increase the number of people chasing him and change the orders from capture to kill on sight. In that case, I can only guess he wants to talk to me. I don''t see why though. Still, it''s best to prepare for the worst just in case.


    Maxine tried to get comfortable in the medical pod and told Nina Cervantes, "Just make sure I have plenty of people using cloaking techniques stand guard inside of my hospital room. I have a feelingZabel will be paying me a visit later, and unless he attacks, no one is to touch him. I want to see what he is going to do."

 Chapter 107

    Maxine had just eaten dinner and Zabel Nodd still hadn''t come to her room. He had appeared six more times outside of it and each time he was progressively further away from her. She was wondering if he was going to come at all. It wouldn''t surprise her at this point if she had been completely wrong about him and he was just an insane idiot.


    "I''m finally done with my patients for the day," Emily said as she walked in and Maxine was grateful for the distraction, "How are you feeling?"


    "My whole body aches and my belly is still verytender," Maxine answered honestly and smiled as she added, "Although I barely notice it at all when you are here."


    Emily chuckled lightly before she replied, "If you feel like flirting, you must be on the mend."


    "Would you have me any other way?" Maxine asked.


    "No, I wouldn''t," Emily said as she leaned down and gave Maxine a kiss on the cheek, "But you should really avoid getting excited before your wounds are fully healed.I don''t want you to hurt yourself."


    "I know," Maxine agreed, "Still, I have good news. The limited war between my clan and the Divine Marks clan is over. Let''s just say that the Divine Marks clan violated a big rule and they were deemed to have lost."


    "That''s great," Emily said with relief, but her expression quickly changed to suspicion, "Does that broken rule have anything to do with your injuries?"


    "Yes, unfortunately," Maxine answered honestly, "That conflict had been restricted to iron and silver stage cultivators. A crazed gold stage cultivator called Nora Marks was the one that gave me a beatdown. She was under the mistaken impression that I killed her son."


    "Why didn''t you just use your teleporting trick to escape?" Emily asked angrily.


    "It''s called Shadow Warp and I would''ve if it were posssible. Every surface in that place was glowing and that made it nearly impossible to escape without preparation," Maxine answered honestly, "If she hadn''t been toying with me, I wouldn''t have gotten an opening to use my escape plan."I think it''s best I don''t tell Emily about Nora''s attempt on my life. She is upset enough as it is.


    "Well, did they at least punish that crazy bitch for breaking the rules?" Emily asked.


    "No, they didn''t," Maxine said and noticed Emily''s outrage a moment before she added, "They didn''t because Guan got his hands on her. They figured that whatever he did to her would be far worse than anything they could come up with and they weren''t wrong. Whenever I checked for the past three days, she was screaming her head off."


    "Jesus, what is he doing to her?" Emily asked.


    "Do you really want to know?" Maxine asked in return, "Because I know and I wish I didn''t."


    "That bad?" Emily asked while wincing slightly.


    "Worse than you can imagine," Maxine cautioned Emily, "He isn''tknown for his mercy."


    Emily nodded her head in agreement before saying, "I know. From what you have told me, he takes things far further than he should. I think it''s his way to discourage people from trying to mess with him."


    "It definitely works," Maxine agreed, "By the way, how is Howard doing?"


    "You mean grandpa? He is doing great. After he formed his essence core, he had the energy of a man half his age," Emily said happily, "It''s really amazing."


    "I bet," Maxine answered while smiling and was overcome by the urge to yawn, "It seems I need to get some shut eye."


    "Then go to sleep. I need to go back home anyways. Grandpa still gets worried if I don''t get home before it gets dark," Emily said, "See you tomorrow."I see former General Mckenzie still worries for Emily.


    "See you then, Emily," Maxine said before Emily left her room.


    A few moments after Emily left the room, Maxine shifted in her medical pod before trying to get some sleep, but before she could even close her eyes, the hospital room door opened. She looked to see who it was and every fiber of her being become instantly alert. Zabel Nodd had just walked into the room.


    "I was wondering when you would show up," Maxine said indifferently, but on the inside, she was worried. While waiting for him to show up, she hadn''t come up with any other reasons why he would want to come see her.


    "I see you are just as smart as they say," Zabel Nodd complimented Maxine, "But have you figured out why I have come to see you?"


    "Two possibilities came to mind. The first and most stupid reason is to assasinate me. I think you know why I doubt you are dumb enough to do that one. So I figured you just wanted to talk. About what, I don''t know," Maxine answered.


    "Bravo, you guessed correctly," Zabel Nodd said as he smiled and clapped his hands a couple times, "I do want to talk to you, and it''s to answer a question that has probably been plaguing your mind. So, go ahead. Ask it."He''s right. I do have a question that I want him to answer.


    "Why did you kill Adam Marks and start that stupid war?" Maxine asked angrily.


    "I wanted everyone in the Kavros clan to suffer, but I couldn''t do it on my own. So that''s why I killed that pest of a man," Zabel Nodd said with almost an amused tone and as his eyes flashed red, Maxine feltfearsurge before Zabel Nodd seemed to get angry, "I can still see as all of my neighbors and friends watched silentlywhile both of my parents were butchered. Their only crime being that theyrefused to become subordinates of Elder Ezekiel Keniph and while he slaughtered them, Buck Wilder chased after my sister. That cruel bastard destroyed her face. If she had at least retained her beauty, she could have been married into a good family. But after that day, no man would look at her. She dispaired and killed herself rather than be looked at as a freak." The more he spoke, the greater the feeling of fear she had for him. Her body was reflexively trembling in terror and her back was covered in sweat. Every fiber of her being wanted to run away, but her injuries prevented that. Forcing her to endure fear.This is bad. He''s the shadow demon that Turan was looking for. I need to keep him from seeing me as an enemy. I don''t care if he seems stable right now. I know from talking to Orianna that Shadow Demon''s can change their attitudes about someone at the drop of a hat. He could just as easily kiss me as kill me if I say the wrong words.


    "But I had no hand in that. So why did you make it look like I killed Adam Marks?" Maxine asked while trying to keep her fear from her voice and failing miserably.I hope I said the right thing. This fucking fear is making it hard to think clearly.


    "That part of it was unintentional. I never intended to implicate you in his death. For that, I apologize. Afterall, you publicly humiliated Elder Ezekiel by defeating Buck Wilder almost effortlessly during the tournament. If anything, I owed you a favor of gratitude," Zabel Nodd said after calming down and thus reducing the strength of his fear aura, "I thought you would''ve thanked me for getting rid of such a pest. Adam Marks was only trying to use you for his own political gains. The fool didn''t even see your beauty or know of your kindness. He only saw a tool for his own ends and you wanted to avoid politics of any kind. I don''t see any other reason why you would have kept the family name of your abusive Earth parents otherwise."Well, at least he views me in a favorable light.


    "You arn''t wrong. I hated that vile man, but not enough to kill him," Maxine paused for a moment before she continued, "And while I appreciate your apology, you still shouldn''t have come here."


    "And why is that? Is it because as soon as I''m done talking your six bodyguards will apprehend me?" Zabel Nodd said with a smile on his face.He knows they are there?! I can barely detect them and I know where they are.


    "I already told them not to try anything if you were only here to talk," Maxine said.


    "Then why shouldn''t I have come?" Zabel Nodd asked.


    "Because I know what you are even if you don''t. By coming here, you revealed what you are not only to me, but also to the Shadow Lords. They will kill you for it," Maxine told him, "I suggest you run as far away as you can and find some isolated world to live on. Maybe then, they will leave you alone, but they could just as easily decide to kill you anyways."


    "I''m aware of what I''m becoming and I don''t intend on running anywhere," Zabel Nodd said confidently, "In fact, I rather enjoy the idea of becoming a shadow demon and doing battle with both Shadow Lords and the Kavros clan." I see. He is already too far gone to be helped. He knows that he needs to be stopped on some level and he is trying to get himself killed.


    "That is disappointing," Maxine said sadly, "Just do me this favor, do not get anyone not involved harmed or killed."


    "I can''t promise that," Zabel Nodd said apologetically.


    "Then you leave me little choice," Maxine said firmly, "You need to be stopped."


    "Please, your bodyguards are trembling in their boots just from being near me. I doubt they could gather up the courage to even take a step forward," Zabel Nodd laughed as his eye color turned to a fierce red and Maxine felt a nearly overwhelming fear, "And you can''t even sit up, let alone fight me." Maxine felt helpless before him, but some dim part of her was furious. It was a savage and beastial rage deep within her. She could have sworn to hear the hissing roar of twelve huge snakes, but she knew for a fact that snakes that size didn''t exist in North America.


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    "That isn''t who will be dealing with you," Maxine said while fighting the blinding rage within her. She felt something in her break at that moment, but didn''t have time to figure out what was going on. She wanted and needed to attack.


    Maxine created a portal to the shadow world beneith is feet and had her male clone thrust his war scythe through it. The blade of hte war scythe was buried to the hilt between Zabel Nodd''s legs. It didn''t matter if Zabel Nodd got away at that point. He was a dead man walking with nearly a foot and a half of blade in his body. Or that was what she thought until his body burst into a cloud of rapidly dispersing grey smoke.WHAT?! That was a shadow clone?! But I couldn''t tell it was! SHIT! His mastery of shadow essence must be higher than mine. And how the hell did his shadow clone give off that fear aura?!


    [I don''t take your attack personally. You were just trying to save the innocent from harm. I respect that, and I would be more than happy to accomodate you. But we both know that neither the Kavros clan or the Shadow Lords share such notions,] Zabel Nodd said via spiritual sense, [They would attack without the slightest hesitation even if I were inside a crowd of innocents. That is just how they are and I hope you understand that now.]


    [Why are you telling me this?] Maxine asked.


    [My motives are my own, but shouldn''t you be paying more attention to your own body right now?] Zabel Nodd asked as he severed their spiritual sense connection.What is that supposed to mean?


    Maxine checked her body and didn''t see anything immediately wrong with it. However she quickly discovered that Ki was beginning to circulate in her body.What the ...? I''ve tried to cultivate Ki for the past two years and made zero progress. And now it''s doing it on it''s own?I wonder what changed.


    [Maxine, what just happened?] Guan asked with obvious concern, [You need to tell me all the details no matter how insignificant it might seem. Both of the bloodlines within your male clone have begun to merge. I need to know what stimulus caused this so that I can provide something similar for your sister.]


    [Say what?] Maxine asked incredulously before she answered Guan, [The only thingthat I can think of is that Zabel Nodd visited me. We just talked, but during our chat, he was giving off the fear aura of a Shadow Demon. But that shouldn''t have done it. I felt the same thing from Orianna and it didn''t cause this reaction.]


    [How extreme was the fear? And for how long?] Guan asked.


    [I was horrible. I struggled to keep my voice calm for the two or three minutes we were talking,] Maxine answered honestly, [Do you think that had something to do with it?]


    [Possibly,] Guan answered vaguely, [I have encountered only a couple situations where fear alone was able to incite multiple bloodlines to combine. More commonly, it requires several emotions working together along with very clear danger. But due to your wounded state, that might, and this is a very big might, have been enough to trigger this. Are you sure you didn''t experience anything else?]


    [Well, I ... I got angry at how helpless I was and that angeroverwhelmed my fear,] Maxine answered after thinking for a moment.


    [Thatcould have doneit, but we don''t have time toconfirm that. For now, you should focus on cultivating. No matter how boring or tediious it may be, do not stop until your bloodlines have completely merged. It will prevent your bloodlines from warring with each other for dominance,] Guan advised Maxine.


    [Alright,] Maxine answered while feeling confused, but she did as she was told.


    Maxinefelt something stange going on with her body as she began to cultivate the three energies within her body. Oddly, Ki was gathering far too quickly in her body considering that Earth had almost no Ki in the atomosphere. She extended out her spiritual sense and found that Ki was being pulled out of her portal leading to the Kavros clan. She just hoped that none of it leaked and polluted Earth with yet another form of energy.


    Even after forming a Ki core, the strange feeling within her body persisted and for some reason, she had transformed into her battle form. She noticed something immediately concerning. Her battleform was smaller than before by half an inch and it was continually shrinking in size. But oddly, she wasn''t loosing mass since herflesh and bones were increasing in density.


    In the back of her mind, she was expecting pain to be associated with this change, but there was not even a mild itch associated with her current transformation. She was worried that she would end up shorter than her base form, but thankfully she stopped shrinking at five foot nine inches. It was still taller than her base form, but not by much.


    The strange feeling finallyceasedand she assumed it was due to her bloodlines completely awakening and merging. She checked out to see if there were any other changes to her battleform, but as far as she could tell, there had been no major physical changes aside from her height. However her regenerative powers had, again, increased sharply. Her wounds had healed as much over the time she was meditating as they had in the past three days and she had a feelingthat if she lostan arm that it would eventually regenerate.So this is the benefit of a hydra-type bloodline. I can completely see why Guan wanted it now. Well, that and an immunity to poisons.


    "Uhh, Maxine? While I do admit that you look cool, is there a reason why you decided to transform?" Maxine heard Emily ask.


    "Huh? I thought you left for the day," Maxine asked in confusion. She had been under the impression that Emily had left for the day. However she had a strange feeling that she should look outside her window and saw that it was sunny out.


    "I just got back and wanted to check on you before I headed to school," Emily said curiously and her face quickly shifted to one of extreme concern as she rushed to Maxine''s side, "Oh my god! Please, don''t let there be any brain damage." Maxine felt Emily''s spiritual sense scan her brain before expanding to the rest of her body.


    Emily scanned Maxine from head to toe several times before she said to herself, "This doesn''t make any sense. You don''t have any brain damage and you seem to have lost a chunk of time. And your wounds look as if I already gave them a round of treatment. Did something happen last night?"


    "My bloodlines awoke the rest of the way, I think," Maxine said.


    "And how did that happen?" Emily asked, and Maxine relayed everything that happened last night. Emily''s expression changed many times as Maxine spoke and finally settled on angry.


    "Why didn''t you call for helplast night?!" Emily asked angrily, "That crazy bastard could have killed you."


    "I had six bodyguards in this room at the time," Maxine answered, "Heck, I wasn''t sure he would even show up here."


    "You stillcould havetold me about it before I left last night," Emily grumbled, "I''m going to get ahold of Patrick. You need more protection than what you have."


    "I would prefer it if you didn''t do that. Me and Patrick are not on the best of terms," Maxine admitted.


    "Why is that? Don''t tell me he is still sore about loosing against you in that sparring match," Emily said.


    "I think he had issued with me before that and I''m not exactly sure what I did either," Maxine lied. She knew exactly why Patrick didn''t like her. She bore the same face as the woman that tortured him in his past life and he couldn''t get past that trauma.


    "Should I get Meagan to talk to him about it?" Emily asked.


    "It would be nice, but not sure how far she will get," Maxine said.


    "She can at least try," Emily said and glanced at the time, "Well, I better head out, but before I do, I want to know why you havn''t turned off your transformation. Doesn''t it use up a lot of energy?"


    "Normally, it does, but for some reason, I don''t feel any drain on my stamina at all," Maxine answered and reverted back to her base form. The process took less than a tenth of a second and it surprised Maxine. Normally it took just under a second to transform or revert back to her base form.


    "That was faster than last time I saw you change," Emily commented and looked at the time once more, "Now I really do have to go. See you after school."


    "See you then," Maxine said as Emily walked out of her hospital room.Now what to do about my clothing problem?


    Maxine looked around for her dimensional pouch and didn''t see it anywhere. It has a large number of potions, dozens of sets of clothes and her Twilight Iron Blades. But as of right now, all she wanted were the undergarments. After being covered from nearly head to toe for over two years, she had grown a strong desire to have something on to preserve her modesty.


    She stretched out her spiritual sense to look for Nina Cervantes. Her reasoning was that since Nina had come with her that there was an good chance that she had Maxine''s dimensional pouch.Maxine found her playing with the beastkin children in the Medical Center''s cafeteria and Maxine''s dimensional pouch was hanging off of Nina''s waist.


    However before Maxine could contact Nina, Neesa phased into existence beside her and snatched Maxine''s dimensional pouch. "This belongs to my young miss. How did you get your hands on it?" Neesa asked Nina aggressively.


    "I was holding onto it for Maxine while she recovered," Nina answered defensively.


    "Then you won''t mind coming with us until I can confirm that," Neesa saidas two of her clansmen appeared to either side of Nina before escorting her along with the beastkin children to Maxine''s room.When did Neesa get here? I rememeber seeing her just before I sent my clone to the battlefield and at that time, she had said she was going to accomplish a task while I was gone. What was her task on Earth? Did she volunteer to protect mom, Silky and Emily? Or did she come here for another reason?


    [I wasn''t aware that Nina had my dimensional pouch, but it''s fine. I didn''t exactly have any clothing to tie it to,] Maxine said to Neesa before she opened her hospital room door, [By the way, I was wondering what your assignment on Earth was.]


    [I volunteered to protect Emily Hertz and I was given another assignment which I can''t talk about, even with you,] Neesa answered.I can''t say with certainty, but I think she may have been sent here to find and capture Zabel Nodd. Although there is a chance that she was sent here to snatch some cocoa beans, but the odds of that are pretty damn low. Nearly anyone could have been sent to do that.


    [I understand,] Maxine answered as Neesa came into the room.


    "Young miss, your dimensional pouch," Neesa said as she carefully handed Maxine her dimensional pouch.


    "Thank you," Maxine said as she took her dimensional pouch and used a special trick to place her undergarments directly on her body from the dimensional pouch, "Ahhh, much better. It''s surprising how uncomfortable it feels to go without my panties and bra."


    "I wouldn''t know," Neesa said, "How are your injuries?"


    "They''re much better. Emily is an amazing healer," Maxine said, "I think I will be here for at least a week to recover enough before we head back to the Kavros Clan."


    "Young miss, I believe no one would hold it against you for staying longer," Neesa advised, "Both your adopted daughter and birth mother, not to mention your beloved, live here and I can imagine they want to spend some time with you."


    Maxine smiled as she answered, "Alright, I think I will. Oh and why didn''t you let Nina in? I bet she is having a panic attack out there wondering what''s going on."


    "That''s the idea," Neesa said with an evil smirk, "It''s her punishment for not returning your property once you woke up."


    "I get that, but don''t leave her waiting too much longer. She''s a friend," Maxine said.


    "Understood," Neesa said with a nod, "Is there anything you need before I leave?"


    "Yeah, tell someone I need breakfast," Maxine told Neesa, "I''m very hungry."


    "I will see that theybring it up," Neesa said before she left Maxine''s hospital room. I need to take care of a few things while I am here on Earth. First of which, is to check on my school. Well, technically, it would be Amanda and Chris'' school now. I hope those two are not too pissed at me for vanishing like I did. Second I need to check on my bees. Hearing reports and seeingthem for myself are two very different things. Last, but not least, I need to spend time with Emily, mom and Silky. Now am I forgetting anything? Because for some reason it feels like I am.

 Chapter 108

    Three days had past before Maxine realized what she had forgotten, but at this point it was too late for her to do anything about it. Turan had already walked into her hospital room with a broad grin on his face. He was looking at her as if he found the most valueable treasure in the world. The only positive thing that she could think about in this situation is that she was almost fully healed, aside from some soreness.


    "Good morning, Ms. Levings," Turan said while grinning widely, "I see a congratulations is in order. You have formed a third core and have officially gotten closer thanyour predecessorsto becoming the Shadow Queen." Wait, there are other requirements? Why weren''t they in the book he let me look at? Wait, let me guess. Those little details were on the page that was left out of that fucking book.


    "Go to hell, Turan," Maxine said coldly.


    "Now why would I do that? I''ve been ordered to protect you from that Shadow Demon and I shall do exactly that," Turan said without breaking his smile, "But that''s only until we give you the final test. If you fail it, you will not see me again or any other Shadow Lord unless you wish to."


    "Fine, get on with this final test," Maxine said in annoyance.


    Turan shrugged. "I would if I could. At this point, the final test can''t be performed until your cores are equal in strength. To do it before would cause inconsistent results," Turan said with a shrug, "But even so I want to thank you."


    "What for?" Maxine asked.


    "For giving me quite the show," Turan said with a smile, "It''s not often that someone lives such a diverse life as yours."Asshole.


    "I''m not here to entertain you, Turan," Maxine growled.


    "Calm down. I was only following orders and I just wanted to show my appreciation," Turan said as he slowly backed up with his hands up defensively.


    "Then show me your appreciation by leaving. Right now," Maxine snarled at him.


    "Of course," Turan said as he reached for her hospital room door and looked over his shoulder, "Oh, one last thing that I thought you should know. The elders have decided to observe your sister regardless of how unstable she appears."


    "Leave Orianna out of this!" Maxine growled.


    "I wish I could, but she has the same bloodline that you do. She might be able to form three cores as well," Turan said with an evil smile.Maxine had to resist the impulse to kill Turan where he stood. She knew that the Shadow Lords would only replace him and that would at most delay them from harrassing Orianna.


    "Her mind is too fragile to be this ''shadow queen'' of yours," Maxine countered.


    "For now, but there is no telling about the strength of her mind in the future. Farewell for now, Maxine," Turan answered before he fled out of her hospital room.If he pulls any of the same shit on Orianna that he put me through, I will kill him. SLOWLY! But not before I castrate him with the dullest implement I can find and force feed him it!


    Maxine turned on the TV to see if a comedy was on. She needed to calm down before anyone else came to visit her. Otherwise, she was worried that she would lash out at someone she cares about unjustly.


    She had just found something to watch when she felt a very weak spiritual sense brush against her mind. She instantly realized that it was Hellen''s spiritual sense and latched onto it. [Mom, you''re awake!] Maxine shouted happily via spiritual sense.


    [Not so loudly. My mind is still sensitive from syncing up with my new body, but I have to admit. Having flesh againfeels amazing. I can feel and see again with my natural senses,] Hellen answered joyously, [Although I had forgotten how unpleasant pain can be. There are still a few exposed nerve endings that have yet to grow skin.]


    [Ouch, that does sound bad,] Maxine commented, [But at least you will be up and about in the next few days right?]


    [That''s true. Although your father may insist that I take a couple weeks to get used to moving around again,] Hellen lamented, [He is right though. It''s been over a hundred years since I have walked anywhere, so I may need that time to relearn everything.]


    [That makes perfect sense,] Maxine said, [Do you need me to help you and .. erm .. dad?]


    [No, sweetie. You don''t ... did you just call Guan ''dad''?] Hellen asked happily.


    [Yes, is that a problem?] Maxine asked in return.


    [No, it''s wonderful. This is the first time that I''ve heard you call him that without needing something from him,] Hellen said happily.


    [He''s still technically my biological father, even if I don''t like it, and he''s trying to make me happy,] Maxine admitted more to herself than Hellen, [So, I figured that he deserves a chance.]


    [Thank you, Maxine. I will make sure he doesn''t waste it,] Hellen said happily and Maxine felt their spiritual connection weaken to the point that it nearly ended, [It seems I have exhausted myself. We will talk more later. Take care, sweetie.]


    [Take care, mom,] Maxine said just before their spiritual sense connection was severed. She was happy that she got to talk to Hellen. The joy at hearing from her had greatly diminished her anger at Turan.


    After a few minutes, Nina Cervantes came in with the beastkin children in tow and she was blushing fiercely. Maxine was confused for a few moments until Nina started talking, "I heard that earthlings didn''t wear as much as we do, but never did I believe that they would reveal so much of their legs and chest. It''s scandalous."


    "Well it is the month of august and it cangrt quite hot this time of year. Just give it a few months and they will start wearing more when it gets cold. Normal humans can''t tolerate the cold as well as we can," Maxine said and an mischievious thought crossed her mind, "Just avoid any pools for now. Most swimwear covers less than what you have seen thus far."


    "Are these pools filled with clear water that has a slightly bluish tint?" Nina asked while her face turned a deeper shade of crimson.


    Maxine struggled to keep a straight face as she answered, "Yes, they do. You saw what they were wearing didn''t you?"


    "Yes," Nina admitted as she lowered her head in shame.


    "Don''t think about it too much. It just takes some getting used to," Maxine suggested to Nina.


    "That it will," Nina agreed and she seemed to remember something, "Oh! The hunt for Zabel Nodd isn''t going very far at all. After his visit here, it''s like he vanished into thin air, but we know he hasn''t left the planet yet. There were no ships spotted leaving the planet. So it''s turned into a waiting game."Or he used a shadow portal to go to another planet that he left a spiritual mark on. It''s what I would do. He has already proven he''s proficient in the use of shadow essence.


    "Then we wait and hope he doesn''t decide to visit me again. Once was enough," Maxine said.


    "I bet," Nina agreed and she paused for a moment before asking, "Is it true that he''s a shadow demon?"


    "Oh, yeah. I felt his fear aura first hand," Maxine answered, "It was the second worst feeling of fear that I''ve ever had."


    "And what was the first?" Nina asked.


    Maxine looked out the window before she answered, "I prefer not to talk about it." She hoped Nina would take the hint and drop the subject. She really didn''t want to talk about how Claudia had nearly nearly died when Maxine tried to save her from the russians.


    "Alright," Nina said softly, "Do you want me to fetch you anything?"


    "No," Maxine said. Silence reigned in the room after that. It seemed that Nina no longer had any thing else to talk about.


    Maxine turned on the TV and flipped through the channels until she saw something on the news. There was an on the scene reporter just outside of the Medical Center that she was staying in and she was trying to gain entry into the Medical Center.


    "Please, sir. The people need to know what Maxine Levings'' current condition is and if she will recover," the reporter asked a stone-faced member of the Kavros clan.I doubt he even speaks english with out little of a reaction he is showing.


    "I can answer that," Neesa said as she exited the Medical Center, "Our young miss'' injuries have been treated and she should recover soon. As for the specifics, I will not divulge them without her permission."


    "May I ask who you are?" the reporter asked.


    "I am Neesa, one of our young miss'' bodyguards," Neesa answered and slightly touched her face while smiling, "And her friend. If you have any other questions, you will just have to wait for our young miss to get your answers."


    Maxine smiled with approval andchanged the channel. But the very next news channel that she switched to made her bolt upright in the medical pod. "There is a massive essence beast horde mere minutes away from attacking from across the Missouri River just outside of Jefferson City. The military and local cultivators plan on bottlenecking the essence beasts at the bridge, but due to the sheer size of the essence beast horde, they will be able to at most delay the beasts two or three hours. This will give the police, firefighters and other service members the precious time needed to evacuate thousands," the news anchor said.What?! I won''t loose my family again! NOT EVER AGAIN!


    Maxine threw the hospital blankets off of her and jumped out of bed. Her muscles protested as a mild ache similar to them simply being over worked, but she ignored it as she retrieved a set of training leathers. It wasn''t the best armor, but it was defintely better than not wearing anyarmor into battle.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    She moved to leave the room she was in and was blocked before leaving. "Young miss, I''m sorry, but I can''t let you leave until the healers have confirmed that you are ready to move around," her female guard said, "These are your grandmother''s orders."


    "Out of my way," Maxine ordered the guard.


    "But...," the female guard tried to say but Maxine punched her hard across her jaw. The poor woman was instantly knocked out and Maxine grabbed the woman to prevent her from being sent flying. She didn''t want to knock any walls down inside of a hospital due to a guard moving at near super sonic speeds.


    Instead of going downstairs, Maxine ran to the roof and there were several members of the Kavros clan standing guard. It wasn''t completely unexpected, but it would slow her down if she needed to knock them out as well. Fortunately, she didn''t have to as she formed her harpy essence armor and transfered her leather tunic to her dimensional pouch to avoid damaging it.


    Before they could move to grab her, Maxine spread the wings of her harpy form and shot into the sky with a powerful flap of her wings. With a couple more flaps of her wings she was several hundred feet in the air and she aligned herself at a glide towards Jefferson City. By vibrating her wings, she was able to rapidly increase to super sonic speeds. It would take her only a handful of minutes to arrive.


    When she got within spiritual sense range, she saw just how badly the military and local cultivators were handling the situation. They had hastily erected defenses with no more than six heavy machine guns and only a handful of tanks to act as artillery. Butmost concerningof all, she didn''t see a single Kavros clan member to help bolster their defenses.What the actual fuck are my clansmen doing?! There were over a thousand of my clansmen stationed North america alone. They should have at least one of them here!


    She wanted to yell at them thoroughly for such an oversight, but she would have to do it later. She needed to assess where she could do the most good and she had the perfect viewpoint to do just that.I won''t do anyone any good by being on the bridge. I havn''t been briefed on how they intend to defend it and I may end up just getting in the way. The best use of my strength would be to take out the leaders of this essence beast horde. One of this size would definitely have more than one and once they are down, the horde should disperse. Now where are they?


    Maxine scan over tens of thousands of essence beasts that comprised the essence beast horde and found two Granite-Hide Lions, a Terror Bear and an Iron Shell Tortoise. All of them were literately a step away from silver stage, but they weren''t the ones that had her concerned. It was a silver colored bear in the middle of those four.


    That silver colored bear wasnearly half the size ofthe Terror Bear, andit''s strength was silver stage rank eight. In the previous timeline, there had been no silver stage beasts to contend with let alone one so powerful.What''s going on here? The timeline shouldn''t have diverged that much! Fuck! This is going to be a hard fight, especially since I''m forced to use only essence, but I should still be able to manage. I won''t be able to even use a third of my full strength with these limitations. I just can''t risk contaminating Earth with yet another form of cultivation energy by using either mana or ki. It''s bad enough with just essence. I mean I could try to keep either of those energies from leaking out by creating a special shield in my skin to prevent that, but there is no way I can maintain that level of mental strain for long. I will just see how using draconic essence armor with my battleform holds up first before resorting to that.


    Regardless, she wasn''t going to take anything for granted with this strange looking bear. Instantly she decided to go all out right from the beginning and transformed into her battleform. She didn''t have time to test out how much battle power it had in correlation to it''s cultivation level without people getting killed.


    Maxine immediately dived at the powerful essence beasts and summoned over one hundred of her Shadow Wolves to deal with the peak iron stage beasts while she battled the strange silver bear. Halfway through her descent she switched her harpy essence armor for her draconic essence armor. It barely formed before she was about to collide with the silver bear.


    It looked like it would be an easy kill, but at the last possible moment, the bear casually dodged out of the way.WHAT?! Bears don''t have that kind of agility! Her claws collided with the ground and caused a dust cloud to erupt from the point of impact. Unfortunately due to her restricting herself, she saw the blow coming through the dust cloud, but wasn''t able to avoid it before getting hit in the ribs.


    She was thrown by the force of theblow and slammed into one of the Granite-Hide Lions. The beast''s side caved in from the force of the impact as both of them were hurled through the air. She was still wondering what had hit her when they both skidded to a stop. She looked up and saw a smug look on the Silver Bear''s face.Jesus, that thing packs a punch! This thing is definitely a high grade beast. It''s definitely a good thing I decided to use my draconic essence armor. Otherwise I would need another trip to the Medical Center again instead of a set ofbruised ribs.


    "Foolish creature, I don''t know what you are, but it''s time you realized that we bears are the mightest creatures on this planet," the silver bear spoke with surprising fluency.


    "Bears are strong, but not the strongest. That title solely belongs to dragons," Maxine retorted, "You''re far stronger than I yet you barely even scratched my scales. I guess I need to stop playing around."


    "You? A dragon?" the silver bear mocked Maxine, "Hardly. You smell of those weak humans."


    "And you smell of dung. No one''s perfect," Maxine insulted right back which enraged the silver bear and it charged at her wit ha roar.


    Maxine was easily able to follow it''s charging speed and dodged out of the way while lashing out into it''s side with her tail. Her tail strike barely managed to penetrate the silver bear''s fur and left a small wound on it''s side.High defense, high hitting power and fast close combat speed. I need to fight this thing at a distance or from the air. Fighting it on the ground has me at a disadvantage anyways.


    Maxine quickly leapt into the air and took flight before the silver bear could turn around. She flew a short distance and turned around to breath fire down on the Silver bear. But, it had taken flight as well. She felt confused for only a moment before realizing that as a silver stage beast it had the capacity for flight.Fuck! At least, it can''t attack at a distance.


    As if to disprove her, the Silver Bear opened it''s mouth and unleashed an energy blast out of it''s maw. Maxine hastily dodged it by flapping her right wing powerfully and putting herself into a momentary barrel roll before leveling out.I think I better stop pointing out abilities this beast shouldn''t have before I fuck myself over.


    Maxine accelerated rapidly at the Silver Bear as it charged up another energy blast in it''s mouth.Fine. If you want to fight with breath attacks, let''s do this!Each of her draconic teeth was charged with a Crescent Moon Blitz and she was going to unleash it close enough that it couldn''t be dodged.The Silver Bear seemed to have the same idea as Maxine as it unleashed it''s attack at the same time that Maxine did.


    The Silver Bear''s attack exploded when their two attacks collided and thus nuetralized Maxine''s attack. Unfortunately, the shockwave knocked Maxine out of the air.Fuck! It seems that I can''t beat this thing without using my other energies. I need time to prepare to avoid leaking any mana or ki into the atomasphere. The drop to the ground should be time enough.


    Maxine plummeted towards the ground, but as she did, she was putting all of her constructs in standby mode to free up as much of her mental abilities as possible. Before she was even halfway to the ground, she split her focus into twelve parts. One for her main body, another to monitor control the flow of energies from her portals, four parts of her mind were dedicated to containing the energies within her body and the rest were dedicated completely to combat.


    In this state, she already deduced that she no longer needed her draconic essence armor and reverted it back to normal essence armor to conserve energy. She had wasted enough energy as it was.I need to make this quick. I can only keep my energies contained inside my body for a only a minute while using them. That severely limits what I can do. Can''t use ranged attacks at all, so it will be a full on slugfest.


    "I thought you said you were a dragon," the Silver Bear said as it landed.


    "I never said that I was. You just assumed that I was one," Maxine answered.


    "Fair enough," the Silver Bear said calmly, "So, will you submit or do I have to kill you?"


    "Neither. I''m going to show you my full strength," Maxine answered, "After that, I will slap you around for a few seconds before killing you."


    "You can''t be serious?" the Silver Bear laughed uproarously, "I''ve been dominating this whole fight! You don''t stand a chance against me."


    "Believe it or not. I''m still going to destroy you," Maxine said resolutely before taking a deep breath in and went into combat mode the next.


    She kicked off the ground violently as she charged at the Silver Bear. She saw it''s expression slacken for a moment before it tried to dodge out of the way, but it was far too slow at this point. Maxine''s physical abilities were far above it''s own.


    As soon as she was in striking range, she lashed out with her claws at the thin fur on it''s face. It didn''t matter how powerful this beast''s defenses were if she managed to get some of her venom in it''s veins. Her claws dug down to the bone on the Silver Bear''s face as she slashed across it''s face.


    Maxine jumped back as the Silver Bear retaliated with a vicious swing of it''s paw, but it hit nothing but air. She smiled to herself as she danced around the Silver Bear staying just out of reach and watched while her venom slowly took effect. It worked far more slowly than it did on humans. In fact, it took nearly half a minute before the Silver Bear started to wobble on it''s feet.Hmm, essence beasts have higher tolerances to poison than humans do. I need reference that for later.


    Just before her time limit was up, the Silver Bear collasped onto the ground. Maxine didn''t waste a moment and stopped using Mana and Ki to empower her body. Although having three types of energy was beneficial to her strength and physical durability, they gave her the most boost when she was actively usingthem to fight.


    She watched the Silver Bear for another full minute before sending out her spiritual sense to check it''s heartbeat. It was still alive.It must think that I''m going to come closer to finish it off and take me down with it. I''m not falling for that old trick. I will just wait for it''s heart to stop.


    After another minute, the Silver Bear finally said something, "You have won, but don''t get too high on yourself. The Golden Bear King will avenge me!" After those words left it''s snout, it sounded it''s death rattle as it''s heart stopped.


    Maxine wasn''t happy that she had to win a fight by relying on a poison, but there was no helping it. She wasn''t able to fight it without contaminating Earth with other forms of essence.


    She looked over towards the bridge and saw that the horde of essence beasts was beginning to scatter. It was as if they knew that their leader had been slain. However it was happening far too slowly for her tastes and she reached out with her spiritual sens to just infront of the defenders on the bridge. She created a dozen small portals and brought her Shadow Wolves out through them.


    With a thought, all of the Shadow Wolves that she summoned attacked the essence beasts on the bridge. Only a few of those beasts were able to fight back against her wolves. Unfortunately, the defenders on the bridge didn''t figure out that her Shadow Wolves were there to help right away and severely damaged several of her wolves.I would think that they would realize that my wolves are there to help when the first thing they did after appearing was attack the essence beasts.


    After storing the Silver Bear''s corpse in her dimensional pouch, Maxine sighed and began walking towards the bridge. By the time she reached the bridge, the essence beasts had finally finished scattering and she realized how much her body hated her recent physical activity. Every muscle she had ached.


    As a few soldiers with a reporter just behind them approached her, Maxine sent her Shadow Wolves back to the shadow world with a wave of her hand. The soldiers seemed to be unnerved by that, but didn''t stop their approach.


    "I thought the Kavros Clan wasn''t going to come to our aid," the highest ranking soldier said. Maxine glanced at his rank to note that he was a captain.


    "Oh? I will have to yell at them later," Maxine commented.


    Before the captain could say anything else the reporter shoved a microphone into Maxine''s face and asked, "Excuse me, but could you answer the question on mind of the viewers at home?"


    Maxine ignored the reporter and answered the captain, "I came here on my own initiative and to thank you for your service."


    "Thank you on both counts, ma''am," the captain said respectfully, "Can I have your name?"


    "Maxine Levings," Maxine answered as she reverted back to her base form, "Now I best get back. My bodyguards are going to be furious with me." She opened up a portal back to her hospital room and leapt into it.


    Unfortunately, the moment she got into her room, she felt a set of angry glares on her back. She winced and turned around to see both Emily and Nina glaring at her.Well time for me to get chewed out.I hope Emily is wlling to listen after she yells at me.

 Chapter 109

    "What the hell were you thinking?!" Emily roared angrily, "Your wounds havn''t even fully healed yet and you want to go fight? Are you trying to kill yourself? I know you care about people, but you need to take care of yourself first. Weren''t youaware that your clan had a couple dozen warriors enroute when you left?"


    "They did? But why weren''t they there to begin with?" Maxine asked, "And why didn''t they tell the defenders that they were coming?"


    "Maxine, they had just finished defeating another horde a few hundred miles away and were moments away from notifying thedefenders when you arrived. You should know better than anyone that beast hordes never appear by themselves. More than thirty citieswere attacked in the US alone and only a few of them had easily defensible locations. The Kavros Clan just didn''t have the manpower to defend them all at the same time," Emily explained, "Just ask Lisa, your bodyguard, if you don''t believe me."Jesus! Thirty cities at once! That''s more beast hordes at one time than had ever appeared in the previous timeline. The timeline has definitely diverged way more than it should have. Maybe it''s because there are more cultivators now and it''s ramping up the rateat which essence beasts are appearing. Hell, those things might be breeding like rabbits for all I know.


    "She has spoken the truth, young miss. I would have told you that had you not knocked me out," Lisa, the bodyguard whom she knocked out earlier, said with more than a little anger in her voice.


    "What about Maxwell''s family and the families of his team mates?" Maxine asked, "He is the only man that makes my sister happy. If he falls into dispair because his family dies, my sister will become unstable. I couldn''t risk that happening."


    "They were the first to be evacuated," Lisa answered, "We may not have had enough people to defend that city, but we were able to move those people to safety."


    Maxine quickly deflated since she lost alot of her ammunition to justify her actions. Unfortunately, her bruised ribs decided now was a good time to protest in pain and she nearly fell down as she groaned in pain while craddling them.


    "Damn it. I wasworried you may have aggrivated your injuries," Emily said angrily as she rushed to Maxine''s side and gave Maxine a look of disbelief after checking her ribs, "Really? Are you trying to maim yourself? Because adding injuries on top of previous ones will do just that."


    "I''m sorry, Emily. I just didn''t want to loose them again," Maxine answered without thinking and immediately regretted it. Lisa wasn''t in the loop about her fused soul. Not to mention, she had yet to fully explain it to Emily.


    "Who did you think you were going to loose?" Emily asked in confusion and her face shifted to one of realization, "Oh! I see. Just get out of that equipment and back in your medical pod. I will treat your wounds afterwards"


    "What just happened? I wanted to know who young miss was afraid to loose as well," Lisa said in confusion.


    "Ask grandma. I don''t want to talk about it right now," Maxine answered since she didn''t want to explain anything.


    Maxine transfered her training leathers back to her dimensional pouch and laid back down in her medical pod while trying not to wince at her bruised ribs. Emily didn''t waste any time and began healing Maxine''s ribs as soon as she laid down.


    A cool, soothing sensation suffused her ribs and dulled Maxine''s pain. But it didn''t remove it. She knew that Emily wasn''t quite skilled enough to fully heal injuries.


    While Maxine was laying there, she overheard Lisa ask Emily a few questions, "By the way, do you know who Maxine''s beloved is? I know he has a protective detail, but I''m not sure who he is. It''s just that some of us want to take his measure. We don''t want our young miss to be paired with a weak man." Maxine nearly laughed at those questions, but was confused more than anything else.


    "Didn''t grandma tell you?" Maxine asked before Emily could answer.


    "No, the matriarch didn''t. She seemed almost embarressed about it the whole thing. Which lead me to believe that he is either weak or hideous," Lisa answered and that seemed to make her realize something, "By the maker, don''t tell me it''s that disgusting fish-faced man?"Seriously? She thinks I''m attracted to Jack of all people.


    "That''s rather mean to refer to one of the smartest men I know as fish-faced," Maxine answered, "But sadly, your description isn''t wrong."


    "Then who is it?" Lisa asked.


    Maxine looked to Emily and smiled before she answered, "My beloved is a very skilled healer andsheis a very kind person."


    "So does he ply his trade here?" Lisa asked. Maxine and Emily looked at each other for a moment as if they couldn''t believe Lisa was this dense.


    "I''m Maxine''s beloved," Emily said it directly to remove all doubt.


    "Stop joking around," Lisa said with an amused smile on her face, "Tell me who he really is."


    "I''m serious," Emily said with a straight face.


    "But you''re a girl," Lisa said as if that explained it.


    "I''m aware of that," Emily answered with a slight smirk at Lisa''s growing confusion, "It''s not uncommon on Earth for there to be same sex couples." Lisa''s expression became more and more bewildered and her face started turning beet red. A few moments later, she covered her face and ran out of the hospital room.


    "I think you toppled her understanding of the world, Emily," Maxine commented, "Normally, I''m the one that does that."


    "Shush," Emily said as she put her finger over Maxine''s lips, "I recall you saying something about wanting a baby after the war with the Divine Marks clan was over."


    "I did say that didn''t I," Maxine replied and a perverted grin spread across her lips, "Why do you ask? Want to make that baby now?"


    "No, I don''t actually," Emily answered while blushing.


    "Then why bring it up?" Maxine asked in confusion.


    "Because I think it''s the only way I will ever stop you from charging into battle," Emily growled at Maxine, "Why can''t you for once leave the fighting to someone else?!"


    "I don''t know why I charge into battle most of the time," Maxine answered, "I just feel the urge to protect others and do it."


    "That needs to change," Emily stated, "Because eventaully, you will end up fighting someone that you can''t beat and will get yourself killed."


    "I... Iknow," Maxine admitted, "But how am I going to avoid fighting if the fight comes to me?"


    "Let your bodyguards deal with it. That''s what they''re there for," Emily answered.


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    [If she was the kind of person to let others fight, would you have fallen for her in the first place?] Guan asked, [Because those are the actions of a coward and we both know Maxine is not a coward. She is a noble warrior that fights valiantly to protect life.]


    [I know that!] Emily snapped, [I just don''t want her to die!]


    [I know and I understand those feelings. But if you let others fight for her, her skills will become dull and when she needs to defend herself, she will lack many of the skills she needs to do that. So, stopping her from fighting will not keep her safe from danger. If anything, it will invite it because they will know that she is easy prey,] Guan advised, [I learned this too late after Hellen had died. I didn''t want her to come to harm and insisted that she stayed out of combat. In doing so, she forgot much of her fighting skills. It was my fault that my beloved wife died. Learn from my mistake and be better.]


    [I never blamed you for that,] Hellen said.


    [You didn''t have to. I blamed myself,] Guan said sadly.


    [Oh, Guan,] Hellen said before the spiritual connection was severed.


    "Uhhh, so now what?" Maxine asked.


    "I don''t know anymore," Emily said in defeat.


    "I will try to be more careful," Maxine offered, "But ifI see a fight that will be lost without me, I will charge in to help."


    "I know that, but it doesn''t mean I have to like it," Emily said angrily, "And when we finally do have that baby, no fighting while your pregnant. At all. Is that understood?"


    "Yes, ma''am," Maxine said while smiling.


    "Good," Emily said with a smile, "Now get some rest. I will let Neesa know about your new injuries. By the way, she is now in charge of your protection detail. Lisa proved that she isn''t up to the task when she failed to stop you earlier."


    "I would prefer someone I know to protect me anyways," Maxine commented as Emily left the room.


    Maxine got comfortable in her medical pod and reached for a sheet when she heard the shifting of feet. She looked torwards the noise, but nothing was there. She looked for any tell tale signs that someone was standing there while using a cloaking technique, but found nothing.I''m just being paranoid.


    She picked up the sheet and covered herself with it. She noticed there was a note on a bedside table and picked it up. It had no indication of who it was from. It only had her name on it and opened it up to see who sent it to her. She was dumbfounded by what she read.


    "Please, convince Guan to give Nora the mercy of death. She has suffered enoughafter the death of our son, Adam, and being exiled from my clan. I can''t even imagine what Guan is doing to her now. I know what I''m asking is difficult. She tried to kill you more than once. But I still love her and can''t bear the thought of her suffering any longer. Do this and I shall be forever in your debt, Magnus Marks," is what was written. She had expected him to plea for his wife''s release, not her death.But Nora is already dead. Hellen asked Guan to kill her yesterday as a form of mercy and now her corpse is rotting outside of the cave. Giving Magnus Marks a bit of closure would be as simple as having Guan send Nora''s body to him and it doesn''t cost me much to do it.


    Maxine checked on Hellen and Guan in the shadow world and found both of them sitting down up against the cave walls. Hellen''s head was leaning onto Guan''s shoulder. She appeared to be resting.


    Maxine carefully exteneded her spiritual sense to talk to Guan, [Daddy, do you have a moment?]


    [Yes, I do. What is it?] Guan asked.


    [Could you send Nora''s body to the Divine Marks clan?] Maxine asked.


    [I could, but why should I? Her clan disowned her. There is no point to it,] Guan answered, but was swiftly swatted upside the head by Hellen.


    "Do it.Magnus clearly contacted Maxine and he wants to bury his wife. You would want to do the same thing were you in his position. You and I both know he only divorced her to protect their child and clan," Hellen told Guan.


    "Very well," Guan said.


    [Thanks, dad,] Maxine said to Guan.


    [Don''t thank me. Thank your mother,] Guan said, [Oh, before you leave, I wanted you to know I spotted a few Shadow Lords observing ''your'' village. They seemed particularly interested in the medicinal garden.]


    [Shit,] Maxine cursed before calming down, [Thanks for letting me know. Now I need to find a new place to hide at if things go bad.]


    [I can help with that,] Guan answered, [I have a few warp stones that can teleport you to several different worlds. I got them when I was doing some research on which world would be the best one to hide you on. Any of those worlds would be a good place to hide for you.]


    [And how many of these places can I easily blend into?] Maxine asked.


    [Three and all of them are as much out of the way as Earth is,] Guan answered.


    [Well what are my choices then?] Maxine asked.


    [Karos Two is very close to Earth technologically and has naturally occuring mana, ki and essence on it. However it''s rather strange culture. They call cultivators on that world ''heroes'' of all things. Zanatel Four on the other hand has only mana and those that cultivate it are hunted down almost religiously by it''s inhabitants. As for their technological level, they just developed propeller planes in the last ten years. And last, Arnok is a world I found rather charming. It reminds me of my childhood home. It''s a very primitive world that has just mastered the forging of iron and most of their nobility live in stone castles,] Guan explained, [So, which one do you favor?]There is aworld where cultivators are called Heros? A juvenile part of me wants to go there, but I know it''s not a good idea. Or is it? By now, the Shadow Lordswould have figured out my behavioral patterns by now. Going to Karos Two would be indulgent in a way and out of character for me. Hmm, it might be a good idea to use that place as my primary hiding spot and use Zanatel Four as my secondary one.


    [Zanatel Four and Karos Two,] Maxine answered.


    [Interesting choices,] Guan commented, [Care to share your reasoning for picking those two?]


    [Karos Two is a destination completely out of character place for me to hide at. It would be the very last place they would look for me,] Maxine answered, [As for Zanatel Four, there are very few people that would willingly go to a world where they would be hunted down just for being a cultivator. On the plus side even if the locals discover that I''m a cultivator, they would find it very difficult to even wound me with their level of technology. So both choices are actually quite good ones.]


    [Excellent deductions, I''m glad that you are as smart as your mother said you were,] Guan praised Maxine.


    [Mom''s been around me more, so she would know,] Maxine said.


    [That she would,] Guan replied with a hint of sadness in his voice, [I will get those warp stones to you shortly. I need to make your mother something to eat.]


    [Alright, daddy. I will leave you to it,] Maxine said before she cut off her spiritual sense connection.


    She wasn''t happy that the Shadow Lords discovered the village in the shadow world, but there was no changing it now. And she really didn''t like having to rely on Guan, but unfortunately in this situation, she didn''t have much of a choice. She just hoped that she would never have to use his warp stone.


    The only reason she would use the warp stone is if she was the Shadow Queen that the Shadow Lords were looking for. She wasn''t a big fan of them to begin with and was definitely not going to help them summon their ancestor. She just hoped that if and when they decide that she is this Shadow Queen that she wasn''t pregnant at the time. It would make matters difficult if Guan''s notes were accurate. Pregnant cultivators couldn''t exert even half of their full strength during pregnancy except in rare situations and as another demerit to pregnancy, just before giving birth their strength would be down to one percent of their full strength.It will take me a couple years to bring my mana core up to the same level of strength as my others. So as long as I have my baby soon, I shouldn''t have to deal with the Shadow Lords'' test while I''m pregnant, but that''s assuming Emily agrees to have a baby with me in the next couple years.


    Maxine knew that rest was what she needed most right now to heal up and closed her eyes before shifting her focus back to her main body. Orianna was putting on a light layer of cosmetics on her face for a dinner date with Maxwell. This would be the first time she will be going into the city.


    "Are you sure that you want to go out to the city for your date, Orianna?" Maxine asked for the fifth time today,


    "Yes, I''m sure," Orianna answered firmly, "I know you are worried about me, but I will have Maxwell with me."


    "Alright. But if it gets too much, just give the signal the raven I left in your shadow and I will make a portal home for you," Maxine reminded Orianna.


    "Thanks for the reminder," Orianna said as she put the finishing touches on her dress, "How do I look?" Orianna stood up and spun around. She was wearing one of Maxine''s green dresses with a few red ribbons tied into bows in her hair.


    "Like a knockout," Maxine answered honestly, "IfMaxwell doesn''t agree, he deserves a good hit upside the head."Orianna giggled softly and a knock on the door drew their attention. "It seems your date is here," Maxine said as she gestured to the door, "Have fun."


    "I''ll try," Orianna said happily as she exited the room and gently took Maxwell''s arm when it was offered. Maxine closed the door behind them and resisted the urge to snoop on them. Orianna needed to know that she could trust Maxine not to spy on her.


    After taking a deep breath, Maxine walked to the huge bed and laid down. She felt exhausted both physically and mentally. She just wanted to rest if only for a day, but she didn''t have that luxury. At most, she could take a nap for a couple hours while Orianna was out on her date. She didn''t have anything pressing at the moment to take care of.


    After releasing one last sigh of frustration, Maxine closed her eyes and attempted to get some sleep.

 Chapter 110

    Maxine felt much better after three days of rest. Her time in the medical pod gave her plenty of time to revise her escape plan. She was angry that the village in the shadow world had been found by the Shadow Lords, but was relieved to find a strange anomaly with the shadow world''s star system. The shadow world''s star system had been isolated by a strange field that nuetralizes almost all technology. Thus rendering them unable to use the necessary equipment to track her spiritual sense traces.That special equipment was how they found out about the shadow world in the first place according to Guan. He also mentioned it had other functions, but neglected to mention what they were.


    However, it made her re-evaluate how she would operateat her new escape location. She couldn''t leave any trace that her main body or clones were on the shadow world. It would just draw too much attention to the village and could possibly get it destroyed, But she didn''t want to leave it undefended at all.


    Although the villagers had come a long way,they were by no means ready for a real fight. Most of them were essentially untested outside of hunting and scaring off small groups of bandits with displays of power. Still, she brought their average strength up from bronze rank seven to iron stage rank 1. They could overpower almost any force that decided to give them trouble at this point, but that was assuming that they could bring themselves to kill another living person. She knew first hand how hard it was to kill a member of your own race for the first time.


    So she planned to leavethe majority of her shadow wolves and ravens to protect the village with a modified shadow clone in charge. A shadow clone was the only type of construct she had that could retain complex commands of any kind. She simply had to leave very specific commands to react to a variety of different situations.


    As for her plan for when she arrived on the hero world, she would have to bring her clones and any constructs with her. Afterall, the Shadow Lords were only after her due to the fact that she was most likely the Shadow Queen and besides her self, her clones were the only ones that had the same capabilities as she did.God damn it. I hate it when things get too complicated. Still I cant take a risk that I can be tracked in any way when I bug out. At least, my approach to the hero world will remain the same. It won''t be easy to pull off though and I definitely can''t show off my shadow essence. That''s the same as announcing where I''m at. I will use only the light essence that is part of my shadow essence and present myself as a healer. I can''t just show up in a city out of nowhere without some means of identification. I have no doubt that their government has some kind of means to keep track of the population, so I need find out that information before making an appearance. I might have to procure an ID illegally. If nothing else, I could just hide out in an uninhabited area for awhile until I figure something out.


    Maxine was brought out of her thoughts when Emiy walked in with a smile on her face. "Your wounds are mostly healed and you can leave the hospital any time you want. But you should avoid anything more strenous than walking for now," Emily said happily, "It still amazes me how quickly you heal. If we could figure that out and stimulate a similar effect in normal people, we wouldn''t have to keep patients so long after big surgeries. Hell, it might change the face of medicine altogether."


    "If the Technological Union couldn''t figure it out after studying Guan all this time, Earth''s scientists won''t be able to just from studying a few samples of my blood," Maxine said sadly, but quickly perked up, "Did you bring me any clothes to wear? Most of the casual clothing I had was shredded. I had packed clothing for combat, not for a casual visit."


    "Yes, I did," Emily said as she pulled patted a dimensional pouch at her waist and several sets of clothing appeared folded on a counter, "Pick whatever you like. We can go hang out and eat out once it gets later. But what will we do if someone recognizes you?"


    Maxine picked a pair of jeans and tshirt before she answered with a smile, "That''s easy. They won''t know it''s me. Just watch." With a thought, she sent a pulse of essence into her hair to change its color to the exact shade of brown it was before she forced her cultivation to iron stage.


    "How do I look?" Maxine asked while brushing her hair over her shoulder.


    "Good," Emily said, "And that''s one neat trick. Can you change your hair to any color?"


    "Yes, I can. I can make it rainbow colored if I wanted, but I perfer this one," Maxine answered.


    "Well it is your original hair color afterall," Emily commented, "But that won''t be enough to trick some of those guys camped outside."


    "Good point," Maxine answered and put a thin screen of essence over her face to shift her cheek bones and jaw slightly to give herself a completely different look. It wasn''t that hard to maintain, but ifsomeone touched her face, the illusion would shatter. "How''s this?" Maxine asked.


    "Perfect," Emily answered.


    "Good. So, where we headed for our date?" Maxine asked once she finished changing clothes, and teased Emily as an afterthought, "Or do you want to watch me change clothes all day?"


    Emily smiled beautifully as she rolled her eyes in amusement before she answered, "I was thinking we could go for a walk through a park or something like that. You need some fresh air after being cooped up in here for so long. And I thought it wouldn''t hurt if you got to see how your school is doing."


    "Sounds like a plan," Maxine agreed, "So, did those two ever decide on a new name for my school?"I still feel bad about leaving them with that place and I didn''t even bother giving that place a proper name. I thought Maxine''s Cultivation School was pretty good, but kind of pointless to keep the name when I was so universally hated. They probably changed it.


    "Yes, the Fire and Ice Academy," Emily answered.Fire and Ice academy? I know who the firein that name is refering to, but what about ice? Wait. Ice is water and wind put together. That would have to be Amanda. Now that I think about it, I wonder how those two have progressed in their relationship. I heard a few rumors about Amanda being pregnant a while back, but beyond that, nothing.


    "Sounds nice," Maxine said, "By the way, did Amanda have her baby yet?"


    "Yeah nearly six months ago. A baby girl that they named Sarah," Emily said.


    "That''s wonderful! Which one does the little girl resemble most? Amanda or Chris?" Maxine asked.


    "Neither. She has Amanda''s red hair and Chris'' eyes," Emily said.Maxine tried to envision a baby with a head of red hair and the same kind of hazel eyes that Chris Maze had.


    "She sounds adorable," Maxine said and looked at the time, "So when do we head out?"


    "Any time that you want," Emily answered.


    "Let''s go now then," Maxine said cheerfully as she headed for the door and added, "You can join us too Neesa."


    "I appreciate the offer, Maxine, but it would be best that I remain unseen. I would hate to ruin your efforts at being incognito," Neesa said without breaking her stealth technique.


    "Suit yourself," Maxine said as she left the hospital room and made her way out of the Medical Center.


    Once they were outside, there were plenty of protesters and news reporters camping outside. Many of them immediately looked towards Maxine and Emily, but they quickly lost interest.Good, there are no cultivators in this crowd. That makes it easier.


    The two of them quickly left without much difficulty and made their way to the Fire and Ice Academy. It wasn''t inthe same building it had beforeand now resided in a three story building. She guessed there were at least a few hundred people inside of it at any given time just to handle the paper work side of things. She couldn''t imagine how many cultivators they had under their employ.


    Emily raised her handin greeting as she approached the guardat the entrance, "Hey, Phil. Is Amanda in?"


    "Yeah, she''s in her office with her bundle of joy," Phil said, "I''ll let her know you are coming up. By the way, whose your friend?"


    "An old friend. We wanted to surprise Amanda with a visit," Emily said while showing a mischievous smile.


    "Gotcha," Phil said as he opened the doors for them. Maxine checked his cultivation out of curiosity and found that he was at the peak of iron stage. It was quite impressive to have someone that strong acting just as the guard to the front door at least here on Earth.


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    "Nice to meet you, Phil," Maxine said as they walked passed him.


    She followed Emily through the building and spotted a dojo where a lot of young students were training under a teacher. It reminded her about her own students and she began to wonder what happened to them all.I better check on them later.


    After a short elevator ride and short walk down a hallway, they finally reached Amanda''s office room. Not that she needed a guide once they reached the third floor. She could hear Amanda''s baby girl wailing as soon as they got off the elevator.Damn, that baby has a pair of lungs on her.


    They looked at each other just outside of Amanda''s office before Emily opened the door. "Sounds like you could use a hand with Sarah," Emily said as she walked inside, "We could hear her clear from outside."


    "Thanks, I could use a hand with her," Amanda said as she looked up from the baby in her arms, "Whose that with you?"


    Maxine followed behind Emily inside and closed the door before she released disguise. "I''m hurt that you don''t recognize me, Amanda," Maxine said teasingly, "And now I can see why you didn''t come to visit me at the hospital. That little girl of yours is a handful, and you still managed to run this place at the same time. Iwould be surprised if you had any spare time at all"


    "Maxine!" Amanda shouted in shock, "What are you doing here?!"


    "I just came to visit you and your daughter. She''s a cutie," Maxine said as she got a better look at Amanda''s baby girl.So, she does have Amanda''s hair and Chris'' eyes. But why do I feel like I''m in the den of some ancient beast?I hope it''s just the protective mom vibes coming off of Amanda. If nothing else, my presence seems to be calming the little girl down. She is already starting to drift off to sleep.


    "I wish you hadn''t," Amanda said as she face palmed with her free hand, "We were just able to get our school on even grounds with the guilds that have popped up over the past two years. We can''t take the hit to our public image by being associating with you for a second time."


    "Why do you think I came in disguise?" Maxine asked, "I didn''t want to hurt your school''s reputation. Although honestly, that wasn''t the only reason I was in disguise. I just really didn''t want to be harrassed by protesters and reporters every second I was out and about."


    "How certain are you that you fooled everyone?" Amanda asked.


    "I kept my awareness on my surrounding the whole time. No one recognized me as far as I could tell," Maxine answered, "And I have yet to meet anyone that can see through it when I''m determined to conceal my identity. Scrambling my essence wavelength is a lot hard than you would think."


    "Good," Amanda said and she finally noticed her baby wasn''t crying anymore, "Oh thank god. She''s finally asleep. You have no idea how hard it is to take care of a baby."


    "I might have an idea," Maxine answered, "There werea few new mothers amongst the servants at the Kavros Clan and they were tired a good deal of the time."


    "Your clan made them work right after having their babies?!" Amanda asked in shock.


    "No, they don''t. They have a special courtyard set aside for new mothers and they don''t have to work for five years after giving birth. I went to visit that courtyard a few times to give them a hand," Maxine said while feeling a little uncomfortable.I also wanted a little experience with handling infants and toddlers. I need to know that sort of thing if I want to be a mother too. Although, I''m not sure how I feel about breast feeding.


    "You never told me you did that," Emily commented.


    "I was going to. Afterall, when we have our baby, at least one of us has to have an idea of how to take care of one," Maxine answered.


    "You two are going to have a baby?" Amanda asked in surprise, "Whose the lucky guy that going to help with that or are you going to the alternative route?"


    "You didn''t tell Amanda about Guan''s potion?" Maxine asked in mild disbelief, "I thought you would have shared that with Amanda."


    "I havn''t gotten around to it yet. I''m still coming to grips that it was possible at all," Emily answered and a moment later, Amanda asked, "What potion?"


    "It''s a potion that can temporarily invert the gender of whoever drinks it," Maxine answered without thinking.


    "Really now?" Amanda said with a devilish grin, "Does it work on men too?"


    "I... Guan never said anything about that detail. It might," Maxine answered uncertainly, "Why do you ask?"


    "I was thinking about getting two of those for me and Chris. I want to feel what it''s like to be the man in the relationship," Amanda said with a devilish smile.


    Both Emily and Maxine struggled not to laugh at Amanda''s comment, but it was a loosing battle. After a couple seconds of snickering, they laughed. It was worse that Maxine could imagine the dumbfounded and horrified look on Chris'' face when Amanda suddenly grew a dick before his eyes as his own shrank and vanished. That mental image only made her laugh all the harder.


    A gentle knock on the door shattered that mental image as someone outside asked, "Is everything alright?"


    "Yes, everything''s alright, James," Amanda said and gave a quick glare at Emily and Maxine, "Both of you stop laughing. You will wake Sarah."


    "Sorry," Emily said softly and Maxine added her own apology a beat later, "My bad, but it''s really hard when you deal a joke like that out."


    "Whose joking," Amanda said with a straight face.Hmm, I wonder what Chris has done to piss Amanda off. Now that I think about it. Where is Chris anyways?


    "By the way, where is Chris at?" Maxine asked. She hadn''t sensed Chris Maze at all since she entered the building. She couldn''t imagine why he wouldn''t be here to help Amanda take care of their daughter.


    "He spends most of his time training our new recruits. It just so happens that he took them out for their first real hunt this morning. He should be back some time around dinner. That''s assuming there arn''t any issues during their hunt," Amanda complained, "We don''t have a lot of senior essence cultivators to take rookies out to hunt. Most of our original students have just entered iron stage and the few that we do have are almost constantly out on missions. Not to mention that Chris is literately the strongest person in the academy. Although I probably don''t need to tell you that."


    Maxine sent out her spiritual sense to look for Chris Maze in the nearby forests and found him. His cultivation was just a step away from silver stage and it felt like his foundation was extremely firm. It was as if it were only a matter of a few days before he reached silver stage.


    "Wow," Maxine said in surprise, "You weren''t kidding. It feels like he''s about to advance to silver stage."


    "Really?!" Amanda asked excitedly, "If he can advance, that would mean we would have the strongest native born warrior on the planet. It would be a huge boost to our reputation."


    "That it would be," Maxine agreed and began to feel hungry, "On a side note, do you want to go out to eat with me and Emily?"


    "No, I still have a lot of work to do. I can always get James to get me something from the cafeteria," Amanda answered, "But if you are willing, I could use a bit of help taking care of Sarah. She may be sleeping now, but as you noticed, she can be a handful when she''s awake."


    "I don''t see a problem with that. Do you, Maxine?" Emily asked with a sparkle in her eyes, "You did say we need experience taking care of a baby."


    "That I did," Maxine agreed, "So what do you need us to do?"


    "As long as you are careful, you can hold her," Amanda said, "Which one of you want to hold her first?"


    "I guess I do," Maxine said as she came forward and extended her arms out. Amanda held her baby carefully and stood up. Maxine carefully took little baby Sarah from Amanda and slowly brought the sleeping baby to her chest. She paid extra attention to craddling the infant''s head. She got enough grief from the servants about that to know that infants lacked the muscular strength to support their own heads.She got a closer look at baby Sarah''s face as a small smile spread across her face.


    Maxine sensed someone staring out her and looked up to see which one of them was staring at her. Oddly enough both of them were staring at her with smiles on their faces. "What?" Maxine asked, "Is there something in my teeth or something?"


    "No, not at all. It''s just that you were the perfect image of a mother there for a second," Emily said happily.


    "You must really want one of your own to have an expression like that," Amanda added in, "So when should I expect to see you holding one of your own?"


    "I don''t know. It all depends on Emily," Maxine answered.


    Emily said, "I would prefer we have them after we turn eighteen. I don''t want to be labeled as a underaged mother and I don''t want Maxine to be either. But there are times when I''m really tempted to do it."


    "You wouldn''t be one by the Kavros Clan''s standards," Maxine said as she pinched the bridge of her nose as she remembered how young some of the servant girls with babies were, "Quite a few have them in their mid-teens. But then again, cultivators have far sturdier bodies and can handle the strain of child birth far more easily."


    "Jesus, your clan is fucked up, Maxine," Amanda said.


    "It''s more common than you would think," Maxine said defensively, but knew she would loose this arguement.


    "Still," Amanda said, "I would hate to be part of it. They havn''t forced you to marry anyone, have they?"


    "Daddy would killthe unlucky groom, and probably his family, if they tried. But I do have numberous suitors. Almost all of them are just after access to daddy''s alchemical skills," Maxine answered, "The rest are just horny."


    "Daddy? You mean that sonovabitch that abandoned you? Why are you calling him daddy now?" Amanda growled, but not very loudly. She clearly didn''t want to wake up her baby.


    "Everything he''s done, regardless of how messed up it was, was done out of a desire to protect me and he has made attempts to make things right in the past two years. Afterall, he let the Kavros clan send warriors to help fend off the essence beast hords," Maxine replied and tears started to form in her eyes, "And he''s resurrected my real mother. I got to hear her voice for the first time just a few days ago."


    "He what?! How the hell do you even do that?" Amanda demanded, "Scratch that. Is he retarded? Once people realize he can do that, won''t that just make you into an even bigger target?"


    "Not really. He was only able to resurrect my real mother because he happened to have her intact skeleton, her original core, some of her DNA, and her soul on hand.Even with all of that, he needed to use a bunch of ridiculously rare resources to pull it off," Maxine answered after wiping her tears away with a small shadow tendril. She didn''t want to disturb the baby still in her arms by using one of her hands.


    Amanda looked confused, but eventually answered, "I still don''t like him and if I see him, I will kick him in the balls.".


    "I don''t blame you. I felt the same way for a good while," Maxine said understandingly and noticed baby Sarah squirming ever so slightly in her arms, "I think we should be quiet now. Your baby is starting to stir from all the noise."


    Amanda and Emily nodded in agreement before Amanda went back to her paperwork. Maxine watched Amanda speed through the paperwork. She barely glanced at each application or worksheet on her computer before her hands blurred across the keyboard.From what she could tell, it would still take her a few hours to finish up even at the fast pace she was going and until then, Emily and herself would be busy taking care of baby Sarah.I don''t know why, but I feel content just looking at little Sarah''s sleeping face. She is just so adorable. Now I know for certain that I want one of my own. The only problem is convincing Emily to have one with me sooner, but it might be a good idea to talk with Hellen about it first.

 Chapter 111

    Maxine enjoyed her day with Emilyand baby Sarah. Although she hadn''t enjoyed changing Sarah''s dirty diaper one bit. The only upside was that Amanda had been feeding the little tike properly and it wasn''t as a foul smelling experience as it could have. Still, it brightened her day when the baby giggled and smiled whileshe played with Maxine''s hair.


    She smiled fondlyat the day''s activities before she remembered she needed to talk to Hellen and Guan. With a quick extention of her spiritual sense, she contacted Hellen, [Mom, can I ask you something?]


    [Yes, of course, you can,] Hellen answered.


    [Is it a good idea to have a baby while the Shadow Lords are watching me?] Maxine asked.I need to know what their responses might be and Hellen has far more expereince dealing with Shadow Lords than I do.


    [I don''t think it would matter if you had one or not while they are watching you or not,] Hellen answered, [You are the closest to the Shadow Queen to have ever been born and even if you do not become this Shadow Queen, they will undoubtedly believe that at least one of your children will be. Thus no matter what you do, they will always be watching both you and any children that you may have.]


    [I wouldn''t let them mess with my kids,] Maxine growled fiercely.


    [You may not have a choice, but I would still love to see some grand children being born,] Hellen said, [And like you, I would rather die again than let those pieces of filth get even close to them. But unlike me, you have a powerful family member to help protect any children that you may have. However, all of this isn''t a worry if the Shadow Lords don''t know about it when you decide to get pregnant.]


    [What do you mean? How can I get pregnant without them being aware of it?] Maxine asked, [Those jerks practically have me under surveillance every milisecond of the day.]


    [There are places where they have no eyes or ears at all such as the room Orianna stays in or one of the worlds Guan has suggested that you flee to if things go badly. One of those places would be an ideal place for you to become pregnant and you could use another one to hide at to raise your children,] Hellen said and her tone became morose, [Although, anywhere you raise your children will be away from Emily and myself. It will be far safer for any children you may have that way.]


    [That it would be, but I won''t do that to Emily. She deserves to be there,] Maxine answered, [That''s why I will take her with me when I flee. Afterall, they could very easily use her to get me to come out of hiding and I wouldn''t put it past them to do that either.]That''s assuming she even agrees to go into hiding with me. She has friends and family here on Earth. It''s a lot ot ask of her to abandon everything like that.


    [Hmm, that is a very good point, but won''t that complicate matters? Finding one person is quite hard when they are determined to stay hidden,] Hellen advised, [Two are another matter. It increases the chances of discovery by several fold and if I''m not mistaken, Emily doesn''t have any talents at disguise.]


    [You''re right. She doesn''t, but there are a few potions and herbs that can remedy that,] Maxine countered.


    [Maxine, those only work against people that are not aware of them,] Guan interrupted, [It will only delay them by a few years at most.]


    [A few years is all either of us will need and who would be willing to hire a mid-level alchemist to pick her out of a crowd? At least, not for as long as it would take them to searchseveral planets,] Maxine retorted, [It would cost them too much.]


    [You would be surprised at the length that they are willing to go to find their Shadow Queen. They even had the gall to threaten me to stay out of their business concerning you,] Guan said in an almost bored tone, [Although after what I did, I don''t think they will be so foolish as to try something so foolish a second time. I killed the fool that dared to threaten me with his false power and I sent hiscorpse, or what was left of it,with my answer. I imagine they will recieve it any day now and they will understand why no one threatens me.]


    [What did you do?] Maxine and Hellen asked at the same time.


    [Nothing too harsh. When they open the casket, a plague will be unleashed that will only effect immortal stage cultivators. It will heavily damage their cultivation to the point that it will require centuries and a few rare resources to repair that damage,] Guan answered callously, [I could have made it a lethal plague, but your mother asking me to stop killing so much.]Fuck... I''m glad I''m his daughter and not his enemy. Even when he''s being merciful, he''s vicious.


    She felt more than heard Hellen sigh through their spiritual sense connection before she said. [Well, I suppose that''s an improvement from your usual response.]


    [And what exactly is his usual response?] Maxine asked tenatively.I think I already know the answer, but it''s better to hear it straight from him. God I hope it isn''t as bad as I think it is.


    [He would havesent a lethal poison that would kill everyone within several hundred miles by causing their very flesh to dissolve starting with their skin.By the end of it, everyong effected by that poison would turn into a bloody puddle of goo and that can take weeks. I''ve heard it''s one of the worst ways to die,] Hellen answered.I was wrong. It was way worse.


    [Jesus,] was the only thing Maxine could say in response.


    [Indeed, but I think his most recent form of retaliation will be more effective. I can''t think of anyone that wants to loose centuries of their cultivation when it could have been avoided,] Hellen continued, [But enough of that. How has your visit on Earth been?]


    [Great, I got to hold Amanda''s baby, Sarah, with Emily at Amanda and Chris academy. We couldn''t eat out like we wanted, but the cafeteria served a really good turkey burger,] Maxine recounted, [It got very interesting when Chris got back from teaching his new recruits. He was quite surprise to see me and Emily tending to his baby girl. It was so funny to watch him fuss over her. I just hope he doesn''t spoil her too much when she''s older.]


    [I wished I could have seen that,] Hellen said with amusement and asked as an afterthought, [Have you visited Silky and Claudia yet?]


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    [Not yet, but when they discharge me tomorrow, I intend to go straight home. I plan on making them something to eat for dinner. I just hope my cooking skills havn''t gotten rusty,] Maxine said happily.


    [I might join you for dinner then. Your father isn''t exactly a good cook. He can at most cook meat over a fire and steam vegetables. It would do me good to spend time with you too,] Hellen said.


    [Are you serious?] Maxine asked incredulously, [I thought you would need months of rehab.]


    [Hardly, remember a cultivator''s mind works thousands of times faster than a normal humans when they reach my level. A few days is all I need to relearn how to walk, but I may need another week before I''m coordinated enough to fight,] Hellen explained.


    Maxine laughed joyously before she said, [Great, I will be sure to make extra for you. Do you have any requests?]


    [Surprise me,] Hellen said.


    [Alright, I will think of something especially good,] Maxine replied as she got comfortable in her medical pod and remembered something, [Oh! Daddy are you still listening?]


    [I am now,] Guan answered, [What is it?]


    [Do you know howKaros Two and Zanatel Four keep track of their population?] Maxine asked. Every last bit of information she could get her hands on before she got to either Karos two or Zanatel four.


    [Hmm, Karos Two''s humans are very thorough. Fingerprint, DNA and retinal scans are encoded onto their identifications. It''s rather advanced considering their technological level, but they feel that they have to do this. There is a sizeable population of other humaniods on that planet and not all of them are friendly. They refer those other species as Orcs, Elves and Demihumans. Orcs are an extremely aggressive species of green skinned humaniods, but they have a strict honor code that keeps their aggression in check. Elves, on the other hand, don''t like humans much and only grudgingly interact with them when they need something. Otherwise they stick to their own kind and attack anyone fiercely that trespasses into their territory with bows and hurled energy attacks. Demihumans, or as you know them beastkin, are the most peaceful and only fight when attacked. Although that doesn''t stop humans from calling them violent and vicious creatures,] Guan explained, [As for Zanetel Four, they don''t have anything fancy. You could walk into any city and get identification papers within a day assuming that you have the coin for it. But there was a bit of interesting activity when I was there last. However, there was one large nation actively conquering the others. I believe it''s the one that was most progressive in the hunt for cultivators.]


    [I''m confused. Why are cultivators on Karos Two called heros if the population is so closely monitored? Wouldn''t it make keeping their identities secret an impossibility?] Maxine asked.


    [That''s because they don''t conceal their identities at all. They are called heros simply because they are the first to charge into battle to fend off anything foolish enough to attackone of their fortified cities. More often than not, they use their very bodies as shields for the non-combatants. That is why they are called ''heros'',] Guan explained, [Did you honestly expect them to dress themselves in colorful costumes to conceal their identities so that they could fight against petty criminals?]


    [Umm, sort of,] Maxine answered and heard Guan''s uproarous laughter in the next moment. She was so stunned to hear his laugh that she didn''t know how to react to it. Ever since she first talked to him, he didn''t seem like the sort of man to laugh, ever.


    [It''s not that funny,] Maxine complained after a couple seconds.


    [It''s not that,] Guan said while stifling his laughter, [Your mother just sent me a mental image of you in a ''Squirrel Girl'' costume. It was quite hilarious.]


    [MOM!] Maxine shouted indignantly and finally sensed that Hellen was laughing too. Maxine almost began protesting again, but let it go. It was a rare moment to hear both of her biological parents laugh, even if it was through her male clone.


    [Don''t tease others if you can''t take it yourself,] Hellen teased Maxine.


    [I can take being teased, but I''m just not used to you doing it. It felt weird and caught me off guard. That''s all,] Maxine admitted.


    [It''s all in good fun,] Hellen said and for some reason, she changed the subject, [Is there anything else you need to ask us?]


    [Yes, there is. Daddy, are there any large snakes on Karos two or Zanatel four?] Maxine asked.I could always try to dominate the mind of a large serpent-type beast to be my bodyguard if I''m pregnant when I flee. Most cultivators don''t want to mess with snakes at all for no more reason than even their blood is sometimes contains contact poison. It''s a nasty way to die. Even guys a full stage above the snakes don''t like messing with them for that simple reason.


    [There should be some on both worlds. Although Karos Two has a much larger variety of them. They have at least twenty thousand varieties of snakes and three of those are hydras,] Guan said, [Are you planning on hiding out with a community of snakes? It shouldn''t be a problem if that''s the case. They rarely attack anyone with a snake bloodline.]


    [I didn''t know that,] Maxine answered, [But why did a lamia show hostility to me before?] Her intention was along those lines, but her plan was to create a construct around herself to make it appear that she was a type of large snake. Fortunately, Guan had just told her otherwise. It would have been a strain on her mental and physical energies to maintain it. This way she could hide out with a community of snakes instead of with humans if she had to.


    [Lamia''s lack the special scent receptors on their tongues that are able to distinguish bloodlines. Gorgons on the other hand have them, but only on the serpent-like hair growing out of their heads,] Guan said, [On a side note, I am curious as to why you havn''t tested out your full hydra form yet. From what Hellen has told me, youseem rather keen on knowing the full capabilities of your transformations.]


    [I don''t have a full hydra form,] Maxine answered.If I do have that transformation, I don''t know how to access it. Although, if I''m going to be honest with myself, I don''t think I would ever use even if I could. I never liked the idea of having multiple heads.


    [Yes, you do. I know this because I do,] Guan said knowingly, [Although, I don''t use it much. The strength it provides can be... intoxicating and I perfer to have my mind clear when I fight.]


    [I''m the same way,] Maxine agreed, [Did you have to have some sort of trigger to transform?]


    [Nothing that I can recall. I could just do it after I completely absorbed the Twelve-Headed Hydra King bloodline,] Guan replied, [Although it took me a couple weeks to do able to do it at will.]


    [I might not be able to do it at all because of my lower cultivation,] Maxine offered.


    [Hmmm, that might be the case,] Guan agreed, [Regardless, it''s a problem for another time.]


    [Thanks for talking with me, daddy,] Maxine said happily, [You''ve helped me lessen a few of my worries.]


    [It''s the least I could do for not being there while you grew up,] Guan answered, [The Maker knows I wish I could do more to make it up to you.]


    [I know, daddy,] Maxine answered understandingly, [I need to get some sleep now. Take care of mom.]


    [I will Maxine. Go get some rest then. Good night,] Guan said in a loving tone before he severed the spiritual sense connection.


    She leaned back to try to sleep, but she couldn''t sleep. She was too excited about tomorrow to sleep. She was going to see Hellen in the flesh. She tried to calm herself down by telling herself that she has talked to Hellen numberous times in the past, but it didn''t get very far. It was incomparable to talk with someone through spiritual sense compared to talking face to face.


    But most of all, she kept wondering how Claudia and Silky would react to seeing Hellen.Although Maxine had explained about Hellen''s existence to Claudia, she didn''t think that her birth mother understood her entirely. It was difficult to explain how Hellen''s soul was still in the land of the living at all. That didn''t even cover the nightmare that was explaining Hellen''s ressurection. She didn''t even know where to start.


    Silky, on the other hand, would most likely hug tackle Hellen, hopefully not in her arachne form. It would be her normal reaction due to her very affectionate nature. The mental image of that scene alone brought a smile to Maxine''s face. Regardless, she kept trying to think of ways to explain things to both of them, but she ended up tiring herself out very quickly. Before she knew it, she had drifted off to sleep.

 Chapter 112

    Maxine was smiling a few moments ago while walking to her house, but she saw a crowd of reporters staking outside of it. What the actual fuck are those guys doing here? I don''t recall anyone saying that I was leaving the hospital at all. Unless somoene leaked it. Fuck! That''s probably the case. At least I got all of my shopping done without being harrassed.


    She doubted she could enter her old home through the front door or even approach it under these circumstances without being swarmed by the reporters. Her only choice was to enter her old home in stealth and hoped no one noticed the doors opening and closing by themselves.


    With a thought, she bent the light around herself to fade out of sight and carefully approached her old home. God, I''m happy I thought to ask Neesa to teach me how to do this. Although, I have a feeling she left a few things out just in case she needs to keep track of me. She avoided the front door and walked around to the back door. The fence wasn''t an obstacle as she leapt over it, but she found another half a dozen reporters peering over the fence with their cameras. Don''t these guys have something better to do? Wait, a reporter from a newspaper or TV network would try to catch me or anyone else at the front door. These assholes are paparrazi. Now I won''t feel so bad about what I''m going to do next.


    With a small motion of her essence, she destroyed all of the cameras aimed at the back of the house and went inside while they were still stunned at what had just happened. She immediately drew all of the curtains closed as soon as she reached them. Although she would prefer natural light to illuminate the kitchen, she prefered not to have her picture taken while she is cooking.


    Once that was done, she headed to the kitchen. She made sure all of the knives were sharp and the pans that she needed were clean. Alright, time to cook one of Silky''s favorite meals: Cheeze-it fried chicken with mash potatoes and gravy.


    She had just begun the process of preparing the breading when Silky arrived home from school. Thankfully, she was in her humaniod form. As she recalled, her teachers had insisted that she remain in human form while at school. It had something to do with her being a distraction in her arachne form.


    True to form as soon as Silky saw Maxine, she hug tackled her from behind. "Mama! You''re home!" Silky shouted joyfully as she snuggled her face into Maxine''s back.


    "Yes, I''m home and I''m making one of your favorite meals," Maxine said happily, "Do you want to help?"


    "Yes! I''ll be right back, mama," Silky said as she ran to the bathroom to wash her hands.


    Maxine smiled and went back to work. Thankfully, she had just finished preparing the breading when Silky got back. "Do you remember what you need to do?" Maxine asked.


    "Yep," Silky said happily.


    "Good," Maxine said and cranked up the heat in a large skillet while pouring in a lot of oil, "Start breading the chicken then." She had already peeled the potatoes and put them on to boil. They should be ready to mash as soon as she was done with the fried chicken.


    "''Kay," Silky said as she did as she was asked. Maxine looked at the blissful look on Silky''s face as she helped Maxine cook. It was a look that she had missed.


    Once they were nearly done cooking the cheeze-it fried chicken, Silky got a confused look on her face and asked, "Mama, this is a lot more than you usually make. Is Emily coming to eat with us?"


    "I invited her, but she may not be able to come. She has a lot of work to do at the hospital, but someone else is definitely coming to eat dinner with us as well. Want to guess who?" Maxine asked in return.


    "Hmm," Silky said before going into deep thought and answered after thinking for nearly a minute, "Is great grandma coming?"


    "No, but close. Grandma Hellen is coming for dinner," Maxine told Silky.


    "Really? But how? She doesn''t have a body," Silky reasoned.


    "Grandpa Guan made it so she has one now," Maxine answered, "He had to work really hard to revive her."


    Silky''s eyes widened in surprise as she asked, "Is he Jesus?"


    "What?!" Maxine asked in confusion. She hadn''t expected that Silky had already been exposed to religion.


    "Well, I went to church and learned about Jesus. He was able to bring someone back to life," Silky said innocently, "All he had to do was yell at him to wake up and he came back to life. I think the man''s name was Lazarus."


    "Well, your grandpa isn''t Jesus," Maxine explained the best she could, "Jesus is way better. He beat grandpa''s rez time by almost a full month and he didn''t have to use a bunch of super rare items to do it."


    Silky became silent as if deep in thought for a few seconds before before she said, "So Jesus is better at it?"


    "Well, of course he would be better. He is the son of god," Maxine agreed, "Even cultivators are nothing before the maker of all things. Afterall, even if grandpa wanted to, he can''t make something out of nothing. Creation is solely in the realm of God''s hands. No matter what anyone says, cultivators and scientists can only manipulate what is already there."


    "A truer statement could not have been spoken," Hellen said as she appeared out of Maxine''s shadow,"The descent of god''s child is a common theme amongst most cultures spread throughout the galaxy."


    "That''s an interesting tidbit of knowledge, mom," Maxine said and Silky leapt at Hellen shouting happily, "GRANDMA!" Hellen caught Silky and hugged her tight. Silky''s hands left a trail of Cheeze-It crumbs, egg and flour dust all over the back of Hellen''s blue dress, but it didn''t look like she minded it much.


    "I''m happy to see you too, Silky," Hellen said happily and looked at Maxine questioningly, "Am I too early?" All of the mess on her dress and Silky''s hands simply vanished.Huh? There isn''t even a residue. Hellen''s got to teach me that trick.


    "Not at all," Maxine said, "Claudia won''t be home foranother fifteen minutes though. So take a seat while I finish up with dinner." As Hellen took a seat, Maxine checked on the fried chicken and it was nearly done. All that was left was to drain the excess oil and start mashing the potatoes.


    While she waited for the oil to drain off of the Cheeze-it Fried chicken, she mashed the potatoes and made some white gravy using the left over grease. It wasn''t that hard just a little time consuming. She had timed it so that Claudia should be arriving home just as she finished setting the table.


    Claudia got home while exclaiming, "Ugh, can''t those reporters ever take a break! Huh? What smells so good?" The next moment, Claudia walked into the kitchen and froze.Huh? What''s this about? I told mom I was going to come and cook her a meal today.Maxine finally noticed that Claudia wasn''t staring at her, but at Hellen.Ahh, now I remember. I forgot to mention that Hellen would be coming.


    "Are you ... Maxine''s real mother?" Claudia asked very carefuly.


    "Yes, I am and I''m very grateful to you for raising my daughter. Rather, our daughter. You are the one that birthed and nurtured her. I''m simply the one that gave her life," Hellen said calmly, "Now, please, sit down and eat dinner with us. I''ve been looking forward to eating the meal our daughter has made for us."


    "Y.. yes," Claudia said nervously as she sat down carefully at the table. She looked to be inbetween four and five months into her pregnancy if Maxine''s eyes weren''t wrong.


    Maxine sat down beside her and began eating. Silky as usual was making sounds of delight as she devoured her pile of Cheeze-It Fried Chicken.Hellen on the other hand was taking her time and savoring every single morsel of food.


    It was a pleasant experience, but it only lasted as long as the food did. Hellen was the first to speak, "Thank you for the delicious meal, Maxine. Although I think you may need to watch Silky''s portions. It can''t be good for her to eat so much."


    "I know, but this is a rare occasion. It''s not every day that she gets to welcome me home and have both of her grandma''s toenjoy dinner with," Maxine said happily.


    "I see your point," Hellen said understandingly.


    "I need to ask. How is it that you look so ... young?" Claudia asked, "I only ask because you look like you are barely into your twenties."


    "I''m a peak gold stage cultivator and I won''t start showing any real signs of aging until I''m physically more than two hundred years old," Hellen explained.


    "That''s unfair. I thought it was just some kind of beauty cream," Claudia commented to herself, "I guess I''m out of luck to look that young again."


    "Not entirely," Hellen said to Claudia, "There are some ointments that can make you appear younger. Although, I would have to askGuan to make them."


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    "That would be wonderful," Claudia said happily, "By the way, where is he? Shouldn''t he be here too?"


    "He''s busy concocting a batch of potions," Hellen remarked, "For whom, I''m not sure."


    "He sounds like a workaholic," Claudia commented.


    "Not really, he hasn''t made any potions for quite some time," Hellen said, "Although, I will admit he was never one to socialize much with anyone besides a few close friends. He doesn''t trust others easily."


    "Excuse me, but why doesn''t he trust others easily?" Claudia asked.


    "When he was Maxine''s age, he watched as the man that raised him got butchered before his very eyes and before his adopted father''s blood even dried on the ground,Guan was forced to craft potions for those murderers. All because he of their greed after he saved one of them with one of his potions," Hellen explained, "That was the first time he tasted betrayal nor was it the last. I don''t know how many times he was betrayed in a similar fashion, but something inside of him broke because of it. It was only after I freed him from a specially made prison that he began to trust me. I didn''t blame him for his distrust. If I was betrayed and hurt as many times as he has, I would be wary of trusting others as well. I think the only thing he is afraid of is to be hurt again."


    Claudia had stayed silent throughout Hellen''s speech, but it was Silky who spoke before anyone else, "Where''s grandpa? Can you take me to him?"


    "Ican you to him if that''s what you really want, Silky," Maxine said as she took Silky''s hand, "I will leave you two to talk some more. We won''t be too long"


    "Go ahead. He needs a visit from you," Hellen said contently and Maxine opened up a portal to the cave in the shadow world.


    As soon as they were inside of the cave, she turned to look at Guan, whom was seated in the deepest part of the cave. He was in a meditative pose and contrary to what Hellen said, he didn''t appear to be doing anything. Silky moved towards him slowly.


    "Grandpa," Silky said gently, "Can I have a hug?"


    "Hmm?" Guan said as he opened his eyes and his gaze immediately zeroed in on Silky, "Yes, of course you can." He instantly shifted his wieght onto his knees as he opened his arms invitingly.


    Silky ran up to him and surprisingly, gave him a gentle hug rather than one of her hug tackles. "I love you, grandpa," Silky said as she hugged him tightly and Maxine saw Guan''s eyes widen in surprise, "So does mama, even if she doesn''t say it."


    "I know, Silky. I know," Guan said softly and he looked at Maxine over Silky''s shoulder, "Thank you for bringing her here. I''ve always wanted to get a hug from my cute little grand daughter." Silky parted from the hug and showed a spectacular smile.


    "Grandma said you have scales on your face. Can I see them?" Silky asked innocently.


    "As you wish," Guan said as he removed the mask covering the lower half of his face. Huge serpentine scales declorated his jawline. However Silky unabashedly raised her hand up and ran her fingers along those scales. Guan looked uncomfortable, but he didn''t recoil from her touch.


    "So cool!" Silky exclaimed in excitement and Guan swiftly relaxed as a rare smile spread across Guan''s lips. Maxinesat down on a rock and watched the two of them.


    [Did you put Silky up to this?] Guan asked via spiritual sense as he attempted to play a word game with Silky.


    [No, this is all her,] Maxine answered, [She wanted to see her grandpa. Ask mom if you want the details as to why.]


    After a short pause, he replied, [I see. Silky only wanted to reassure me of our familial ties. Arachne have always been very family oriented, but that normally only applies to their female relatives, not their male relatives. Silky is definitely an odd one, but I''m grateful for it. Thank you again for bringing her here.]


    [Don''t mention it, daddy,] Maxine answered with a smile, [She was the one that wanted to come see you.]


    Maxine began to pay more attention to what they were saying and got quite the surprise. "Grandpa, will you come to eat dinner with us next time?" Silky asked, "I will help make something extra yummy if you do." By this time, Guan looked completely content.Silky has a gift for making other people feel loved.


    "We shall see," Guan answered non-commitedly.


    "Please!" Silky begged using all four of her eyes to give Guan the pitiful puppy dog eyes.She''s had to have practice at that.


    "Fine, I will come eat a meal with everyone on the meal known as Thanksgiving, alright?" Guan acquiesced.


    "Yay!" Silky shouted cheerfully and she gave Guan a quick peck on the cheek, "Thank you, grandpa." Maxine nearly laughed at the pure surprise written all over Guan''s face. His expression turned to one of joy as he reached up and touched his recently kissed cheek.


    "You''re very welcome, Silky," Guan said.


    [Maxine, I need to teach Silky how to use poison,] Guan announced randomly.


    [What?! Why?] Maxine asked.


    [She''s an arachne that has naturally occuring venom and I was able to detect slight traces of her venom in her saliva when she kissed me on the cheek a moment ago. Neither of her two teachershave lethal venom like Silky does. Only another highly venomous arachne can teach properly her how to properlycontrol it. Although I can teach her, it won''t be as effective as another arachne,] Guan answered and continued to explain, [Regardless, she needs to be taught before she reaches adolescence. I don''t want her to inadvertently poison Claudia or her future love. It would forever destroy this happy little girl before me.]


    [Then you teach her what you can,] Maxine replied, [Just be patient with her, she is as you said still a child.]


    [I will keep that in mind, Maxine,] Guan said.


    [Thank you again, daddy,] Maxine said and she gave Guan a quick hug.


    [You''re very welcome, Maxine,] Guan answered.


    "What are you and grandpa talking about?" Silky asked curiously, "I could tell you were doing that thing where you talk with your minds. Grandma Hellen told me how to tell when someone is doing it."


    "About you," Maxine said, "Grandpa noticed that you have some poison in your spit and thought it was a good idea to teach you how to control it so it isn''t there. At least until you can have a proper teacher here. He was just asking my persmission to see if he could."


    "Okay," Silky said, "But teacher Mikari already said they were looking for someone to teach me to do that already. My new teacher should be here in one or two months."


    "Oh? I didn''t know that," Maxine commented, "Did Mikari say anything about this to grandma Claudia?"


    "No, she said I shouldn''t tell grandma Claudia, only you," Silky admitted, "I sort of forgot to say anything before now." Maxine felt angry at Silky, but she quickly pushed her anger away. She hadn''t exactly been around enough for Silky to have told her in a speedy manner.


    "It''s alright," Maxine said as she hugged Silky, "Everyone forgets things, but next time when you should tell me something, tell me right away. Alright?"


    "Alright, mama," Silky said.


    "Well, on the bright side, at least you don''t have to teach her," Maxine said to Guan.


    "Indeed, I wasn''t looking forward to explaining theoretical knowledge to a ten year old arachne," Guan replied.


    [Sorry to bother you, but Emily is here. She wants to talk to you, Maxine,] Hellen said.


    [Sure, we were almost done here anyways,] Maxine replied, [Did she say what about?]


    [No, butjudging from her stance, it''s important,] Hellen said.


    [Alright, be there in a few moments,] Maxine said before she turned to Guan, "Well, you heard mom. I have to head back. Say bye to grandpa, Silky."


    "Bye bye, grandpa," Silky said as she hugged Guan, "Smile more, okay?"


    "I''ll try," Guan said with a tiny smile before he covered his face back up and Maxine widened the portal back to her house before jumping through.


    Emily had already served herself up a plate of dinner and was eating it while listening to both Claudia and Hellen talk. Maxine sat beside Emily and Emily wasted no time telling Maxine what was on her mind, "Maxine, someone scanned me today with their spiritual sense."


    "And?" Maxine asked wondering what Emily was getting at.


    "It wasn''t a scan to see if anyone was in the way while they ran full speed, but a thorough one. They paid particular attention to my uteris," Emily whispered extremely softly.What?! The Shadow Lords must have gotten word about Guan''s potion and found out about my desire for children. It''s not like he was keepinghis gender inversion poition under wraps anyways.


    "That must be the work of the Shadow Lords," Maxine said, "I guess they finally heard about daddy''s gender inversion potion."


    "Still, it was rude and uncalled for," Emily complained.


    "Now you have an idea how I feel," Maxine countered, "Hell, if they thought I was their ''Shadow Queen,'' they could very well kidnap you to get me to do what they want." Emily looked afraid as soon as Maxine stopped talking.


    "What? They would do something so low?" Emily asked.


    "Yes, if it meant they could get their deity-level ancestor into our plane," Maxine answered, "Even if I broke up with you right this moment, they would still do it. They know how much I care about you."


    "Then what do we do?" Emily asked and finally their conversation got noticed by Hellen and Claudia.


    "If Maxine is this ''Shadow Queen,'' the both of you will flee to the farthest reaches of the galaxy with Silky," Hellen answered Emily.


    "What?!" Claudia said in surprise.


    "Calm down, Claudia. I said IF Maxine is this ''Shadow Queen.'' Odds are that she isn''t, but the possibility that one of her children will become one is much higher," Hellen reassured Claudia.


    "That''s not any better!" Claudia shouted angrily as she got to her feet.


    "I don''t like it any more than you do, but Maxine has both me and Guan to help her disappear," Claudia stated, "I wish it wasn''t necessary, but even my husband can''t annihilate an entire race of Lord-class cultivators. They literately have thousands of immortal stage cultivators."


    "Should we really be talking about this here?" Maxine asked.


    "It''s fine. Guan has shielded this whole house with his spiritual sense just moments before I came here and has maintained it this whole time. Unless their spiritual sense is stronger than his, they wouldn''t be able to listen in even if their lives depended on it," Hellen said calmly and continued to talk to Claudia, "And if it makes you feel any better, Maxine should remain hidden for no more than adecade until both Emily and herself are strong enough to defend themselves."


    "A decade my not seem like much to you, but that''s a large chunk of my life," Claudia countered.


    "True, but you will get to see her again. That I promise you," Hellen said confidently.


    "That''s all fine and all, but what if they kidnap mom?" Maxine asked, "She''s a normal human and can''t really defend herself."


    "That may be true, but the Shadow Lords wouldn''t bother. Claudia hasn''t exactly been a good mother to Maxine for a large chunk of Maxine''s life. From their point of view, Maxine is just as likely to be pleased with her detainment than not," Hellen explained, "Emily''s grandfather is safe due to his ageand his family history of heart attacks."


    "That''s good to know," Emily said, "But still I don''t want to leave Earth. It''s my home."


    "Neither of you may not have a choice," Hellen said, "But this is something that may or may not happen in the next couple years. There is no need to worry about it now."


    "Mom''s right," Maxine agreed, "Let''s enjoy ourselves. Who''s up for a movie?" Silky ran into the living room. "You guys better get in there fast. If I know Silky, she willput on Charlotte''s Web without giving us a chance to look for something ourselves," Maxine advised, "I will make some popcorn and join you in a moment."


    Everyone else walked into the living room while Maxine was left to make the popcorn. She was happy that she could still experience the simple pleasures of being at home.I just wish I could enjoy this life with all of my parents in this life and the previous one. Maybe I still can. Afterall, Orianna is definitely going to marry Maxwell in the future. I could just use the excuse that I''m off to see my future inlaws with a few gifts. That reminds me. I need to chat with Emily again about having a baby after the movie. I hope it goes well, but after that talk we just had with my moms, I don''t think she will want one just yet. Not to mention she doesn''t want to have a baby before either of us are eighteen. Still I can always be hopeful.

 Chapter 113

    It had nearly been two months since she made dinner for everyone and Maxine had been completely shot down every time she mentioned having kids with Emily.She was upset at the time and knew it was for the best that they didn''t. It upset her, but she had other concerns besides her love life in the past two months to occupy her mind.


    Her ki core was developing at a ridiculously fast pace and had just reached bronze stage rank two.At this rate, she will have an iron stage ki core within eight more months without any kind of aid and that was from her only half-heartedly cultivating. She couldn''t imagine how fast her ki core would develop if she put some real effort into it. The only explaination she could find for her rapid acclimation of ki was that her body was converting every kind of energy in the air into ki.


    Although her ki core was a concern, it still wasn''t an immediate one. She had just found out that her vacation on Earth was coming to an end in two weeks and she didn''t want to leave. This was the world she was born on, and no matter how much she was against it, all of her parents agreed that she would be safer at the Kavros Clan.


    On a positive note, Silky''s new teacher arrived and only had to stay a week before Silky mastered controlling her venom. Maxine had no idea it would be so easy. Guan had made it out to be a big issue, and she had been genuinely concerned that Silky would hurt someone she cared about by accident. It had been a relief amongst a great deal of worries.


    Maxine put off seing Maxwell''s family for quite some time and had finally convinced herself to go visit Maxwell''s family. She had been putting it off because she felt nervous about it for some reason and she had been staring at that house for the past hour while gathering her courage to knock on the door. Okay, Maxine. You are being an overgrown baby. Nothing bad is going to happen. All you need to do is knock on the door and go with the flow. What are you afraid of?A memory flashed from her previous life where her parents were torn limb from limb by essence beasts while she shielded Alice''s eyes from the horrid sight. That hasn''t happen and won''t ever happen in this timeline! You know that. Now shove those idiotic fears away and go knock on the god damn door!


    Maxine unsteadily walked up to the house and knocked very gently on the front door. Part of her was hoping that no one was home, but she knew better. She had timed her arrival here so that they would have plenty of time to eat dinner. Not to mention she saw them walk past the windows a few minutes ago.


    After a few minutes, Alice opened the door and looked at Maxine for a moment before she asked, "Can I help you?"


    Belatedly, Maxine realized she was still in disguise and released the illusion. "Hey, Alice. Long time no see," Maxine said as casually as she could, "Can I come in?" However unexpectedly, Alice instantly became hostile.


    "What has your clan done to my brother!?" Alice yelled.


    "Nothing!" Maxine said defensively while she took a step back, "He''s staying there of his own free will. I came here to meet your parents and talk about a few things."


    "I don''t believe you," Alice growled, but Jessica Adams, Alice''s mother, appeared from behind her.


    "Alice, let her in. Don''t you remember what she said on the news the other day about us being her future inlaws?" Jessica reminded Alice.


    "Fine," Alice said in a huff before retreating inside.


    "Please come in," Jessica said and Maxine was lead to the living room. James Adams, Alice''s father, was no where to be seen. She guessed he was working on one of his projects in the garage as usual.


    "Now what''s this business about us becoming your inlaws?" Jessica Adams asked.


    "It''s complicated," Maxine started off.


    "How complicated can it be if you''re fucking my brother?" Alice said snarkly.


    "Alice!" Jessica admonished Alice and turned to Maxine apologetically, "I''m sorry about this. The ambassador that went to your clan was vague on Maxwell''s situation when he explained things to us. All he told us was that Maxwell had to stay there for some reason."


    "It''s alright," Maxine said calmly, "The truth is I have a twin sister. I didn''t even know she existed until days after Maxwell arrived at my clan''s home. When I first met her, she was terrified of all men, even little boys made her extremely nervous. It was hard getting her to talk about it and it surprised me when she wanted to see a recording of my sparring matches with Maxwell and Patrick. After watching it, she became besotted with Maxwell for some strange reason and she had asked to meet him. It was a little strange for her not to be afraid of him, but I wasn''t going to complain. Our clan''s psychiatrist, Madam Neshan insisted that he stay to help heal her after seeing what kind of effect he had on her. Shortly after that they sort of fell in love with each other."


    "Then why hasn''t he come back yet?" Alice demanded to know as soon as Maxine finished speaking, "Why is your clan holding him hostage?"


    "My clan isn''t holding him hostage!" Maxine snapped before anyone could so much as blink, "As a matter of fact, he is currently on his way back with my sister to meet all of you and should be here in about a week."


    Jessica smiled as she said, "Thank you for telling us. I just wish Maxwell hadn''t found a girl with such serious problems."More than you know mom. Hell, I fell in love with a girl that was disfigured, missing an arm and was an amnesiac. Problems doesn''t even begin to cover it.


    "She is getting better," Maxine offered and gave a glare at Alice as she continued, "Although I don''t think it will be good if she gets the same kind of reception from Alice that I did."


    "She will get a warm one," Jessica said gently and looked at Alice with a warning filled tone, "Won''t she?"


    "Yes, ma''am," Alice said meekly.


    "Now, is there anything else you need to talk to us about?" Jessica Adams asked.


    Maxine was about to answer when she felt ten different spiritual senses wash over her body. They scanned her thoroughly. It felt like every inch of her had been licked by a group of sex crazed perverts. "No, I only came here to let you know what''s going on and to meet you guys," Maxine stated while refraining from showing how unnerved she was.Fucking Shadow Lords!


    "Oh, alright," Jessica Adams said uncertainly and stood up to lead Maxine to the front door. Before she opened the door, she asked, "Is everything alright?"


    "Yes, everything''s fine," Maxine answered calmly.


    "Okay, good night," Jessica Adamns said.


    "Good night," Maxine said as she left.


    She didn''t even get an eighth of a mile away before she spotted her ten stalkers. Most of them were watching her from between houses and from behind bushes. As she got closer she could clearly see that they looked like silver colored elves with golden jewels on their foreheads. They''re not even bothering disguising themselves. This does not bode well.


    "What do you guys want?" Maxine demanded, but none of them showed any intention of answering. She got angry at them, and resisted the impulse to beat the living hell out of each one of them. She knew it was just her grudge against their race as a whole that fueled her anger anyways.


    However, she sensed that each one of them were lord-class beings at the peak of iron stage and that threat forced her to remain calm. Loosing her calm before a fight would make it hard to fight properly. She knew that she could at most fight five of them with a decent chance at victory. All ten was out of the question. She would only be able to run if a fight ensued.


    Maxine shrugged off the last of her anger as she continued to walk past them. Unfortunately she could feel their eyes on herwhilekeeping pace with her. It kindled her anger back ot life.Great, just fucking perfect. Now I won''t be able to so much as take a shit without them watching me. And where the hell is Turan? I didn''t see him amongst my newest stalkers.


    As if summoned by her thoughts, Turan appeared beside her before saying, "Good evening, Miss Levings."


    "What the hell are they doing here?" Maxine asked rudely as she gestured with her head towards the ten Shadow Lords tailing them.


    "I''m afraid it''s a necessary precaution. We can''t allow you to come to harm now can we? Not to mention, you have the strange habit of disappearing for hours at a time. It''s left my elders quite concerned about your wellbeing," Turan explained, "Although I''m quite positive we know where all of your hiding spots are, but it never hurts to be on the safe side."Wellbeing, my ass. You guys just don''t want to loose sight of your precious Shadow Queen. It''s quite apparent that I have some real value to you bastards. Part of me wishes I could summon your ancestor just so I could close the portal right as he head comes through to behead the fucker.


    "Why am I having a hard time believing you?" Maxine asked.


    "Believe what you will," Turan answered, "But if it makes you feel any better, think of them as your bodyguards."


    "Ineitherneed or want more bodyguards, especially from the Shadow Lords," Maxine said grumpily, "Your people have done more than enough to me already. Now if you know what''s good for all of you. leave me alone."


    "Very well, I will leave you alone, but I can''t force the others to do the same. They are from a different faction," Turan answered morosely before he vanished, and oddly added via spiritual sense, [My ''companions'' are up to something that may be harmful to you. I don''t know what it is, so all I can do is give you a warning. Idon''t want those fools to ruin any chance youhave to awaken as a Shadow Queen. So please, be on guard and be mindful of anything out of place. My race cannot afford to have your father added to their list of enemies.]Maxine was confused and wanted some clarification. But before she could ask,the spiritual sense connection between them was severed.What the actual fuck was that about?


    Maxineshrugged before runningback home at top speed, but when she was less than one hundred feet away from home, she felt something was off. She quickly stopped in the middle of the street and scanned her surroundings with her spiritual sense. Nothing appeared to be out of place within two thousand feet of her. Inside the house, Silky and Claudia were snuggling on the couch while watching TV. Everything appeared to be normal, but after Turan''s strange warning, it wouldn''t hurt to be extra cautious.


    While she looked over her surroundings one more time, her stalkers had finally caught up and she looked at their expressions and body language to see if they would give her any hints. They were watching her carefully, but one of the younger males seemed slightly anxious. He wasn''t looking at her, but at a spot, directly infront of her house.I''ve already checked that spot and there wasn''t anything there, but that doesn''t mean shit. I didn''t sense anything in that wolfkin kid''s ear before that teleportation trap on the battle world went off. To be on the safe side, I''ll use the back door. I hope that I''m just being paranoid and Turan''s warning is a load of shit.


    Maxine walked toward theback doorto her home and noticed that one of her stalkers had vanished. Sheinstantly got into a battle stance as she searched for her missing stalker, but she couldn''t find him, even with her spiritual sense.Okay, every stealth technique has a flaw. It won''t take me but a second or two to find him.


    However before she could locate him, she was shoved hard towards the center of her front yard. Even in mid-air, she managed to land a kick when she lashed out blindly.A blood curdling wail resounded to confirm her hit as she felt two pops transmitted through her foot.You may have shoved me into something that can kill me, but I broke both of your balls. Enjoy asshole.


    She slammed into a very firm wall and bounced off of it before landing on some grass.Wait a second. There isn''t a wall on Earth that could withstand the kind of force I was thrown with.She looked up and saw nothing but air all around her. Dread filled her mind as a disc popped into being directly above her and a glowing formation array appeared on the ground around her. At least I know what was in that spot now. I better get the fuck out of this thing.I definitely do not want to find out what it does. Thankfully it''s activating far more slowly than that teleportation trap.


    She lashed out with her full strength at her invisible prisonto no effect. Next, she attacked the disc above her only to find out it was shielded against her strikes. As a last resort, she tried expanding one of her portals within her shadow to escape, but no matter how hard she tried her portals wouldn''t change size. She was trapped and her only hope was that Guan or Hellen could get her out of this.


    A powerful shockwave knocked her off her feet and as soon as she got back to her feet, she turned to see both Hellen and Guan ferociously attacking the formation array as the air literately rippled from each of their attacks. Unfortunately they weren''t able to break it''s defensive properties.Oh, shit. If those two working together can''t break it, I''m stuck in here.


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    "DAMN IT!" Guan roared in frustration and quickly calmed down as he looked to Maxine, "I can''t get you out before this array does what it''s going to do. This barrier has been infused with the energy of a large number of immortal stage cultivators. It will take me at least an hour to break through it."This is ridiculous. There is no reason to go through this much effort and risk destroying their only chance at having a Shadow Queen. Unless... they don''t have time to wait for me to awaken naturally. What possible reason could they need a Shadow Queen to summon their ancestor? It''s not like they''ve pissed off half of the Alliance. Even if they had, the Alliance would at least give them away to survive, right?


    The disc above her began to funnel a tremendous amount of ki towards her as Maxine dispaired. If that much ki was forced into her body, it would tear her apart from the inside out unless she could control it perfectly. She wasn''t sure she could handle that much ki and immediately she began to frantically attack her invisible prison.


    As the funnel of ki was getting closer to her skin, she struck her invisible prison harder and more ferociously. The skin on her knuckles tore open causing blood to cover her hands and the bones in her hands and feet began to form cracks in them. However she didn''t cease her assault. Unfortunately no matter how fiercely she attacked, the barrier imprisoning her held firm.


    A moment before the ki touched her body, several runes appeared in the air around her and sank into her skin. Her body transformed to her Shadow Queen form without her consent. It was horrifying that she couldn''t even control her own body.


    The funnel of ki finally reached her as the various pathways throughout her body were flooded with ki and just before she was blinded with pain, she saw the grinning faces of her new Shadow Lord stalkers.If I survive this, I will kill everyone that was involved with this bullshit, even if I have to spend the rest of my life to pull it off.


    Searing pain threatened to overwhelm her as she fought against the ki invading her body.What made matters worse that her male clone and main body were suffering the same situation. She didn''t know how it was possible, but it was.


    Grandma Victoria was trying in vain to alleviate Maxine''s pain, but nothingshe did was working while her male clone suffered just outside the formation array. The pain was too much for her to handle and very quickly she was loosing the strength to fight it.


    She needed to change her strategyif she wanted to survive. She stopped fighting the ki flooding her body and allowed it to flow unrestricted. She began to cultivatewith a desperate desire to live. It helped take off some of hte pressure on her system, but it did little to help her situation. The ki kept replenishing itself as she cultivated. She knew that her chances of survival were slim, but any chance was better than no chance.


    Sometime later, just as she miraculously finished refining all of the ki, she felt something change within her as if a door opened that she didn''t even know existed. Before she could delve deep into herself to figure out what, a foul tasting liquid was forced down her throat. Closely after, she felt droplets of water splattering on her face as someone placed her head on their lap.


    "She''s dying. My baby is dying," Hellen wept, "Isn''t there anything else you can do?"Odd, I don''t feel like I''m dying. I would know. I''ve experienced it once before and it sucked. I just can''t move right now.


    "I''ve done what I can. To do more, I need to get to her true self," Guan Guan said dispairingly, "The portal she maintained to her main body closed as soon as that ki forced it''s way into her body."


    "Then bring Emily here!" Hellen begged, "She can help Maxine until your potion takes full effect!"


    "I can''t without injuring Emily. She is already coming here at the greatest speed her body can endure. Still without access to her true self, I can''t save Maxine. I think her soul may have been damaged," Guan said hoarsely and even in her near unconscious state felt rage radiating off of him like the sun radiates light.


    Maxine struggled to move. She needed to let them know she was not as badly injured as they thought. Otherwise if she didn''t get better fast, Guan would slaughter everyone involved, even the innocent.


    She didn''t know how, but she manage to just barely open her eyes. Silky and Claudia were at her side along with Guan and Hellen. Silky was crying uncontrollably with her face on Maxine''s stomach. She wasn''t sure why she hadn''t noticed that before. "Guan! She opened her eyes!" Hellen shouted anxiously.


    In an instant, Guan was tenderly holding her hand as he spoke, "Maxine, I know it''s hard, but you need to open a portal to your true self. Right now." She didn''t know if she could do that, but she tried anyways. It was easier than she thought, but it was still extremely difficult. She was only able to open a portal the size of a pinhole, but it was enough.


    Guan took it over as soon as it formed and rushed through it. She could feel him feeding her a potion and trying to do something else desperately. Why the fuck is he sending his spiritual sense into my head? It''s like he''s ... looking for something. Oh, I must really be dying then if he''s trying to find my soul. But what''s stopping him? It should be easy for him considering he made Hellen''s bracelet that housed her soul.


    Hellen brushed her hair off of Maxine''s face as she reassured Maxine, "Everything will be alright. Your father will do what he can. Just stay awake. Stay with us." However her eye lids were getting heavier by the second and she had struggled so hard to open them in the first place. As her eyes began to drift closed, Hellen panicked as she wept, "NO! Stay awake! Keepyour eyes open!"


    Silky begging Maxine with tear filled eyes, "Don''t go, mama. Please, stay." No matter how much Maxine wanted to do as Hellen and Silky asked she simply lacked the strength. She was just too weak.


    She saw Emily arrive just as her eyes closed and was greeted by a black void in every direction.Hmm, this doesn''t look like any version of heaven or hell that I know of.


    A very deep man''s voice resounded within and around her, "Those fools are trying yet again to reach me. I would think they would realize that after sacrificing over a dozen of their people. Don''t they realize that I don''t want to return?Did they honestly believe I would return after they killed my beloved? And now they have the gall to use my beloved''s doppelganger to tempt me to return. I can''t take watching her die again. I have to save her."


    "Who''s there?" Maxine asked in an annoyed tone, "Can''t a dead person even have some peace and quiet?"


    "Oh? This is new," the man''s voice resounded once more, "All the others seemed to be in awe or were afraid of me. Yet you seem almost angry with me. Do you not know who I am, child?"


    "Someone that has nothing better to do than harass the dead," Maxine answered angrily, "How are you doing that by the way?"


    "Clearly you do not know who I am. Otherwise you wouldn''t acting as such," the voice answered in amusement, "And you are not dead, but you are in a death-like state. All it would take is a slight push and you would die. Your father is nearing madness as he attempts to find your soul, but as long as you are here, he never will."


    "Then let me out of here!" Maxine demanded.


    "I won''t do that now that I have someone to talk from my own race. It''s been ages since I have heard any word on how they are doing. Also, if I did send you back right now, your death would be guaranteed. Just chat with me until the healing energies I''m directing at your body and clones can do their job enough that you won''t die from shock," the voice answered, "It''s not every day that you get to talk to your progenitor."


    "Fine and what do you mean my progenitor?" Maxine asked.


    "I''m the male ancestor from your mother''s side. More specifically, I''m the very first Shadow Lord. I believe my name was Avernus. At least, that is the name my parents gave me, but that was so very long ago," the man''s voice said, "I''m better known by my title ''Faceless Assassin'' in the deity plane. I''ve been known by that title for so long it''s become second nature to respond to it."


    "How old are you exactly?" Maxine asked.


    "I stopped counting after my hundred thousandth year," Avernus answered, "Keeping track of my age seemed to loose meaning when I can''t die of old age. What I want to know is how are my people? I could come back myself, but there is very little in the lower planes that interests me besides that. I do not wish to make the arduous, not to mention dangerous, trip just to satisfy my curiosity."


    "Your people are ten pounds of asshole in a one pound bag," Maxine answered, "They''ve made my life a living hell. All because they want their ''precious'' Shadow Queen. Their latest stunt would have, as you said, killed me if you hadn''t intervened, so my view of them is definitely biased. Beyond how they treated me, I havn''t the faintest idea on how they are doing."


    After a two seconds of silence, Avernus asked, "May I see your memories pertaining to them?"


    "Go ahead," Maxine replied as she opened herself up, "It''s not like I could stop you if youforced me to show you."


    "I wouldn''t harm someone who possesses my beloved''s visage," Avernus soothed Maxine and she felt him gently looking at her memories, "Hmm, their actions are far too aggressive compared to their previous attempts to reach me. They also seem a touch desperate. But why? Hmmm, I supposed that''s possible."


    "What''s possible?" Maxine asked.


    "Something that happens naturally. My race is probably dying out," Avernus answered sadly, "It''s the fate of any race that isn''t subjected to genocide, seeks genetic diversity by intermingling with other races or lack cloning technology. In simpler terms, they are loosing the ability to reproduce. By reintroducing my DNA back into the gene pool, they could in theory rediversify themselves enough to become more fertile, but that effect won''t last long, fifty generations at most. They need a different solution than relying on me."


    "Well, at least one of your descendants sought to fix that problem. I''m from a human clan that possessed the Shadow Lord bloodline and that''s not the only bloodline I have either," Maxine admitted.


    "Truely?" Avernus asked and Maxine somehow sense that he was scanning her body, "Indeed you do. But how did you gain that hydra bloodline? Don''t tell me your mother..."


    "NO! She did not have sex with a hydra," Maxine said quickly, "My dad absorbed that bloodline before my parents made me."


    "He must be quite mad to attempt that. Many from my time attempted that only to meet a very grisly and painful end," Avernus said, "The bloodline itself is a lethal poison."


    "He figured out a way," Maxine shrugged as she replied, "So how much longer before my body is healed up enough for me to return to it?"


    "Roughly another minute," Avernus answered.


    "That''s faster than I was expecting. I thought it would be at least another hour," Maxine replied, "Your heal time is way faster than Emily''s."


    "Is she the one with the divine essence?" Avernus asked, "It wouldhave been much longer had she not taken most of the work off of me. She lacks experience, but she is an extremely gifted healer. She even thoughtfully shut off your pain receptors."


    "I know. She''s amazing," Maxine said as she smiled proudly.


    "Before I send you back, I have one more question," Avernus said, "Are you two lovers?"


    "That''s none of your business!" Maxine snapped while blushing.


    "I meant no offense, child," Avernus said calmingly, "The desperation on her face and care she is giving your injuries speaks volumes to one who knows what they are looking for. She loves you and you should treasure that."


    "I do, but doesn''t it bother you that the both of us are girls?" Maxine asked.


    "Not at all," Avernus answered, "It wasn''t that uncommon for two young women to share such relationships when I was still young. Although it stopped occuring quite as often just before I ascended."


    "I never knew that before. I seriously need to catch up on my history lessons," Maxine said and remembered something Avernus said a few moments ago, "You said you could come down to this plane earlier. How?"


    "I would have to drill a hole through time and space for at least a millenia. And while doing that, I would be completely vulnerable to attack. It''s not something that I can risk as I have multiple cores. There are only a few people with two cores that are not actively hunted. Our additional cores are too valueable. They allow others to increase the number of cores they have themselves," Avernus replied, "Keep that in mind when you ascend. Although you won''t get anywhere near the attention that your father would. Even here, there are only about seven deities that have four cores and no one dares to cause them trouble. They would kill him before he could get strong enough to defend himself."


    "It wouldn''t be anything new to thim. People have been trying to kill him for a long time," Maxine said.


    "If you say so, child," Avernus chuckled, "Regardless our time is at an end. Your body seems to be calling your soul. I will keep an eye out for you and your father. It always helps to have another ally."


    "Bye," Maxine said before she was pulled back to her body.


    Maxine felt wretched once she could feel again. It felt like she had been through a meat grinder and put back together. Both of her clones were nearby as well. How Guan managed that she didn''t know. Although that mattered little to her when she heard Silky sobbing.


    "Will Maxine live?" Claudia asked with a tearfilled voice


    "She should survive as long as she wakes up," Guan answered with a voice laced with worry.


    Maxine finally opened her eyes and realized she was laying onher bed. Emily, Silky, Claudia, Hellen and Guan were looking joyfully at her with tear stained faces. She thought she saw Howard, Emily''s grandfather, on the edges of her vision, but she wasn''t sure.


    "Thank god!" Claudia said as she grabbedat her heart with both hands and at the same time, Hellen exclaimed, "Thank the maker!" Both of them moved to hug her, but Silky beat them to it.


    "Mama!" Silky cried into Maxine''s chest.


    Guan seemed relieved, but something appeared to be on his mind. Without warning he spoke to Emily, "If you are going with her, I need to know now. You can''t change your mind later."What is he on about?


    Emily hesitated and gave Maxine one more look before she nodded her assent. But Howard interjected, "My grand daughter isn''t going anywhere without me."


    "I had the intent that you would go with them. Two young women and a child traveling without an escort would invite unwanted attention. Anything else?" Guan answered instantly and Maxine gave up trying to figure out what was going on. They had clearly had a lengthy conversation while she was unconscious and weren''t going to fill her in on it.


    After a few moments, Guan walked towards Maxine and pulled out a potion from a hole in the air as he said, "Maxine, you need to drink this. It will make you appear as if you are dead, but in truth, it will put you into a very deep healing sleep. So deep that even your soul aura will vanish."He wants to fake my death! But won''t that mean I can''t come back home? NO! I don''t want that!Both Hellen and Claudia were attempting to soothe Maxine by holding her hands.


    "I know this is not what you want, but I don''t see any other option available to protect you now that you have becomethis Shadow Queen that the Shadow Lords have been looking for," Guan continued.Maxine shed a few tears before she opened her mouth. "By the time you awaken, you will be completely healed and somewhere safe." Guan said gently as he fed her the potion, "Grow stronger as quickly as you are able. This act will only buy you a decade, two at most, to do just that. There are other things that you need to know, but Turan is moments from entering this house. I can''t keep him from physically seeing you since it would arouse suspicion that you are not dead. He has to see you ''die.'' Emily explain everything once you awaken."


    As if on cue, Turan rushed in to the house. He looked extremely aggitated, but as soon as he saw Maxine, he visibly relaxed. He quickly asked, "How soon until she recovers? And did she mention anything about someone called Avernus?"All this to get a hold of their fucking ancestor. God damn assholes.


    "She hasn''t spoken, nor do I believe she ever will. She''s dying," Guan answeredwith a hint of anger in his voice.


    "What do you mean she''s dying? She''s in the care of both yourself and a divine essence cultivator. She shouldn''t be in any danger of dying," Turan reasoned.


    "She may seem fine, but that flawed formation somehow damaged her soul. It''s only a matter of time before her soul shatters completely and disapates. No one can save her, not even me," Guan answered coldly as tears started forming in his eyes, "You best leave. I won''tsully her last moments with bloodshed, but after she''s gone, IWILL have my vengence."


    Turan glanced at Maxine once apologetically before he took a deep breath and spoke, "It was never my intention to kill her, only awaken the powers within, but I do know all of those that are responsible for this. I can give you their names, but I have only a single a request in return: spare the rest of my race."


    "Very well. Speak," Guan growled, but Maxine didn''t hear what Turan said Guan''s potion chose that moment to finally take effect and send Maxine into a deep slumber.

 Chapter 114

    Maxinewoke up in the back of a covered wagon on a pile of straw while surrounded by several crates filled with food, clothing and other traveling goods. She could faintly heararguing coming from outside and the scent of animal manure and dirt.I guess this is better than wakingup in a war zone. That would have sucked. Still,I need more information and I need to find the others. I doubt that they would be too far away considering they think I''m still unconscious.


    To find Emily, Howard, and Silky, she extended out her spiritual sense and found them rather quickly. They were only a dozen or so feet away. Howard was arguing with what appeard to be a guard to a walled city. Unfortunately, she couldn''t understand a word of it, but that didn''t stop her from noticing mounted turrets on the walls every thirty feet.So, Guan sent us to the world with all of the heroes and now Howard is trying to secure us entry into the city. But how are those two able to speak so fluently? Guan must havegiventhem a knowledge crystal with their language imprinted on it.


    Maxine quickly checked her surroundings and luckily, she found the knowledge crystal in question hidden in one of the wooden crates next to her. It was a simple task to send her spiritual sense into it even from a distance to read it and as expected, it contained all of the knowledge pertaining to the local language.


    After learning the language, she checked back on Emily and Howard. "... like I said. Unless you can tell me exactly what your friend''s powers are or provide me with some identification we can''t let you inside," the guard replied calmly, but a moment later, his eyes filled with lust as his gaze settled on Silky, "But I could be persuaded to bend the rules just this once." Maxine was instantly enraged and wanted to beat the living shit out of the man. Fucking pedophile.


    Maxine got out of the wagon with an expression of barely contained rage on her face. She walked straight to Howard and stated, "We''re leaving."


    "Maxine, you''re awake!" Emily shouted as she hugged her. Not to be left out, Silky shouted with glee as she hugged Maxine as well.


    The guard was stunned as he looked at Maxine and his face quickly twisted to one of anger. "Get that filthy fucking elf out of here!" the guard roared. Elf? She quickly looked at her hand and saw that it was silver colored. How did I not notice that? No matter. In any case, this guy is prejudiced towards me for a reason.Either that or there was a recent war involving elves. That would explain his hostility. Regardless, I didn''t want to stick around if this guard is any indication of how the rest of them are going to behave.


    "I already said we are leaving," Maxine answered with cold fury.


    "I already told you her appearance changed after her powers awoke," Emily snapped at the guard.


    "I don''t care. She looks like an elf. Therefore she is an elf. Get the fuck out of here before I call the heros to deal with the lot of you," the guard growled, "You''re lucky I havn''t done that already."


    Maxine glared at him angrily. However she let go of her anger. She couldn''t risk angering the humans on this world by beating the living shit out of a guard for not liking his attitude. Not to mention she didn''t want Emily to see her violent side. Anyways, it was only a matter of time before this idiot would get himself killed with his behavior. However, an idea popped into her head justas she turned around to leave.


    Maxine looked around and spotted an older wolfkin watching over some children. She approaches him and asks, "Hello, Elder," Maxine said politely, "Can I ask you a question?" He looks up and he''s momentarily surprised before smiling kindly at her.


    "Certainly, what is it that you wish to know?" the wolfkin elder replied.


    "What would happen to that guard over there if he were to chase away two healing-type heroes?"


    "Well, healers are a rarity, so I would imagine they would punish him quite severely. But they won''t outright kill him. I believe the standard punishment is being assigned as the vanguard of the defending forces during any kind of attack for no less than five battles per offense," the wolfkin elder answered.I thought that might be the case.


    "Thank you for sharing your wisdom, elder," Maxine said with a slight bow.


    "Think nothing of it," the wolfkin elder said with a wave of his hand.


    Maxine walked up to Emily and said, "I can''t stand to see all of those people hurt. Let''s heal the most badly injured before we leave." Amusement instantly appeared in Emily''s eyes as she nodded her agreement.She must have heard what the elder wolfkin said.


    "Silky, stay with Howard. He will keep the bad people away from you," Maxine said and glanced angrily at the guard.


    "''Kay," Silky said as she ran over to Howard.


    The guard looked confused for a moment as he watched Maxine and Emily walk towards the injured refugees, but she saw his face begin to pale once Emily started healing a small child. Maxine flashed him a cruel smile beforeshe found a man that looked to be just a few hours from death. She checked on him with her spiritual sense.His wounds were worse than they looked, but were still fatal if left untreated.


    He had lost alot of blood, but that isn''t what worried her. He several of his internal organs were damaged. It was as if something very large had hit him and he got cut up after landing in some thorned bushes. However, it was within her ability to heal.It will be better for me to establish myself as a healer on this world. I''ve only shown myself as a warrior. This will make it harder for anyone to realize who I am.


    She quickly wove her essence and mana together to repair his damaged blood vessels first. It wouldn''t do any good to heal everything else if he bled to death. Next she worked on repairing his damaged organs. It wasn''t as draining as she feared, but it still took a bit out of her to heal him. Thankfully she only spent about five percent of her total reserves healing the poor man.


    Maxine stood up and dusted off her clothes. She looked over to the guard again and saw two men in combat armor watching her carefully. They almost looked ready to attack her on the drop of a hat, but the guard, on the other hand, was sweating bullets. She ignored himas turned to see several people bringing their wounded to her.These poor people they see me and Emily as the only means to save their loved ones. They don''t care what my race is.


    A corpulent man with a minor wound on his left arm forced his way infront of them and demanded, "Elven bitch, heal me or else." Without even blinking, she backhanded the fat bastard away from her and unintentionally sent him flying. Wow, I didn''t mean to hit him that hard. I just wanted to smack him to the side. I really need to get a handle on my new strength. Thankfully, it doesn''t look like I kill him, so he should just take it as a lesson not to call anyone a bitch.She heard a couple amused chuckles behind her as well as a groan of pain to her left, but she ignored all of her distractions as she examined injured the boy.


    He was covered in bruising and had multiple broken bones. Inflamation inside of his head was quickly becoming an issue.She deftly used her essence to drill a hole in his skull to relieve the pressure and began healing him. His wounds were consistent with being trampled.He must have gotten knocked down while others were panicking. I''m surprised he lived through that.


    "Will my boy live?" the boy''s father asked.


    "Yes, he will. He just needs bedrest and something to eat," Maxine told them before she moved to the next most badly injured person.


    She kept going from person to person until she ran out of essence and mana. She sat down on the back of the wagon she had previously been inside. She was exhausted, but she had managed to heal a total of forty two people. Most of which would have died without her help. Emily had healed over fifty and was still going strong.Divine essence really is matchless when it comes to healing efficiency.


    "You have a very kind heart for an elf," one of the men in battle armor from earlier said, "There are countless more people within the city that could use your help. You could do more to help by joining the heroes of Kalindor."They are already trying to recruit me? This asshole isn''t even mentioning the benefits for joining.He must either think I''m stupid or a saint. Although after my little display, he is probably thinking more along the lines that I''m a saint.


    After a moment of silence, Maxine answered, "I couldn''t stand watching those innocents suffer. I simply did what was right after I was turned away from your fair city simply based on my appearance."


    "Oh? And who turned you away?" the man in combat armor asked with a hint of anger in his voice and Maxine finally noticed a hero''s badge on his shoulder.That makes things a little easier to understand.


    Maxine pointed at the now pale and sweating guard as she answered, "Him. He wouldn''t even let me tell him what my abilities were."


    "I see. He has caused trouble before and was assigned here thinking he couldn''t mess this up. He won''t be able to avoid his fate this time," the hero said coldly. However both of them turned to look at a nearby commotion.


    "There! That''s the elven bitch thattried to killme!" the fat man from before roared without warning as he pointed at Maxine while being flanked by two soldiers. She gave the fat bastard a withering glare, but the hero beside her quickly put himself between Maxine and the fat man.


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "I''m Hero Katarn and this elvenmaiden is a skilled healer. That idiotic man attempted to impede her when she was performing life-giving treatment," thehero said loudly, "If anyone should be punished, it''s him."


    "But that bitch is an elf! I don''t care if she''s a healer or not. She should be strung up for daring to hit a human!" the fat man roared.


    "And I don''t care what your opinion is on the matter. She is a healer and regardless of her race, we need every healer we can get. I can''t let this stupidity slide and I will punish you according to the law," Hero Katarn said calmly as he pointed at the fat bastard and immeidately after the guard, "Send those idiots to the front lines."


    "Sir, yes sir!" the two soldiers said before they grabbed the fat man and the guard before dragging away the kicking and screaming duo.


    "Thank you," Maxine said, "Can my daughter come with me into the city as well?"


    "All your family members can come in with you," Hero Katarn said and he looked around, "Where is your daughter by the way?"


    "She''s over there," Maxine said as she gestured towards Howard, "She''s the little girl with short black hair."


    "She looks nothing like you," Hero Katarn remarked.


    "She''s adopted. I found her a couple years ago in the woods. She was all alone and I wasn''t going to leave her there," Maxine said and called for Silky, "Silky, come over here."


    "Coming, mama," Silky said as she jogged at a normal pace to Maxine.Oh? Silky is trying to be incognito as well.


    "This is Hero Katarn. He''s going to let us into the city," Maxine said.


    "Thank you!" Silky said while smiling widely.


    "You''re welcome, little one," Hero Katarn said with an equally big smile.


    "Mama, when can I get changed?" Silky asked innocently, but she knew what Silky meant. She wanted to revert back to her arachne form. She had to once every month to avoid stunting her growth. Oddly, Hero Katarn seemed to pick up on something that wasn''t said.


    "What do you mean by that?" Hero Katarn asked, "Can''t you do that here?"


    "My teacher told me not to let anyone other than mama, grandma or my future husband watch me do it," Silky answered, "And you''re notany of them. You''re just a pervert!" Maxine stiffled a laugh at Silky''s ingenuity.


    "Silky can it wait until we have a place to stay?" Maxine asked after straightening her expression.


    "Yes, mama," Silky answered.


    "Well, can you arrange for me and the rest of my group''s lodgings?" Maxine asked Hero Katarn.


    "Yes, there are two mansions specifically constructed and reserved for healers and their families," Hero Katarn said proudly, "Healers are so rare that we have to encourage them to come to this city by any means necessary. You and that other young woman would be our fourth and fifth healers in this city."Jesus, that''s rare. On Earth, one out of a hundred cultivators can heal. These guys have it even worse.


    "I see, so that''s why that man said he doubted that two healers would appear here," Maxine said more to herself than anything else as she nodded her head, "Now, I need to recover my strength. I drained myself considerably by healing so many."


    "I understand. There will be a squad of B class heros here shortly to assist me in escorting the four of you to your new homes," Hero Katarn said, "And tomorrow, you need to go to theHero Registration Centerto determine your rankings, but I imagine you must be at least an upper B rank."


    "Thank you again," Maxine said and got into a meditative pose on the back of wagon.


    The first thing she did was check on her ki core. She had to make sure the spiral inside of it wasn''t malformed due to her rapid rise in cultivation. Thankfully, the spiral was only slightly out of balanced and would take mere minutes to fix. Thus she began to cultivate all three energies in the air to correct the problem.


    She sense the arrival of four peak iron stage cultivators just as she resolved the issue with her ki core. However before she could stop it, essence, mana and ki surged into her body forcing her to remain cultivating or risk injuring herself. Guan had warned her that when her cores were ready they would breakthrough to silver stage. She just hadn''t expected it to be so sudden. She just hoped the breakthrough from Iron to Silver stage wouldn''t be too spectacular. Guan had warned her that it might be.


    Unfortunately, her fears were proven correct as three huge spirals appeared infront of her. There was one infront of her forehead, one infront of her chest and the last one appeared just below her navel. It bothered her a lot that she was in public for her breakthrough, but she doubted they would attack her. She was technically a healer and if anything, they would want protect her. Gradually, her cores were shifting to silver stage as they took on a glossy grey metallic shine and the spirals vanished as she finished her breakthrough to silver stage.


    When she finally finished and opened her eyes, everyone were looking at her with shock and dismay. It made her self conscious about her appearance and she retreated into wagon.


    "Form up around the wagon!" Hero Katarn shouted as Silky and Emily joined her on the back of the wagon, "Open the gates! We''ve delayed here long enough!"


    As they went through the gates, Maxine peeked outside and saw several modern buildings to either side of the street. None of them were within fifty feet of the defensive wall and there wasn''t a single modern vehicle to be seen. She could only guess that they simply didn''t have the oil reserves to have any.


    A few of the citizens within the city got a look at her and gave her hostile glares.She didn''t know why humans were so hostile towards elves. It was something she would have to investigate later. I really wish I had noticed that I was in Shadow Queen form before I made my appearance now, but no going around it now. They already know me as an unusual variety of elf. No point in changing it now. It wouldonly confuse them if changed now.


    However she noticed something that caused her anger to ignite: explosive collars on beastkin. She quickly forced her fury down and had to remind herself to remainCalm down. You have no idea why they have those things on them. They could be putting those collars on criminals like they did on Earth and none of them look like they are being abused in any way.


    It wasn''t long before they reached a group of small mansions that were walled off from the rest of the city. Even without actively using her spiritual sense, she knew that there was only one healer present and this middle aged man barely qualified as an iron stage cultivator.Well, that confirms one of my suspicions. These people either havn''t developed a cultivation technique yet, no one is sharing one, or it can only be used by a handful of people. That would definitely explain why I didn''t detect anyone use their spiritual sense earlier as well. It could be as simple as they don''t know how to use it yet.


    As soon as the wagon was pulled infront of one of the mansions, everyone got off of it. The mansion itself seemed like it had enough space for their entire group with room to spare.


    However before she could even take more than a step to it, a gardener roared in anger as he threw his shovel at Maxine. She deftly caught it midair at the sharpened edge with two of her fingers.


    "Give me back my son, you elven bitch!" the gardener roared, but fear seemed to keep him from charging at her.


    "I''m not an elf," Maxine snapped as she dropped the hurled shovel onto the ground, "Not a pureblooded one in any case. While I can appreciate your anger towards the one that is responsible for your son''s death, I had nothing to do with it." She glanced at the heroes, but not one of them had moved even an inch.Those fuckers are prejudiced too.


    "What is she doing here?" one of her new neighbors asked in a neutral tone while the gardener left the walled off area for the healers on his own, "I was under the impression that not even half-elves were allowed in the city."


    "She''s the exception. She''s an A class healer," Hero Katarn answered, "The other young lady is at least a B class healer. Both of them are more powerful than you, Carl."


    "I''m going to complain to the govenor about this," Carl said angrily, "That halfbreed shouldn''t be allowed in the city. I don''t care if she''s A class or not."I''m getting real tired of this racism bullshit.


    "Who do you think approved for her escort into the city?" Hero Katarn said in amusement, "And even if the govenor hadn''t, I would haverecruitedher myself. She earned that much after selflessly healing over forty refugees that would have died otherwise."


    Carl harumphed at Maxine before walking back into his rather large home. Hero Katarn looked at her apologetically and lead her to one of the two empty mansions.


    "It seems a little wasteful to have such a large home for just myself and Silky. Can the four of us stay in the same home?" Maxine asked.


    Her question seemed to surprise Hero Katarn as he answered, "It''s standard practice to grant healers and their family a mansion. It''s odd that all of you want to share these accomodations."


    "Emily''s my lover and she''s the only reason I''m here at all," Maxine said while giving Emily a loving gaze and Emily returned it in kind.


    "Uhhh, right," Hero Katarn said uncomfortably before he regained his composure, "The four of you can stay in one mansion. Your house keepers will greet you inside. I have to go back to my duties. I will try to come by and visit you another time." Maxine could have sworn he winked at her before he left.Oh, so he''s in to elves. That''s why he was so eager to help me. Too bad for him I have no interest in him.


    "Shall we?" Maxine asked as they walked into the mansion. As expected, she was greeted by ten servants and the head maid lead them each to their rooms. Afterwards they met up in the entertainment room and sat down infront of a holographic television. The only channel that they had was the news and it recounted the latest battle against a beast horde at a neighboring city.


    [Maxine, I don''t think anyone here knows how to use spiritual sense,] Emily said via spiritual sense halfway through a news cast, [I haven''t once sense anyone talking with each other using it.]


    [I noticed,] Maxine agreed and remembered Guan''s message before she passed out, [By the way, daddy mentioned you were going to fill me in on what''s going on with me. I don''t like being left in the dark.]


    [Sorry, I havn''t gotten to it yet. I was distracted,] Emily apologized, [I know you already figured this much out, but Guan faked your death. He has your clones and since they are techinically still living, he is making a show of taking care of them in hopes that your soul will reform in them. But as you know, it''s just a facade.]


    [You''re right I already guessed that,] Maxine admitted, [What about me being a Shadow Queen? And did Turan ever explain why they needed me?]I''m not going to trust what Avernus said unless Guancorroborates it.


    [Yes, he did. Their race is dying out. Only a few of them can still reproduce and they were hoping that their ancestor would be able to fix the problem,] Emily answered, but hesitated for a moment before continuing, [But that isn''t all of it. Even if they couldn''t get him to come, they had another plan. They ... they were going to use you and your clones as breeding stock with the few members of their race still capable of having children, but now they don''t dare anger Guan any further by taking your clones away.]Those motherfuckers!


    [And how did daddy react to finding out those details?] Maxine asked tentatively as some of her angery leaked through their spiritual sense connection.


    [Please, I rather not talk about it. Just listening him explain how he would kill those responsible gave me nightmores for a week,] Emily said while looking ill.Well, it must have been pretty brutal if it had that kind of effect on her. Although that body melting poison sounds nasty enough. How could it be worse than that? On second thought, I rather not know.


    [It''s alright. I know he can be brutal to the extreme when angered,] Maxine said and change the subject, [How did everyone take my ''death''?]


    [A few politicians came by to give condolences to your parents, but beyond that, only our friends and family showed up pay their respects. Still, I never expected Patrick of all people to cry,] Emily answered.


    [Seriously? Patrick cried? I thought he hated me,] Maxine said.


    [So did everyone else,] Emily said.


    [Weird,] Maxine said while shaking her head and saw the time, [Well, we better head to bed after dinner. We both have an errand and probably medic duty tomorrow. We will need our rest.]


    [Agreed,] Emily said, [Before that thought, I just want to cuddle.] Maxine happily obliged Emily by wrapping an arm around her and got more comfortable.I don''t think I could stand being separated from her on a near permnament basis again and tomorrow shouldn''t be too hectic. They already know that I''m silver stage or rather A class.

 Chapter 115

    Maxine woke up alone in a large bed big enough to comfortably fit six people on. She had wanted to cuddle with Emily all night long, but Howard had insisted that they sleep in separate beds. She let him have his way since she didn''t want to upset Emily''s only living relative. It wasn''t worth it.


    After a few stretches, she got out of bed and brushed her hair while looking into a mirror. It''s strange thatI''m still in my Shadow Queen form. I thought for certain I would revert while sleeping. I guess I won''t change back without some conscious effort. At least, this way it will prevent some unnecessary drama if they were to find me in my base state, but this problem also makes me a little nervous. Can I even change back anymore? I better check to see if I can. After checking with her spiritual sense that none of the servants were near, she shifted back to her base form and released a sigh of relief before resuming brushing her hair.


    Once all of theknots in her hair were out, she shifted back to her Shadow Queen form and got changed. There was only a dress very similar to the one she wore yesterday in her closet. The dress she wore yesterday and the ones in her closet were the only clothes she had on this planet and made a mental note to find more clothing later.Maybe I can have Silky make me a few.


    Just as she finished putting it on, Silky threw open her door and hug Maxine."Morning, mama," Silky said happily, "I feel much better today." Of course you do. You went to sleep last night in your full arachne form. I had togive the staff specific instructions not to bother you until you woke up and I warned them about your abnormally huge appetite.


    "Good," Maxine said happily and noticed the middle aged head maid, Olga, standing just outside her room, "Good morning, Olga. What do we have for breakfast?"


    "Iron Wolf bacon, Thunderbird eggs, whole grain bread with butter and a leafy salad," Olga said neutrally.


    "That sounds delightful," Maxine replied, "Doesn''t it, Silky?"


    "Yeah!" Silky said excitedly.


    "Please, let the cook know we will be down in a moment," Maxine said to Olga.


    "Yes, mistress," Olga said before leaving.


    Maxine slipped on a pair of leather shoes and went down to the dinning room with Silky in tow. There was a large table capable of seating two dozen people in it. Howard and Emily were already in the middle of eating breakfast.


    "Morning," Maxine said to them before sitting down beside Emily. Silky sat down on the chair on the otherside of Maxine.


    "Morning," both Emily and Howard said together before they resumed their meal.


    After a couple minutes, two plates were brought to the table. However Maxine was confused when a plate full of salad was put infront of her. Whereas Silky had a plate heaping with meat and eggs.Now that I think about it. They gave me a vegetable soup last night as well. These people must think I''m a vegetarian since I look like an elf. Time to correct that.


    "Excuse me," Maxine said to the server, "Could I have some Iron Wolf bacon and Thunderbird eggs to go with this, please?" Her question clearly surprised him.


    "Of course," the server said after regaining his composure.


    Maxine nibbled on the salad while she waited, but thankfully she didn''t have to wait long for her food to arrive. The bacon was crispy enough that she she was able to break it into small pieces and add it to her salad. As she started to eat her salad with the bacon pieces in it, she saw several servants look at her with utter disbelief. She found it amusing, but didn''t say anything. Emily rolled her eyes.


    "As soon as you are done eating, we should head ot this Hero''s Association. The sooner we get it over with the less of a hassle it will be," Emily said.


    "I won''t be long," Maxine said as she slowly ate her breakfast in a polite manner as if she were still at the Kavros Clan and when she was done, she looked to Silky, "Me and Emily are going out for awhile. Stay in the house with Howard. Alright, Silky?"


    "Okay, mama," Silky said obediently, "When are you getting back?"


    "I''m not sure, but we should be home around dinner time at the very latest," Maxine answered.


    "Okay," Silky said in disappointment.


    "I''m sorry, sweetie, but there is no helping it if there are a lot of wounded," Maxine explained to Silky, "How about when we get back you and me can share a bubble bath? Does that sound good to you?"


    Silky''s demeanor quickly brightened as she replied, "Yes!"


    "Good," Maxine said happily and after eating the last morsel of food on her plate, she turned her head to Emily, "I think we should head out now."


    "Yeah, we should," Emily said as she got up from the table.


    "There is a carriage waiting outside for you, mistress," Olga said as she entered the dining room, "It will take you to the Hero''s Ranking Facility."


    "Thank you, Olga," Maxine said gratefully.


    "Think nothing of it, mistress," Olga said with a slight bow.


    Maxine and Emily went outside and quickly got into carriage drawn by an ox-like creature before anyone could notice them. Maxine didn''t want a repeat of yesterday. She really hated things being thrown at her.


    The ride to the Hero''s Association didn''t take long. She figured it took them roughly ten minutes and it would have taken Maxine less than one if she ran it. The only problem was that she had no idea where it was.


    Once they got out of the carriage, Maxine drew the gaze of several dozen Heroes. All but two of them were copper or bronze stage stage. One of those two was gold stage. Maxine became wary of him due to how he looked at her. The other one was Hero Katarn, whom greeted them, "Good morning, ladies. I was asked to show you to the rank testing room."


    "Good morning, Katarn," Maxine replied politely, "Please, lead the way."


    "Of course, follow me," Hero Katarn said and lead them through a long hallway into large room with what looked like punching machines and a scanning device manned by a pair of technicians, "Don''t mind those strike machines. They are outdated. We measure the measure the power of our heroes with that scanning device in the back."


    "Oh, alright," Maxine said as she and Emily walked past the punching machines to the scanning device.


    "Just stand on the orange circle," one of the technicians said. Maxine quickly complied and a low-pitched hum entered her ears.


    After a few seconds, the technician said, "What the hell?! She has all three energies and they''re all at Class A-1. But that''s impossible!"


    "Not if you have a bloodline of a beast that has all three," Maxine corrected the poor man.


    "What?! But you''re an elf," he said as if that was an explaination in of itself.


    "So? Can''t an elf love someone outside of their race? I know my father isn''t that much to lookat when in human form, but he still treats my mother right," Maxine replied and she quickly saddened, "Unfortunately, my grandfather didn''t see thingsin a positive light and disowned my mother for loving my father." The technician looked like he regreted that he said anything.


    There were a few moments of awkward silence before Hero Katarn spoke, "Anyways, lets get miss Emily tested as well and we can move on to a just a little bit of paperwork." Emily walked into the scanner and after a few moments, it showed that she was a Class B-9 healer.


    "If you ladies will follow me, we can do the finishing procedure to your registration," Hero Katarn said and lead them to another room with a lot of clerks inside of it. They simply asked standard information, but Maxine and Emily both refused to answer where they were born. The clerks seemed to understand without needing an explaination.Well that went far more easily than anticipated. I was certain that they would insist on knowing where we were born or at the very least, where we came from. They must really need us.


    Once all of the paperwork was done and they both recieved their IDs and a badge. Maxine swiftly pinned hers on the right side of her chest. She didn''t want anyone to mistake her identity. Hero Katarn said, "Well, since there hasn''t been any big battles around here for awhile, the two of you can do whatever you want for the time being. We will let you know if your services are needed."


    "Thank you again," Maxine said with a slight bow and asked something out of curiosity, "By the way, what will happen to those refugees outside of the city? Will they be let in?"


    "That''s not my call to make. Our city is nearly at it''s maximum capacity, but there have been efforts to expand both our living and agricultural spaces. Until that is done, I don''t see any hope for them to be allowed into the city," Hero Katarn answered, "The most we can do is give them whatever we have left, which isn''t much."


    "But many of those people are injured and require medical services. Certainly you can help with that," Maxine reasoned.


    "Afraid not. Most ofthose resources are spent to keep our current population healty," Hero Katarn answered and Maxine felt frustrated.


    "Fine, I will take care of their medical needs," Maxine said angrily and spun around before storming into the lobby of the Hero''s Association.


    The gold stage hero was still there and he got between her and the exit. This forced her to look at him more carefully. He was taller than her and very muscular with light brown hair. He had a few visible scars, but that didn''t destroy his rugged good looks.


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    "Hello, I''m hero Alec Ard, the strongest warrior in this city," the gold stage hero said cheerfully as he closed the distance between them, "Seeing as you are a healer, I thought we would make a good team. What do you say?"


    Maxine looked into his eyes and nearly recoiled. He wasn''t looking at her beauty or even as an enemy. Instead he viewed her as a posession that he had to have. Reflexively, she extended out her spiritual sense in every direction for fifty feet and found he was holding an open explosive collar behind his back.She was outraged.


    She stayed silent and as he got within arm''s length, his arm whiped around with blurring speed. She swiftly caught his wrist and instinctively, opened her mouth to expell a small cloud of acid onto explosive collar.


    As Maxine relaxed her grip on Hero Alec Ard''s wrist, he threw the collar to the ground. It hit the ground with a solid metalic clank. She saw that it was already partially melted and was slowly eating a hole in the floor.Everyone, including Hero Alec, looked at Maxine with fear in their eyes.


    "I forgot to mention what my father is. He''s a hydra and they are renowned for their acid breath attacks. Of which, I seemed to have inheirited," Maxine commented icily, "And next time anyone tries to enslave me, my loved ones, or anyone else infront of me, I will aim for something far more delicate. Am I understood?"Hero Alec nodded stiffly.


    "Good. I''m headed to the refugee camps and as you can see, I don''t require any bodyguards," Maxine said with cold furyand walked around Hero Alec. She quickly got into the carriage outside and ordered the driver to take them to the city gate with the refugee camp outside of it. Emily jumped into the carriage a moment later.


    "I didn''t know you could spit acid," Emily said after a few minutes of silence.


    "I didn''t know I could do that in this form either until I did it," Maxine answered honestly after making sure no one was listening with her spiritual sense.


    "What do you mean this form?" Emily asked.


    [My battleform can spit acid, but I don''t use that particular ability unless I have to. It''s sort of a last resort. The only reason I used an acid spray today is due to my instincts kicking in to attack something I percieved as a threat,] Maxine answered via spiritual sense and added vocally, "You should know which one. You''ve seen it afterall."


    "Yeah, you have shown me that," Emily agreed, "Oh, it looks like we arrived."


    "Good," Maxine said and she hopped out of the carriage as soon as it stopped.


    "Do you think those enslaved beastkin were forcibly enslaved like you almost were?" Emily asked suddenly in english and Maxine froze.


    "I don''t know. They better not have been," Maxine answered in english, "If they were, there will be hell to pay."


    Maxine''s anger quickly vanished when she saw the refugees outside of the city. Most of them were dirty and there will still many injured amongst them. She quickly scanned over the refugees. Most of the fatally injured had been healed yesterday, but there were still a few dozen that needed immediate medical aide.


    Maxine turned to Emily and relayed all of the information through spiritual sense before they moved to heal the two closest fatally injured refugees. That alone caused the families and loved ones of the other fatally injured to carry them to Maxine and Emily.


    Maxine had healed more than a dozen patients before she noticed something. Emily was only healing roughly seventy percent of her patients injuries while Maxine was healing closer to ninety.That''s not right. How am I healing people more thoroughly than Emily? She has more experience than I do. The only thing I have going for me is myhuge energy reserves due to having three cores. Hmm, maybe it has something to do with using more than one type of energy to heal with. Still, she can heal more people than I can even with my higher capacity.Maxine shrugged and continued to heal the injured refugees.


    Just as they both finished healing the most heavily injured of the refugees, Hero Katarn arrived with an older woman in tow. She had streaks of grey hair, but didn''t have a single wrinkle on her face.I know more than a few women on Earth that would like to know the secret to a wrinkle free face.Besides that she was only slightly above average in appearance.


    The older woman approached Maxine and said, "I''m Isabelle Taves, the director of the Hero''s Association in Kallindor, and I''m sorry about Hero Alec''s behavior. That wasn''t the first time he has done something of that nature, but we can''t exactly do anything to him due to his vast strength."


    "Why do I not believe you?" Maxine asked skeptically.


    "S class heroes are extremely rare and thus have more privledges. There are no more than fifteen in the Hero''s association and Alec is ranked the tenth strongest one," Isabelle Traves explained, "We simply can''t stop him if he decides to break any rules. The other S class heroes are simply too far away or don''t care enough to do anything about it if he does."


    "I see," Maxine said understandingly, "But how many A class healers are there?"


    "As far as I know two, including yourself, and you heal far more completely than the other one. You are also far more cordial than that pompous fool," Isabelle Traves answered, "It''s why I''m here to apologize on the behalf of the Heroes Association. We can''t risk loosing you to the elves."


    "Fine, but just keep in mind, there better not be any innocents enslaved in this city," Maxine warned.


    "We don''t tolerate human slavery here," Isabelle Traves retorted.


    "I wasn''t talking about humans. I was talking about the beastkin, or rather what you call demihumans," Maxine said while struggling to keep her anger out of her voice.


    "They are not humans, so they do not have the same rights as one," Isabelle Traves replied and she seemed to realize something as she added, "It''s the laws of humanity. The Heroes Association has no power over sed laws. We can only abide by them."


    "Then tell whoever is responsible for those laws that I do not like them, but I''m not entirely against them either. Forcing powerful criminals to fight against threats to humanity through the use of explosive collars is acceptable," Maxine said, "But I cannot tolerate enslavement for petty reasons such as a difference of race."


    "I understand that, but it may not go very far.Our lawmakers can be rather stubborn," Isabelle Traves said.


    "It''s better than nothing," Maxine replied and noticed Isabelle Traves looking at her dimensional ring on the middle finger of her left hand.


    "I didn''t realize you were married," Isabelle Traves said.What? I''m not wearing it on my second smallest finger! Oh, shit. I didn''t consider the different culture here.


    "I''m not married. Please, forgive me. I wasn''t aware of the cultural significance of wearing a ring on that finger," Maxine answered truthfully before removing the ring and placing it on her forefinger.


    "It''s alright. I only noticed that ring myself because it seems to be made of a strange metal," Isabelle Traves said, "Do you know what it''s made of?"


    "I''m afraid not," Maxine answered, "I found it amongst some ruins deep in the forest."


    "It''s a shame," Isabelle Traves as she turned around and started to leave, "Enjoy the rest of your day and try not to tire yourself out. We may need you to provide some emergency healing later and if you have time and are willing, we have some researchers that want to have a word with you."I bet they do. I''m probably the only being in the solar system with three cores. They probably want to know how it effects me.


    "I''ll think about it," Maxine said to Isabelle Traves as she went back to healing the refugees, but a something strange caused her to stop in her tracks before she could. There was a strange feeling coming from the forest two miles away. It didn''t feel threatening to her, but it didn''t feel good either.


    Maxine looked straight at the spot that this feeling of unease was coming from and she saw too bright golden orbs. It took her a moment to realize they were the eyes of a very large serpent. Each of those eyes had to be at least the size of dinner plates for her to see them so clearly from here. She couldn''t imagine how big it was and for some reason, she knew that it was watching her. She didn''t know how she knew, but she did.


    After a few moments, the serpent came out of the forest to reveal itself. Maxine''s blood ran cold when she saw what it was. Each of it''s scales had a long spike jutting out of them and to exceptionally long horns sitcking out of the head. Otherwise it looked like a serpent, but she knew better. It was a Snake Dragon and it had to be at least silver stage, possibly bordering on gold stage, considering it''s size.


    It only took the refugees and soldiers on the wall a couple moments to start panicking at it''s appearance. In seconds, several heroes charged out of the city and took up defensive positions between it and the refugees, but the Snake Dragon''s eyes never left Maxine. Strangely after only staring at her for a few moments, it treturned to the forest.Okay, that was wierd. It almost felt like that beast was eyeing me as if I was a rare resource.


    Maxine''s eyes moved to her right, not to the heroes, but to a small child holding a thick branch as his weapon.Most of thegrown men had fled where this boy held firm and she found the reason for his courage not three feet behind him. There were two much younger girls behind him trembling in fear. An approving smile appeared on Maxine''s lips.There is a good big brother if I''ve ever seen one, butcourage won''t be enough to protect his familyas long as he lacks the skill and strength to back it up. I don''t want him to experience what I did in my past life. Watching a family member being brutally killed leaves a scar on your soul that never completely heals.


    Maxine walked up to the boy with a determined look in her eye and asked, "How would you like to learn the way of the blade?"


    The boy only stiffened for a moment before lashing out at her with his branch. Maxine caught it in her palm and noted that it was from a rather sturdy tree. With a movment of her energies, she pulverized part of the branch to turn it into a wooden blade.


    "Your attack was feirce enough, but it was too wild. Try again, but this time take a proper stance and aim properly," Maxine advised as if she was already teaching him and released her grip on the wood blade.


    The boy staggered back two steps before glancing at his two sisters nervously. Maxine smiled and said, "Your sisters have no need to fear me and they need their brother to be a feirce warrior to protect them. I''m offering you the chance to be that warrior. Attack me if you accept and I will teach you as much as I can."


    At this point, Maxine finally noticed the refugees and several heroes were looking at them. The most powerful of those heroes stepped foward and said, "I don''t know how you caught her eye, kid, but do as she says. Do it now before she changes her mind."


    With only moment of hesitation, the boy attacks her again with a poorly aimed and clumsy over head swing. Something that Maxine could side step even if she were an ordinary woman with some training, but she saw an iron will, a feirce determination and an overwhelming desire to protect in his eyes.Good, he will need all three.


    Maxine allowed the boy''s strike to land on her left shoulder. Surprisingly, she actually felt an impact far greater than the boy should have been able to do and it had an edge to it. Instantly, she checked his wooden blade. It had a strange energy around it that was unlike anything she had ever seen before and that had cut her dress. But it wasn''t strong enough to cut her flesh.Interesting. I don''t know what that energy is, but it very well may be unique to this little boy. That will make teaching him harder, but not impossible.


    Maxine gently pushed the wooden blade off of her shoulder and knelt down to the boy''s eye level as she said, "That was a very good attack for one so young. What is your name, my student?"


    "Lanitherin,"they boy said firmly.


    Maxine smiled and said very gently, "For your first task, gather your sisters and get in the carriage over by the gates. Once we return to my home, I will begin teaching you how to use a blade properly and how to control your unique power."


    "Yes, um, teacher," Lanitherin said before he gathered up his sisters and did what she told him.


    Maxine looked around for the Lanitherin''s parents, but saw no adults that even remotely resembled him. She was about to ask him where his parents where when she saw two silver rings on a leather string around Lanitherin''s neck.Poor boy. He''s already lost his parents and is trying to protect the only family he has left.


    "I didn''t know elven healersknew how to useblades," the hero from earlier said.


    "Most don''t, but I learned enough to defend myself," Maxine answered and the hero nodded before returning to the city. But she heard him comment in just above a whisper, "That''s the same thing that all the other elven blademasters said before they stopped coming around."


    Maxine looked around one more time at all of the refugees. It would take her several days to heal all of the injured, even with Emily''s help, but that only solve one of these people''s problems. There were so many more such as their food and shelter and she had no idea how to solve either.One step at a time. This is all I can do for them for the time being, but something is bothering me. Why was that Snake Dragon so close to the city? Shouldn''t it avoid a large gathering of humans? I hope this doesn''t mean what I think it does.


    But before she could think about it too much, a group of heroes burst out of the forest carrying several wounded. Maxine released a sigh and raced forward to heal them. Emily was only a few steps behind her.Emily always has been a dedicated healer and now so will I.

 Chapter 116

    Maxine watched Lanitherin go through some basic blade forms using a wooden blade on the lawn infront of her mansion. She had taught it to him nearly two weeks ago just after she brought him to her new home.


    She had asked him to use different weapons before as an experiment to see if his strange energy formed along the edges of the weapons. It did, but it wasn''t as potent as when he wielded a blade. Thus, he dubbed that strange engery as Blade energy. She knew that name was uninventive, but she lacked anything better.


    "Mama, when is lunch going to be ready?" Silky said as she walked out of the mansion.


    "Silky, you ate breakfast not two hours ago. Certainly you can wait for a little longer," Maxine admonished Silky.


    "But, making clothes always makes me extra hungry," Silky complained. Well, that is my fault I suppose. I wanted a few more durable dresses and clothes for Lanitherin and his sisters. Although they look identical to what they wore, someone wtih a discerning eye might still be able to tell the difference, but the odds of that are rather low. Still, I won''t have Silky make any more clothes for awhile. I can''t risk anyone finding out she''s an arachne. If anyone did, it would be very hard to keep someone from trying to enslave or take advantage of Silky.


    "I know, sweetie. Maybe we can talk the cook into making an extra large lunch then," Maxine compromised.


    "Okay," Silky sulked.


    Maxine nodded and found it odd that Lanitherin had stopped performing his blade forms. She looked over to him and saw him staring at Silky with a love struck gaze. That reminds me. He has hadthis silly crush on Silky ever since he first saw her. Too bad for him, she doesn''t like him in that way.


    "Lan, you have another half hour of practice to go," Maxine reminded Lanitherin, "And stopstaringat my daughter like that. You know how much she hates that."Lanitherin jumped and resumed his practice with far more vigor than before.Poor boy. Showing off in front of Silky won''t mean a thing to her.


    Maxine''s attention was drawn to a communicator that Isabelle Traves, the Hero''s Association director, gave her earlier. She pressed the recieve call button and put it to her ear before asking, "Are there more injured?"


    "No, nothing like that. I called you for a different reason. It seems that Dragon Snake sighting two weeks ago wasn''t a coincidence. An elven delegation has arrived riding the beast not two minutes ago. The govenor was hoping that you could translate for us," Isabelle Traves said over the communicator.


    "Which variety of elf are they?" Maxine asked and added, "Must I remind you that each group of elves speaks a different tongue and I only know of two. They may speak one I don''t."I hope my lie won''t be seen through. It doesn''t matter though. The shadow world''s primary language and Alliance common are not exactly spoken on this world anyways and I can pass them off as two obsure versions of elven.


    "They are forest elves," Isebelle Traves answered.


    "That''s unfortunate. I don''t know their language, but I can still come to the meeting if you want," Maxine said.


    "It wouldn''t hurt," Isabelle Traves, "Another elf at the meeting might make them more at ease. When can you be here?"


    "I can come right now," Maxine answered, "I''ll be there in a few."


    "Thank you," Isebelle Traves said, "Meet us at the eastern gate."


    "You''re welcome," Maxine responded before she disconnected the call.


    "I''ve been called away," Maxine announced to Silky and Lanitherin, "Silky, make sure he finishes up his training for today. He still has almost half an hour left to go. I''ll try to be back quickly."


    "''Kay mama," Silky said and she looked to Lanitherin, "You heard mama!" Lanitherin only nodded and continued his training enthusiastically. Maxine rolled her eyes at the boy''s antics before shelevitated a couple inches off the ground. With a thought she rocketed towards the meeting point.


    It had taken her a few days to master flying using her energy and she had fallen out of the air multiple times in doing so. However no one laughed at her. Flying was an extremely advanced skill on this world and only a handful of heroes could do it. It had made her realize just how far behind this civilization was when it came to techniques.


    What would have taken her several minutes to navigate through the crowds took her less than thirty seconds while flying. It was really a swift means of travel in a city, but it drained her strength fifty times more rapidly thansprinting would.It only figures that there would have to be a cost to such a convenient technique.At least this new dress is durable enough to withstand high speed flight.


    As soon as she spotted Isebelle Traves, Maxine quickly descended to the ground and landed beside her. "Greetings, Director Traves," Maxine said politely as she got a good look at the elven delegation. There were three men and one woman with bronze colored skin and green hair. All of them wore blades at their hips and had a bows slung over their shoulders. She didn''t see any arrows, but that hardly meant much. They could simply use their energiesto form arrows.


    "Hello, Maxine," Isebelle Traves said happily, "You got here far faster than I thought you would."


    "The advantages of flight," Maxine commented, "So, shall we escort our respected guests to the govenor?"


    "Certainly," Isebelle Traves said and turned to the delegation, "Please, follow me."


    "I do not appreciate being made to wait while the two of you talked," a rather stern looking forest elf said. His comment annoyed Maxine, but she let it slide as Isebelle Traves lead the way. They were only words without any hostile intent behind them.


    She could feel their eyes on her and glanced at them. Their expressions were ones of contempt. It was as if her very existence offended them. Her anger flared, but she quickly repressed it.I''ve been polite to them. Why the fuck are they being so rude?


    It didn''t take them long to reach the govenor''s mansion. It was twice as large as her own and far more lavishly declorated. She noticed that the forest elves expressions soured even further. Although she had no idea why.


    After navigating a couple hallways, they entered a conference room. Hero Alec Ard was there standing just behind the govenor. She noticed the striking resemblance between the govenor and Hero Alec Ard almost immediately.So, that''s another reason for that prick''s behavior. His daddy has been covering for him!


    "Good afternoon, Govenor," Maxine said to the govenor, "I came as requested." She wanted to make it clear to the elves that it wasn''t her idea to be here.


    "Thank you and a good afternoon to you as well. I''m afraid I havn''t been informed of your name just yet," the govenor said in an embarressment.


    "Maxine Cinderson," Maxine answered calmly while ignoring Govenor Ard''s behavior. She had chosen that last name for a very specific reason. She discovered the name of Guan''s master, Cinder, hidden deep within his notes just before Guan faked her death. It was an odd name, but she figured the last name ''Cinderson'' was fitting since Guan viewed himself as the man''s son. Also she didn''t believe many people would even care to find out who Guan''s master was since he was dead and thus she thought it was a safe choice for a fake last name as well.


    "Have a seat, Miss Cinderson," the govenor said politely, "I believe you already met my son."


    "I have and it wasn''t a pleasant experience," Maxine said while keeping her anger out of her tone. The leader of the elves seemed to catch on to Maxine''s anger and smirked ever so slightly.


    "It couldn''t have been that bad," Govenor Ard said compromisingly.


    "He tried to slam an explosive collararound my neck in the first minute we met," Maxine said coldly, "If I had known he would be here, I wouldn''t have come at all." At this point, the elves, except for the lone female amongst them, seemed to be enjoying the show, not that Maxine cared.


    "Please, we can talk about this later," Govenor Ard pleaded, "If you havn''t forgotten, we have yet to attend to our elven guests." Maxinetook a deep calming breath and stepped off to the side to let the elves to find a seat. But none of them took the offered seats and opted to stand instead.


    "Let me make this perfectly clear. We are only here because we were asked by our guardian beast to make peace with you," the rather stern looking elf said, "Why it did so is beyond me."


    "Regardless of the intent, I''m glad you approached us nonetheless," Govenor Ard replied, "Now, what would it take for you to leave this table with a peace treaty?"


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    "For starters, you could release allelvesthat your race has unrightfully enslaved," the stern elf growled and Maxine felt her anger rising as he continued, "And to cede all of the territory that you have claimed from my people."


    "Those are reasonable requests, but I don''t know if my leaders willaccept those demands," Govenor Ard said diplomatically, "I may even be able to negotiate with them to get your people back, but I don''t know about your territory."


    "I wasn''t finished," the stern elf said coldly, "We want the lives of every man and woman responsible for the murder of our children." By this point, Maxine was too stunned to even feel anger.They killed children?! WHY!? They weren''t even a threat.Tears slowly streamed down her cheeks. She was so distraught that she almost didn''t hear his last demand, "And last we want this half-breed to be treated with absolute care. For if she is harmed in any way,any peace treaty that we forge will end in the next breath."Both Hero Alec Ard and Govenor Ard froze at that statement while Maxine felt utter disbelief.


    "What?!" Maxine exclaimed weakly.


    "Our guardian beast was the one that forwarded this particular demand and I''m not one to deny him," the stern elf said, "Don''t ask me why. I don''t know the reason myself. If it were up to me, I would haveher destroyed to erase the blemish of her impure bloodline." Maxine wasn''t sure if she should feel insulted or not.


    However before she could respond, Maxine''s heart dropped into her feet when she sense that her Shadow Wolves within Emily''s shadow had entered combat. By the time she spun around to face that direction, the ones in Silky''s shadow had done the same thing. Her heart filled with panic and she rocketed off the ground. She didn''t even waste time going through the door. Instead she plowed through several walls leaving debris in her wake as she rushed to defend Emily and Silky.


    After exiting the govenor''s mansion, she sped at top speed back to her mansion. She didn''t care how much of her power she wasted. Emily and Silky needed her there now. By the time she arrived, they had been fighting for nearly fifteen seconds. She breathed out in relief after seeing that Emily, Silky, Howard and Lanitherin were still alive. Her Shadow Wolves were fighting fiercely to protect them. Two of the ten shadow wolves fighting were already incapable of fighting any more. But they hadn''t gone down easy. Three attackers were on the ground. She didn''t know if they were dead or unconscious whilenine more pressed the attack. All of which were at the peak of iron stage.


    Without wasting a moment, she formed dozens of arrows made of her essence, ki and mana. She launched seven at each of the attackers, but made sure not to leave any fatal injuries. She wanted answers as to who sent these men and she would have them one way or another.


    A couple of them noticed the attacks a mere moment before they were hit, but weren''t able to avoid Maxine''s attack. Maxine ordered her Shadow Wolves to return back to Emily''s and Silky''s shadows before they could pounce on the now defenseless attackers.


    Maxine floated down from the sky and landed right next to their groaning forms. She ignored them for now in favor of ensuring that Emily and Silky weren''t injured.


    "Are you guys alright?" Maxine asked as she walked towards them, but she finally noticed Howard was groaning in pain while craddling his ribs. Otherwise, everyone else seemed unharmd.


    "Grandpa took a hit, but it doesn''t look serious. He should be okay after I treat his wounds," Emily said shakily. Maxine was confused as to why Emily seemed so shaken up, but she quickly realized why.She hasn''t been in the middle of a fight before. No wonder she is acting like this.


    "Alright, take care ofhim while I find out who sent these pieces of filth," Maxine said to Emily before turning towards the nearest groaning man and picked him up by the neck. She wasn''t worried that he would be able to attack her, even if he wanted to. A lot of his muscles had been cut almost all the way through. It would have been a small miracle if he could have even stood up on his own at this point, but he would still recover if given enough time.


    "Who sent you and why?" Maxine asked coldly. However the idiot kept silent, so she added, "You can either answer me. Or I will rip what I want to know from your very soul and destroy your mind in the process. Choose." As she spoke, she created claws out of her spiritual sense and gently ran them along the man''s consciousness. She knew he felt it by his rapidly paling face and after a couple seconds, his willpower folded.


    "Please, don''t take my soul. I don''t know who sent us, buthe wanted to use those two to control you. Whoever it was paid us well and completely hid their tracks," the man whimpered and Maxine was getting angrier by the second. The man noticed this and quickly added in desperation, "But I heard his voice and I would know it if I heard him again."


    "Good. Now relax your mind," Maxine commanded him.


    "What?" the man asked in confusion.


    "You heard me. Now lower your mental defenses and think about his voice very carefully. Do this and I will let you leave this place alive," Maxine said calmly. A moment later she felt his mental defenses drop and she gently looked into his mind. The memory that the man mentioned was on the forefront of his mind, so she didn''t have to go looking for it. ''Perhaps that elven woman can get me what I need in exchange for the release of her companions,'' was the only sentence that the man had heard, but it was enough. It wasn''t Hero Alec Ard or even Govenor Ard, whom she originally suspected tobe the masterminds ofthis attack. It was someone entirely different. However he had instantly earned Maxine''s ire.


    Before Maxine retracted her spiritual sense from his mind, she placed a spiritual mark within him so that she could hear and see everything he did for the next couple days. It would fade away after that. She knew whomever sent them would likely visit the man that talked personally either tonight or tomorrow. It was what she would do.


    Maxine dropped him on the ground. A slight shuffling of feet caused her to turn around and face Hero Katarn with several other heroes just behind him.


    "You''re late," Maxine said.


    "We came as quickly as we could. Carl told us he heard what sounded like a large group of people fighting beasts," Hero Katarn explained.


    "He isn''t wrong. My wolves came out to protect my child and beloved," Maxine answered and saw them look around nervously, "Don''t worry though. They are verytimid creatures under normal circumstances, but when they feel threatened or feel that their pack''s young are threatened, they are the fiercest creatures imagineable. They quite literately fight without a care for their injuries to eliminate a threat."


    "I see," Hero Katarn replied and he glanced to the groaning forms at Maxine''s feet, "We will take them out of here and find out who sent them."


    "Go ahead," Maxine said with a wave of her hand.


    "Wait! You said I could leave!" the man she held earlier objected.


    "I said you could leave my home alive. I never said anything about how you would leave or in whose company," Maxine answered, "Next time, don''t try to make a deal with a woman whose family you just tried to abduct." The man looked completely stunned at her answer and cursed at her several times while the heroes dragged him away.


    Maxine was about to check on the others when her communicator started vibrating. She just now remembered where she had been when she charged back here and groaned in frustration as she answered it, "Yes?"


    "What the hellhappened to make you leave like that?! You left so suddenly and violently that we thought you had decided to attack us," Isebelle Traves yelled at her through the communicator.


    "My family was attacked by several powerful B ranks. I care about them far more than the govenors political carreer or any peace treaty," Maxine answered angrily.


    "Oh, my god! Are they okay?" Isebelle Traves asked.


    "Yes, they are. My pets kept them from harm long enough for me to subdue their attackers," Maxine answered.


    "Pets? I don''t recall you having any pets," Isebelle Traves commented.


    "I doubt you would have. They are very special creatures that specialize in stealth," Maxine said, "Do you need me to come back?"


    "Oh, heavens, no. Take care of your family. We can take care of everything over here. I''m sure even these elves can empathize with your reaction," Isebelle Traves said understandingly, "Before I go, how did you know they were being attacked?"


    "That''s my secret," Maxine answered.


    "That''s fine then," Isebelle Traves said, "I''ll talk to you later."


    "Until next time," Maxine said right before the communicator went silent.


    "Maxine," Emily said from behind her. Maxine turned around and saw a look of worry on Emily''s face.


    "What''s wrong?" Maxine asked.


    "Would you have really torn that man''s mind apart if he hadn''t cooperated?" Emily asked fearfully.Shit, I really don''t want to answer that, but I can''t lie to her.


    "I''m not proud to admit it, but I would have," Maxine answered guiltily.


    "But why?" Emily asked, "It''s not like they were trying to kill us!"


    "That''s the reason I gave him a choice to cooperate and why I didn''t kill any of them," Maxine answered.


    "I know you have killed people before and I''ve accepted that fact," Emily said and she quickly got closer to Maxine, "But what you just threatened to do to that man came real close to something that your father would and I don''t want you to become like him. I love you too much to watch you become a monster. So please, don''t do anything that again." Maxine was horrified with herself.I hated Guan for what he did to Earth. But... if it was to protect Emily''s child, I would do the same damn thing and become what I hated. NO! I WON''T!


    "I see your point," Maxine said very softly.


    "Good," Emily said, "Now what are you going to do about this person that wanted to control you?"


    "I will find him and l will break his arms and legs before handing him over to the locals," Maxine answered, "I can''t imagine they are any happier than I am that you were attacked."


    "No, you won''t. Youcan find him, but you need let the heroes deal with that bastard. You are supposed to be a healer, remember?" Emily reminded Maxine.


    "I know but I''m fairly certain that I just proved that I can fight," Maxine explained.


    "Maybe, but chances are they will believe that it was your wolves that used that attack," Emily countered, "You''ve only demonstrated that you have an acid breath attack and it can''t be used for a long range attack. It would be a big stretch for them to believe that you can dish out that kind of damage. Afterall, the other healers, including myself, have almost no offensive abilities. So it would make sense for them to believe it was your wolves that did all of that damage."


    "I see your point," Maxine finally agreed.


    "Good," Emily said, "Now what will we do about this mess? It''s not right to let the staff clean this up." Maxine looked at the blood scattered across the front lawn and porch.


    "I think I have a solution," Maxine answered and used a motion of her essence to disintegrate all of the blood on the ground and porch, "There all clean."


    "Thank you for cleaning that, mistress. I was beginning to think how we would ever get all of that cleaned up," Olga, the head maid said.


    "Think nothing of it," Maxine said as she glanced at Silky and Lanitherin.


    Lanitherin seemed shaken up, but he was still scanning the area for threats while standing protectively infront of Silky, whom didn''t seem bothered at all.I wonder how he would feel if he knew that she could defend herself quite admirably. It would probably give him a big hit to his ego.Lanitherin''s sisters, Ilanna and Nala, were trembling while hugging Silky.


    Maxine walked over to them and comforted them all. She knew that it would be a few hours before Lanitherin and his sisters would calm down.Poor things. If I only I could get my hands on a cultivation technique from this world. Then, I wouldn''t have to worry about Lanitherin''s future as a blademaster. I wonder if the elves have one. It wouldn''t hurt to ask. Although considering I''m a ''halfbreed,'' they may just tell me to fuck off. Might as well ask them when I see them next.

 Chapter 117

    Maxine was standing infront of Aenwynn just outside of a rather spacious mansion set aside for visiting dignitaries. They had been staying at this building since yesterday. Although she had no idea why. Still she managed to coax out the female forest elf for a talk.


    "I''m sorry for bothering you like this, but I have some questions about elves. Besides my mother, I''ve never actually talked to other elves," Maxine said, "I was just curious about your culture and how you strengthen yourselves."


    The female elf smiled before she asked, "We are like any other people. We simply wish to live our lives in peace inside our forests. We have a few holidays such as the Yule festival. Each elf is taught a strict code of honor."


    "I know. Mother was always insistent that I learned the meaning of honor," Maxine replied.


    "At least she remembered that much," the female elf said, "I can smell the flesh of beasts on your breath. Didn''t your mother teach you why you shouldn''t eat meat?"


    "She did, but I need to eat meat. I have hydra blood in my veins and without consuming meat, my health will rapidly deteriorate," Maxine explained.


    "I see," the female elf said in understanding and her eyes widened in surprise, "Oh! I can''t believe I''ve forgotten my manners. My name is Aenwynn and yours is?"


    "Maxine Cinderson," Maxine replied, "I have one more question, but I don''t know if you can help me with it."


    "You won''t know unless you ask," Aenwynn said.


    "Alright then. I have a student that is a prodigy. He''s already unmatched amongst normal humans when it comes to the use of a blade, but he lacks the means to become stronger. I was wondering if you have a suitable method or technique to help me with this," Maxine explained, "He doesn''t need much. Even an inferior technique will suffice."


    "No," Aenwynn said firmly to Maxine, "We won''t share out cultivation techniques with humans, even if one is your student. They have no honor."


    "Then I will teach him what honor is and if he fails to heed my teachings, I will end him myself," Maxine replied firmly, "It''s my duty as his teacher."


    "Very well, I will hold you to your word," Aenwynn said as she reached into a pouch at her waist to pull out a small book and handed it to Maxine.


    "Thank you," Maxine said as she recieved the book and bowed to Aenwynn deeply.


    "You''re welcome," Aenwynn said, "But I must ask, what made you seek this out for a human child? He may be a prodigy, but that is rarely enough."


    "When your people''s guardian beast appeared a few days ago, most men fled from it, but my student held firm to protect his sisters. Such an act of bravery and familial love needed to be rewarded and I just don''t see him acting dishonorably as long as he is taught properly," Maxine answered.


    "That''s a risky move," Aenwynn cautioned Maxine, "A noble boy could easily turn into a vicious bandit."


    "But not if he is guided properly," Maxine retorted.


    "Fair enough," Aenwynn said begrudgingly, "But remember your promise."


    "I will," Maxinesaid and decided to change the subject, "How did things go with negotiations for the peace treaty? I''m surprised that you are not ironing out the details for the peace treaty at this very moment."


    "Govenor Ard doesn''t have that kind of authority, no matter how much he wants it," Aenwynn answered, "Several high ranking officials are enroute right now to discuss the details of the peace treaty. They should be here in another week."


    "Oh, alright. I guess that means you will be around for a while longer," Maxine said.


    "That''s right," Aenwynn answered, "But I wish we didn''t have to stay in this city. I miss the forests and it disturbs me to see so many enslaved."


    "You''re not the only one upset by this," Maxine agreed, "I''m trying to change thier policies, but they are being very resistant to my ideas on the matter."


    "I wish you luck in that endevor," Aenwynn said supportingly.


    "Thank you," Maxine said and noticed the time, "It seems I need to head back home. I need to spend time with my daughter and beloved. They''ve been asking me to go shopping with them."


    "Oh, in that case, enjoy the remainder of your day," Aenwynn said with a slight smile on her face.


    "The same to you," Maxine said before leaving and making her way back to the mansion.


    When she got back, Maxine found both of them watching a drama on the holographic TV with Lanitherin and his sisters. It was one of the few ways to pass time in this city aside from reading or taking up a hobby.


    Unsurprisingly, Lanitherin was sitting beside Silky with a stupid grin on his face.I wonder how much longer Silky will put up with that. I can''t believe he hasn''t figured out that she isn''t interested.


    "Hey there. Are you guys ready to go shopping?" Maxine asked. All of them jumped and looked at Maxine with excitement.


    "Yes!" Silky shouted happily.


    "Of course," Emily said with a small smile.


    Ilanna timidly walked up to Maxine and asked, "Are we really going to get new clothes?"


    "Yes," Maxine said gently, "All of you are going to get new outfits and some toys as well, if I can find some." Ilanna and Nala both smiled at hearing Maxine''s answer just before both of them hugged Maxine. Maxine smiled contently as she gently rubbed the sides of their heads.


    "Enough of that. If we don''t head out soon, we won''t have much time to look for clothes before dinner," Emily reminded them.


    "Alright, let''s head out," Maxine said after giving both the little girls one more pat on the head.


    They loaded up into the carriage and headed to the market district. It wasn''t a very long ride, and Lanitherin was somewhat upset that they went to a women''s clothing store first. However he changed his attitude when he got to see each new outfit that Silky would be wearing in the future. His sisters got jealous of the attention Silky was getting and insisted that Lanitherin offer his opinion on their outfits.


    Maxine shook her head at their antics before she found a green dress with golden lace at the cuff and the hem of the dress. It revealed more of her neck and collarbone than she was used to, but it still looked quite nice. She found a red and a blue dress of similar style before she went to Emily and asked, "I''m going to go try some dresses on. Let me know what you think of them."


    A few moments in the dressing room was all it took and she came out wearing the green dress. "How do I look?" Maxine asked.


    "Great," Emily said with a big smile, "But you''re not seriously going to work in that, are you?"


    "No, but it would still be nice to wear for a formal occasion," Maxine replied.


    "Good point. I will pick out a couple myself," Emily said. Maxine noticed the few outfits that Emily had picked were plain and were probably going to be her work clothes.I better find a few of those myself. Can''t have the only two ordinary dresses that I have get bloodstained without any spares to be had.


    Maxine found five more plain dresses for every day events and for her healing duties. Although she doubted they would remain unstained for very long. Bloodstains werenotoriously difficult to get out of clothes.


    After another hour of trying on various clothes, Maxine, Emily, Ilanna, Silky and Nala finally had enough clothes for nearly every occasion. Lanitherin was more than a little tired from being dragged everywhere by his sisters, but he was still wearing a goofy smile as he followed Silky around.


    When they finally reached the boys clothing store, Lanitherin spent no more than fifteen minutes picking out a few sets of clothes. One for formal wear and the rest were everday clothes and training garments.


    While they were loading their new clothes onto the carriage, Hero Alec Ard approached them. Maxine was instantly on guard, but she wasn''t expecting what came next. He bowed his head.


    "Please, forgive me for my actions the other day," Hero Alec Ard said, but Maxine could tell he wasn''t sincere. He was doing nothing more than making a show of an apology.


    "I assume that your father or the elves pressured you into this," Maxine said, "If you had a single iota of sense, you would know that no spoken apology can ever make up for trying to turn me into your slave. I can only imagine what you would have done to me had you succeeded, but I doubt I would have to imagine that hard. I just have to ask the other unfortunate souls that you have already enslaved."


    "Then what do I have to do to change your mind?" Hero Alec Ard asked while clearly tyring to keep his temper in check.He didn''t even deny that he enslaved others. He''s a piece of shit.


    "There isn''t a thing you can do, but since you lack the intelligence to figure it out, I will explain it to you why in the simplest terms that I can," Maxine said coldly, "I detest slavers and those that keep slaves. I find them to be the second most loathsome creatures in existence."


    "What''s the first?" Hero Alec Ard asked almost instantly.


    "It''s a draw between those that murder children and rapists," Maxine answered coldly, "As it stands, I won''t heal you unless you will die otherwise, but if I find out you are either of those things, nothing in this world would convince me to heal you. Even if it means your death and your father begs me on his hands and knees, I won''t." Hero Alec Ard looked angry, but he wisely kept it to himself before storming away.


    "That asshole deserved that," Emily commented.


    "No, what he deserves is to have an explosive collar around his neck," Maxine said.


    "Now that would be his just deserts," Emily agreed and she swiftly changed the subject, "Now, let''s head home. The little ones are exhausted. Unlike us, they don''t have any cores to help keep their stamina up."


    "Lanitherin won''t have that problem for much longer," Maxine said with a small smile, "I made a friend amongst the elves and got him a cultivation manual."


    "That''s great," Emily said happily, but she asked via spiritual sense, [Why can''t he just use the same one we do?]


    "I know," Maxine agreed, but added via spiritual sense, [I don''t know how it will effect him. It''s better to use a cultivation technique from this world. It will have fewer side-effects.]


    "What''s a cultivation manual?" Lanitherin asked.


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "It''s a book that will teach you how to become stronger," Maxine answered.


    "Will I become as strong as you?" Lanitherin asked.


    "Perhaps. It depends all on you," Maxine answered, but in truth, she doubted he would ever form more than one core. His skill and special energy would make him nearly impossible to beat by anyone with just one core, but against someone with two cores, he would have a very hard time clenching victory.


    Lanitherin only nodded before jumping into the carriage with his sisters and Silky. Maxine shared a quick glance with Emily before getting on it herself.


    The ride back was uneventful, but for some reason, she felt on edge. It was almost as if someone was watching her. However she didn''t feel their gaze on her. It caused her to periodically spread out her spiritual sense five hundred feet in every direction to make sure she wasn''t being watched or followed.I hope I''m just being paranoid.After not finding anything several times in a row, she finally relaxed.


    It wasn''t until she exited the carriage with everyone else back at the mansion that she actually felt a gaze land on her, but thankfully, it wasn''t a hostile gaze.Who could possibly be following me? Whoever it is, they are good. I can''t even tell which direction they are in.Just as quickly as the gaze landed on her, it vanished.Hmm, I must have just been a passing curiosity.


    However it wasn''t until late at night and she was about to lay down in her bed when she started to get something from the spiritual mark she left on the man she interogated yesterday. She immediately closed her eyes and focused her mind on the spiritual mark to see and hear everything that man did.


    The cell he was in was tiny, but that didn''t matter. He was shackled to the wall with an explosive collar around his neck.Wow, talk about overkill. I think they even have an explosive belt on this guy.


    "You look like shit," a someone said without revealing himself to the now restrained man.


    "No shit, asshole. This is what happens when you have us rush in without gathering any intel on our targets," the restrained man said, "If we had more time, we would have known about those damn wolves."


    "I don''t care. That''s your fuck up, not mine, but that''s not why I''m here," the voice said, "Tell me what you told that elven woman."


    "I only told her I heard your voice, which is all I really knew," the restrained man growled.


    "Oh, I think she got more than that," the voice said, "She left a gift for you in your head."


    "WHAT?!" the restrained man asked fearfully.


    "Oh, it''s not harmful, but she can see and hear everything that you do when she focus'' on you," the voice said, "It''s a rather interesting piece of work. Only a genius or an offworlder could have placed that on you, especially without your knowledge."


    "Can it be removed?" the restraiend man asked hopefully.


    "Yes, but I won''t bother. It will go away on it''s own in another few days," the voice said, "But that''s beside the point. You gave her information on me and that I will not tolerate. And after I''m done with you, I will deal with that elven woman."


    "Wait!" the restrained man shouted as he got a glimpse of a four armed sillouette, but that was all he saw before his head exploded.


    Maxine opened her eyes with a cold sweat. That being was a member of the evil races, but she wasn''t sure which one. There were three that had that many arms. If she had only seen another detail other than his sillouette, she could have without a doubt identified his race. She hoped it wasn''t a Four Horned Kanzil. They were the most dangerous and aggressive of the three, but none of them had anything stronger than gold stage. Still any of them would be enough to conquer this world without too many losses.


    Maxine quickly started heading for the front of the mansion. She couldn''t risk that thing attacking this place and hurting any innocents. Unfortunately Head Maid Olga intercepted her when she was nearly to the front door.


    "Pardon me, mistress, but Hero Alec Ard is here to see you," Olga said neutrally, "He seems rather insistent that he get to talk to you."He''s here now?! Of all the dumb shit... Wait, I could use a meat shield.


    In an instant, Maxine already decided to use Hero Alec Ard to help her rid of this threat. "Oh, That will make things much easier," Maxine answered calmly even though inside she was worried, "I suggest you gather the rest of the staff and my family to hide in the bunker below the mansion. There is a rather disagreeable being coming this way and I believe he means to kill me." Olga gave Maxine a frightened look only once before running down the halls as fast as she could.


    She spread her spiritual sense out and found the four armed being quickly approaching. She finally got a better look at it and it was as she feared. There was no mistaking the four short horns just above his brow, his tusk like fangs and his bright red skin. The man approaching was a Four Horned Kanzil. Thankfully, it was only at the peak of silver stage and it would be another two minutes before it arrived.Well, that''s good, but those damn things are known to fight and win against cultivators that are more powerful. If I''m lucky, they will kill each other and ''Hero'' Alec Ard will no longer be my problem.


    Maxine withdrew her Twilight Iron Blades from her dimensional ring before manipulating their appearance to look more like a normal pair of blades and threw open the door with a movement of her essence. Hero Alec Ard looked at her with a dumbfounded look and quickly began backing away from her.


    "Did you come here armed?" Maxine asked his slowly retreating figure.


    "No, why?" Hero Alec Ard said fearfully.


    "It would have been better if you had been armed. I have a very hostile guest approaching and I believe he won''t want to leave any witnesses. So unless you want to die, take up a fighting stance," Maxine warned Hero Alec Ard.It''s better that he''s prepared for what''s coming. I don''t need this idiot getting cheap shotted because he wasn''t prepared. Two on one are much better odds than one on one.It''s especially important since I can''t use my battle form.


    The Four Horned Kanzil arrived mere moments after Hero Alec Ard took up a unarmed fighting stance. Maxine nearly tripped when she saw it. It towered over both of them at seven and a half feet tall and she saw it''s signature red skin and four short horns on it''s brow. It even had the tusk like fangs jutting out of it''s mouth. It was holding a sword in each of it''s four arms, but she couldn''t figure out why it was only wearing a loin cloth. She figured it would have worn at least some kind of protective clothing. Must be a cultural thing or he just doesn''t need any armor.


    "Hello, little elven girl," the Four Horned Kanzil said mockingly, "Am I interrupting you and your boyfriend?"


    "He isn''t my boyfriend, nor will any man," Maxine stated coldly, "I prefer the company of women."


    "Hah!" the Four Horned Kanzil barked a laugh, "No matter. The both of you will die along with anyone else that sees me." Maxine didn''t bother continuing their talk. It served no purpose and she charged forward aggressively.


    She slashed out with both of her blades at him, but heblocked her attack before stabbing at her twice. She narrowly dodged being stabbed in her left breast and right thigh by twisting her whole body. She used an upward slash of her right blade as she retreated back, but her opponent didn''t chase after her. Instead he went straight for Hero Alec Ard, whom hadn''t moved an inch. He appeared to be frozen stiff from fear.Shit! He''s supposed to be a battle hardened warrior, not some untested greenhorn!


    Maxine raced after the Four Horned Kanzil, but at this distance, he had gained too much of a lead for her to catch up in time. Hero Alec Ard finally snapped out of it just as four sword slashes were thrown at him. She fully expected to see him cut into multiple pieces, but that didn''t happen. She heard was four metal on metal impacts followed by a series of sparks. Unfortunately, the Four Horned Kanzil didn''t show any signs of slowing as he lashed out with a kick and sent Hero Alec Ard hurtling into a distant reinforced wall. He hit the wall with enough force to have it collapse on top of him.


    Maxine only spared Hero Alec Ard a glance to see if he was still alive. He was, but he was out cold.Fucking useless piece of shit. To think, he almost enslaved me.


    Just as Maxine reached her opponent, she lashed out with both of her blades, but was blocked by one of his left blades. She was immediately forced to go onto the defensive as all four of his arms started attacking her wildly. His attacks were without form and seemingly random. But that''s what made him so difficult to fight. There was no pattern for her to capitalize on.


    For ten seconds, she was dodging and parrying every attack, but there was no room to counter attack. It made her frustrated and angry. I should be able to handle this. He''s weaker than me, although not by much, and a hell of a lot slower. I can''t get anywhere by defending alone. I NEED TO DO SOMETHING!


    Without thinking, she hacked at one of the Four Horn Kanzil swords to both attack and defend against his assault. Strangely after their weapons collided, he retreated three steps and he looked surprised.


    In a moment of enlightenment, she continued to push forward by combining attack and defense in to each of her movements. Her blades gradually began to change colors while they fought. One became black and the other white. She knew this effect was from the Yin Yang Blades technique, but she wasn''t consciously focusing on it.


    Within moments, the Four Horned Kanzil was being overwhelmed by Maxine''s fluid and seemingly endless attack and defensive style. This time it was the Four Horned Kanzil''s turn to be on the defensive. Unfortunately he had other idea as he lashed out at her with all of his swords at once. When their weapons collided, it was the swords that shattered, but the force of the impact knocked Maxine''s blades out of her hands. Shrapnel flew at her face and forced her to close her eyes and turn her head.


    The next thing she knew Maxine had been knocked on the ground with the Four Horned Kanzil sitting on her waist and both of her arms were pinned at her sides by the lower set of the Four Horned Kanzil''s arms. His upper set of arms reached for her neck, but paused for a moment as a lustful look crossed over his face. His hands reached down and tore open her dress and bra to reveal her breasts.


    Maxine was horrified, and she quickly began to panic while desperately thinking of a way out of this situation.NO! I will not let this bastard rape me!In desperation, she took a deep breath in and breathed out every last drop of acid that she had in a single acidic spray directly into his face.


    As soon as her acid hit his face, it began to melt and he screamed while covering his face with all of his hands. Before Maxine could throw him off, Hero Alec Ard tackled the Four Horned Kanzil off of her and began to grapple with it. Unfortunately even wounded as he was, the Four Horned Kanzil was quickly overpowering Hero Alec Ard.


    Without wasting a moment, Maxine got up and retrieved her blades and cut off the Four Horned Kanzil''s arms and legs. The Four Horned Kanzil was still alive, albeit in pain, and that suited Maxine just fine. But for now she needed to deal with Hero Alec Ard.


    "Thank you," Maxine said begrudgingly to Hero Alec Ard and noticed him staring at her exposed chest, "What? Never seen a pair of breasts before?" Hero Alec Ard coughed and winced in pain before turning around.He must have broken something. Serves him right for standing there like a deer in headlights.


    Maxinetrembled breifly at the thought of almost being raped and quickly used her energies to temporarily staple the front of her dress back together. As she finished, she regained her composure, but she knew she would be having nightmares tonight.


    "What is that thing?" Hero Alec Ard asked without turning around. Maxine only now noticed the heavy bruising on his face. She ignored him and noticed that the Four Horned Kanzil was now unconscious. She guessed due to blood loss since it was bleeding quite heavily.


    "I''m not sure," Maxine lied, "But whatever it is, it''s not friendly. Still I will find out what it is and why it attacked me in the first place." She walked up towards the now defenseless and groaning Four Horned Kanzil. She wanted to know if it sent information out and to find out where it''s ship was. She wanted to have options if she had to leave this planet.


    "How will you do that?" Hero Alec Ard asked while turning to watch her.


    "Easy. I will rip the information out of it''s head," Maxine replied coldly, "Unfortunately, it might probably turn it into an idiot, if I''m not careful."


    "What?!" Hero Alec Ard exclaimed, but Maxine didn''t bother talking to him as she placed her hand on top of the unconscious Four Horned Kanzil. She turned her spiritual sense into blades, but it wasn''t necessary. He was in too much pain to resist her attack into his mind. Thus she caused almost no damage to his mind as she rummaged through his memories. Most of them were of battles or similar scouting missions. It took her awhile to find his most recent memories and she let out a sigh of relief. He hadn''t sent any information back to his homeworld on this planet yet and his people rarely sent any attackers to a world that was competent enough to kill the scout. Unfortunately his ship was keyed to his particular biosignature and was thus useless to Maxine unless she figured out how to hack the computer system. Regardless, the ship itself was horribly damaged and needed some resources to be repaired before it would be spaceflight capable. I wonder how it got damaged in the first placed. In any case, I will have a couple new hobbies. Figuring out how to hack that system and repair it will take quite awhile.


    But before she could retract her spiritual sense, it was forcibly locked into place as visions of uncountable women of various races flooded her mind. Each of them were raped and subsquently died from the rough treatment from the Four Horned Kanzil. But what made it worse was that she was in the place of the woman in each of those memories. Even though she didn''t experience their pain, she saw what he did to each of them. Many of them were eaten alive as he raped them.


    It was horrifying and she screamed internally at this nightmare as she heard the howling laughter of the Four Horned Kanzil.In desperation, she lashed out with her spiritual sense to stun his mind to free herself. Thankfully it worked.


    Maxine quickly withdrew herself from his mind and restrained herself from killing the bastard before turningto her mansion. She wanted him to be tortured by the Hero''s Association for information, not that she expected him to give them any.


    Regardless after being bombarded by those memories of rape, Maxine was in a very fragile state of mind. She had to struggle to keep herself from breaking down into tears at the horror of what she just experienced.


    She ignored Hero Alec Ard completely as she quickly made her way inside her mansion. The handful of staff saw her face and one of them ran off.Just keep it together for a little longer. I can''t let them see me fall to pieces. I know how those corrupt pieces of shit like to take advantage of people in fragile states.


    Right as Maxine was walking up the stairs to her room, Emily quickly came up to her and asked, "Maxine, what''s wrong? Olga told me there was a fight. Are you alright?" But Maxine didn''t answer. She was completely focused on reaching her room.


    Emily followed her the whole way with a concern written all over her face and finally when the door to her bedroom was shut, Maxine let herself express the horror of what she had just experienced. Tears ran down her face as she quickly hugged Emily and started crying. She hated to admit it, but deep down, part of her was still a scared and abused young woman.I don''t know what I would do without Emily here. I just hope that bastard hasn''t caused my androphobia to come back.

 Chapter 118

    Maxine waspracticing her blade skills usinga dancelike routinewitha pair of weighted wooden blades with Lanitherin, whom was training his own skills on the other side of the room. A few days ago, she had figured it wouldn''t do her any favors by slacking in her training any longer and furthermore, it might help Lanitherin learn how to better his own skills from watching her.


    While she trained, she lamented the previous week.Her androphobia came back with a vengeance. If Emily hadn''t been there to comfort and talk with Maxine after what happened to her, she didn''t know what kind of shape she would be in. As it stood, she had nightmares every night for a week and she had an incredibly hard time healing injured male heroes without her hands trembling. She had needed to constantly remind herself that her fears were irrational. It helped that most of the injured male heroes were incapable of even standing when they were brought to her. Unfortunately, she had no idea how much longer it would be before she managed to squash her fears this time. She had just gotten to the point where she only slightly distrusted men before all of her progress had been destroyed by that bastard of a Four-Horned Kanzil.


    Thankfully, her androphobia didn''t extend tochildren and she was able to train with Lanitherin without any issues. He had become extremely motivated after he heard what had nearly happened to her, but Maxine knew it wasn''t for her sake. The boy had looked at Silky with fearful concern before he had rushed off to train like a madman.


    Aenwynn, on the other hand, visited her nearly every day since that incident and many of the heroes she healed in the past wanted to check on her as well. She had to send them away, but they kept coming back to check on her. It wasn''t until Emilytold them that their presence was making Maxine feel worse that they finally left her alone with one exception.


    She was brought out of her own thoughts when Lanitherin asked without stopping his training,"Teacher, why havn''t you taught me how to dual wield blades? It seems like an amazing skill."


    "I would like to, but you need to learn how to use a single blade before you can use two. Also, there areother requirements you need to meet before I will teach you how to dual wield," Maxine answered calmiy.


    "And what are the requirements?" Lanitherin asked.


    "Well obviously, you need to know how to use one blade first and you need to know how to use both hands equally," Maxine replied, "I had to use my left hand to do everything for half a year before I could use my left hand with the same level of proficiency as my right. That is unless you are naturally ambidextrous. That reminds me, you are right handed, right?" She glanced at Lanitherin and saw his incredulous expression.


    "I think I will stick with one blade," Lanitherin affirmed.


    Maxine chuckled before she said, "I never believed you would wantto go through that kind of training anyways. Very few are willing to go through with it." Lanitherin didn''t respond to her. Instead he became more focused on his training regiment.


    Both of them continued training for another hour. Lanitherin panted heavily while leaning up against a wall, but Maxine continued with her dance like exercise. She only stopped a short while later when she noticed Aenwynn watching.She''s here again?I thought she would have realized by now that I''ll get better on my own. Or, just maybe, she''s here to tell me how their interrogation of that four-horned bastard is going.They practically insisted to be the ones toforceinformation out of him.


    "Do you want something to drink?" Maxine asked Aenwynn.


    "No, thank you," Aenwynn said with a small smile, "The men wanted to discuss the peace treaty without me. I didn''t mind overly much and decided to come pay you another visit."


    "That can''t be the real reason you''re here. You''ve visited me every day for the past week and you''ve seen I''m stable," Maxine commented, "Tell me what you are really here for."


    Aenwynn sighed before she answered, "You are having trouble being around men, arn''t you?"


    "That''s right. And?" Maxine asked while raising an eyebrow.


    "You need someone to talk to about it. To help you heal," Aenwynn said firmly, "Without it, you may never be able to be comfortable around men ever again."


    "I don''t need help," Maxine answered as she placed both of her weighted training blades ona weapon rack, "I already know exactly what steps I need to take to recover."


    "Howdo you know how to do that?" Aenwynn asked as she forced Maxine to face her.


    "Because I''ve had to do it once before," Maxine answered sadly and she began to explain, "I wasn''t raised by my biological parents and the father that I had periodically beat me since I was a small girl. I didn''t even knowwho my real parents were until about three years ago."


    "No elf would hit a child," Aenwynn said in disbelief more to herself than to Maxine.


    "It wasn''t an elf that did it. It was a human," Maxine answered as she looked at the ground partially in shame and noticed that Aenwynn had a look of utter disbelief on her face, "I didn''t always look like this. I used to look like a human girl with brown hair. Hell, I didn''t even know that I would physically change until it happened."


    "But that''s impossible," Aenwynn said, "There''s no way such a metamorphosis could happen and even if it could, there is no way you would appear as a human in the first place."


    "How many elven and hydra half breeds have there been?" Maxine asked.


    "None that I know of," Aenwynn answered.


    "Then how would you know what''s possible and what''s not in this situation?" Maxine asked.


    "That''s true, I suppose. And it would explain why your appearance doesn''t quite match up with what our guardian spirit said you should look like," Aenwynn commented to herself.


    "Oh? And what ''should'' I look like?" Maxine asked out of curiosity.


    "He said you should have a long whip-like tail, be covered in scales, and have retractable envenomed claws on both of your hands," Aenwynn said numbly and Maxine started sweating.


    "That''s absurd," Maxine snorted trying to cover up her fear of being discovered.Shit, I don''t need her spreading word about that detail. It may attract the Shadow Lords.


    "Yes, I agree entirely," Aenwynn agreed, "Although I don''t see how you are related to a hydra, or any snake for that matter."


    "Oh? That''s easy enough to show. Watch this," Maxine said as she held up her hand and gently lifted one ofherscales with her fingernail, "See? I have scales, but they are so smooth and thin that most people can''t see them.Unless, of course, they get a very close look."


    "Incredible," Aenwynn said as she reached out and ran her fingers along Maxine''s skin, "I can''t feel or see your scales, but I know they are there. How durable are they?"


    "They give me, at most, ten percent more resistance to slashing and peircing attacks than you have. That''s about it," Maxine said.


    "Ten percent is enough to change a wound that would cause certain death to just a severe injury," Aenwynn pointed out and her gaze drifted to the golden opaline jewel on Maxine''s forehead, "I don''t understand why you keep that jewel out in the open. It looks like a treasure. You should take it off and put it in your pocket if you must carry it with you. Keeping it out in the open like that is probably the reason why you were attacked by that ''thing'' in the first place."


    "I can''t take it off," Maxine said and when she saw the confusion in Aenwynn''s eyes, she added, "It''s part of my body. It''s literately part of my skull."


    "Really?" Aenwynn asked and immediately reached out to touch the opaline golden jewel on Maxine''s forehead, "It looks like it should come right off, but you''re right. Removing it could kill you."


    "I told you," Maxine said without sounding too smug, "By the way, did that red-skinned demon tell you anything yet?"


    "No, he hasn''t," Aenwynn said grumpily, "Aaron and the others have subjected him to all manner of inhumane tortures to get him to talk, but all that sick monster does is laugh."


    "I doubt it''s that inhumane if he''s laughing," Maxine said offhandedly.


    "Aaron was skinning that monster alive and using healing potions to regenerate it''s flesh so he can do it again every other hour," Aenwynn stated coldly. Jesus! It''s been a week since they took him! I can''t imagine how long I would last under those circumstances.


    "How can he withstand that sort of pain?!" Maxine exclaimed, but she had heard of worse things done before. In the previous timeline, some lunatic fused a woman with a tree and infested it with termites. The woman could feel the termites crawling around inside the tree and each bite as they widened their nest. She could only imagine the pain that woman had suffered before someone had mercifully killed the woman by cutting off her head with an ax.


    "I don''t know, but Aaron suggested that he might be capable of switching his pain receptors off," Aenwynn explained, "Thus rendering any kind of physical torture useless."


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    "That does present a problem," Maxine said as she nodded her head in agreement.


    "It would be easier if we could simply ''read'' his mind directly," Aenwynn hinted.


    "No," Maxine said firmly, "I will never approach that bastard again, not unless it''s to kill him."


    "You could teach me how," Aenwynn suggested and Maxine hesitated, "Consider it returning the favor from when I gave you that cultivation manual."Shit, there is that.


    "Very well," Maxine said reluctantly, "But be warned this technique can backfire, if the one you are using it on has a stronger mind than yours or are caught unprepared for their retaliation."


    "I understand," Aenwynn said resolutely.


    "The only method I know of has a high chance of either killing or rendering your target an idiot," Maxine explained, "First off, I need to know if you can sense your surroundings without using your eyes."


    "Yes, I can, but it''s difficult," Aenwynn said.


    "Good, that makes this easier," Maxine said before she explained the complexities of the technique, "Use this awareness and compress it into either a blunt or sharp object. The shape really doesn''t matter though. It''s the intent behind it. You are seeking to attack and weaken your target''s mind. Once your target is knocked unconsciouss, push this awareness into their mind. After that, you can read their mind, but be quick. If your target regains their senses, they can counter attack and trust me, it can be bad. Also, your attackwill most likely damage their memories as well and probably will permnamently damage their mind. They are an unfortunate drawbacks to the technique."


    "Understood," Aenwynn said, but she quickly commented after, "I can''t believe how easy that technique of yours is though."


    "I know," Maxine agreed, "But believe me, it''s dangerous and should only be used when there is no other option."


    Before either of them could say another word, Olga came bowed to Maxine and said, "Mistress, Hero Alec Ard has come to see you again. Should I send him away?"That''s the fifth time this week. I just wish he would stop bringing me gifts and leave me alone.


    "What did he bring this time?" Maxine asked in exasperation.


    "A complete corpse of a Bladed Terror," Olga answered and Maxine felt genuine surprise. Bladed Terrors were terrifying creaturesthat were extremely difficult to fight. A Bladed Terror was similar to a land-based octopus, but besides their shape they were very different kind of creature. Each of it''s six inch thick limbs were as strong as a snake of the same thickness and instead of having suckers, they had bone-like blades in place of them. To get caught by such a limb, wouldresult inquickly being turned into minced meat. What made matters worse was the whole creature had armor-like scales covering every inch of exposed skin making it extremely difficult to kill and they were at a minimum Silver rank. The only reason there was to hunt them was for the rare, not to mention durable, metals that exist in the bone-likeblades and scales.


    Aenwynn arched an eyebrow and said in an amused tone, "My, my, he''s trying quite hard to court you."


    "Too bad for him, I''m not interested," Maxine said coldly.


    "Maxine, did you see that thing Hero Alec Ard left on your front lawn?" Emily asked as she walked into the training courtyard and saw Aenwynn.


    "No, but I know what it is," Maxine answered, "I wish he would stop bringing me things."


    "Then tell him to fuck off," Emily said directly.Huh? But didn''t you tell him just that yesterday? Words just won''t work on him.


    "If only it were that easy," Maxine said.


    "I could chase him off for you," Aenwynn offered.


    "Thank you, but I need to deal with this myself," Maxine said firmly as she headed for the front door of her mansion.At least this way, I can force my subconscious to realize men really are not a threat to me.


    As soon as Maxine opened the front door, she saw Hero Alec Ard''s expression transform from concern to joy.Uhh, that''s unexpected. He''s acting like a man in love. Oh, god. Don''t tell me he''s ...


    "What do you want from me?" Maxine asked coldly to mask her nervousness.


    "I just wanted to see if you were getting better," Hero Alec Ard said. Maxine could tell he was saying the truth, but something still felt off about him. Still her expression softened slightly, but she didn''t completely drop her mask. However she could feel sweat starting to form on her brow from nerves.


    "As you can see, I''m nearly recovered," Maxine answered, "If that was all you wanted, you could have just asked Emily about my condition. So I ask again, what do you want from me?"


    "I want you on my team. You''re a combat healer, someone that can both fight and heal. The only other one like you is only D rank," Hero Alec Ard said.


    "Not interested," Maxine answered, "I prefer the role of a pure healer. I will only fight as a last resort."


    "That''s a shame," Hero Alec Ard said disappointedly, "You were amazing the other night. I''ve never seen anyone fight like that other than an elven blademaster." Maxine noticed that statement caught Aenwynn''s attention.Great more questions.


    "Thank you for the compliment," Maxine said calmly, "But, I must to return to my quarters. As I said before, I''ve not fully recovered from that night."


    Maxine quickly retreated back into the mansion without waiting for Hero Alec Ard''s reply. A few moments later, she heard Emily and Aenwynn following behind her.


    "I knew you fended off that creature with Hero Alec Ard, but I was under the impression that you merely acted as support, not as a fighter," Aenwynn stated, "But that was before I saw you training earlier. Now I''m rather curious what your role really was."


    "I was the one that fought it while Hero Alec Ard acted the fool," Maxine said, "Although he was helpful towards the end when he tackled it to the ground."


    "That must have been quite the sight. You must be quite skilled. Do you know what your blademaster rank is?" Aenwynn asked.


    "I don''t," Maxine answered truthfully.


    "From what I could tell earlier, you''re at least a third circle blademaster, perhaps even a fourth circle one," Aenwynn said, "I would have to spar with you to be certain though."


    "And what''s the highest rank?" Maxine asked out of curiosity.


    "Fifth circle is the highest rank anyone has attained," Aewynn answered.So I''m amazing by their standards. By the Alliance standards, I''m at the adept level at best. I''ve still got a long ways to go before I''m considered a master.


    "So, Maxine''s a rather gifted blade user," Emily stated.


    "Yes, she is. Even more so, considering her youth," Aenwynn said.


    "And what gave you any idea that I was young?" Maxine asked with genuine curiosity.


    "Your bearing," Aenwynn said, "I imagine you are no older than fifty."I wonder how she would react if I told her I''m sixteen and a half.Well, to be fair, I''ve lived two lives with fourty-two years between them. Emily''s light chuckle brought her out of her internal thoughts.


    "She''s much younger than that," Emily said with amusement, "She''s the same age as I am."


    "That''s not possible," Aenwynn said softly in disbelief, "Even if you were born holding a blade, there is no way you could be that skilled at your age."


    "But it''s true. I''m sixteen years old," Maxine answered truthfully.


    "Fine, I believe you, but you will tell me how you are so skilled at your age," Aenwynn said before looking at a clock on the wall, "It seems my visit must end here. I need to head back. The others and our guardian beast will want to know how you are doing."


    "Alright, but allow me to escort you out," Maxine said and she escorted Aenwynn out of her home.


    After Maxine shut the front door to the mansion and turned around, Emily asked, "She noticed your fear of men, didn''t she?"


    "Yes, and she even offered to get me some help recovering from it. But as long as I have you, I think I will be able to manage just fine," Maxine said with a wide smile.


    "You should''ve taken her offer," Emily said reproachfully, "Last time, it took you over a year to recover on your own and I can tell it''s worse than it was before. It could take you years to recover this time."


    "Trust me. If I don''t see progress, I will go ask her for help myself," Maxine reassured Emily, "Now where are the girls?"


    "They dragged Lanitherin away from his training as soon as you left the courtyard. I believe they are having him act as their taste tester," Emiy said.


    "Oh, boy. Which one of them cooked this time?" Maxine asked in amusement. Only Silky had proven to be a half-decent cook. Whereas, Nala and Ilanna''s attempts at cooking ended horribly. Either they tasted horribly or were burnt to charcoal.


    "Silky," Emily answered, "She seems to enjoy having her cooking complimented. Nala And Ilanna have been tasting each others meals."


    "Should I be concerned?" Maxine asked.


    "No, I just think she is starting to treat him as a brother," Emily said.


    "Alright, but I better keep an eye on those two just in case," Maxine said, "I would prefer not to break Silky''s heart if and when we need to leave this place."


    "I know," Emily said sadly, "But we should have a few years at minimum before we need to worry about that."


    "True," Maxine agreed and she heard Olga approaching her at a swift jog while holding a communicator, "It seems we have more patients."


    "Then we best get to them," Emily said before the both of them left the mansion heading towards the Eastern gate after confirming where their patients were. Neither of them bothered with the carriage as they ran.


    However when they reached their patients, Maxine froze up. One of the injured heroes was carrying a young silver grey elf girl in his arms. If she had a golden jewel on her forehead, she would look exactly like a Shadow Lord, but that didn''t matter at the moment to Maxine. This elven girl was the most badly injured out of the six that were brought to her. It looked like her left arm and leg had been savaged by a very largeanimal.


    "We were attacked by a group of Iron Fang Wolves," one of the heroes said, "This elven woman came to help us, but she got caught by two of the beasts. We just barely managed to kill them before they tore off her arm and leg."


    "Put her on the ground now," Maxine ordered the hero, "I might be able to save herlimbs if we hurry."


    As soon as the elven girl was laid on the ground, Maxine focused her entire being on saving her.the girl had lost a lot of blood. Maxine wove all three of her energies into healing the wounds. She was surprised when the elven girl''s flesh started to regrow in palces and stitch back together in others. She hadn''t been aware her healing powers worked like that. However this level of healing was draining her extremely quickly. Unfortunately her rapid healing was also draining this elven girl''s fat reserves quickly as well. If Maxine did nothing, the healing would kill her just as easily as blood loss would.


    With a thought, Maxine retreived a special nutritional potion from within her clothes and force fed it down the girl''s throat before continuing healing her.That thing has enough nutrition and calories to keep Silky fed for a month and it absorbs into the body quickly. It should work enough to keep her alive while I heal her.


    By the time Maxine was done, the already thin elven girl looked like she hadn''t had a meal in over a month, but she would live. But Maxine had used up over eighty percent of her energy to perform that healing.


    "She will live," Maxine said as she wiped some sweat off of her brow. She looked up and saw a strange look in the eyes of the hero that brought the elven girl here. "I will take her home with me to ensure her recovery. You can go."


    "What? But how am I supposed to repay my debt to her?" the hero asked, but again something felt off with him. So she scanned him with her spiritual sense. She found an explosive collar and a few other items in his bag that ignited her anger.That ungrateful piece of shit! He didn''t collar her because he''s repaying a debt. He didn''t want me to kick his ass as soon as I saw it around her neck!


    "By leaving her in my care," Maxine said warningly, "And if you are wise, you will leave without saying another word and dispose of that thing in your bag." The hero seemed to catch the hint that she was giving him and left without even getting his injuries treated.


    Before Maxine could go to her next patient, the young elven girl''s eyes opened for just a moment while looking confused before her eyes focused on Maxine''s face. Her confusion was quickly replaced byhatred and a hint of fear just before her eyes closed again. Why would she react like that by just looking at me? We havn''t even met before, so I couldn''t have done anything to her to earnit. Perhaps she met a Shadow Lord in the past that was a total dick. That would explain it partly, but still whatever feelings she might have for them, it shouldn''t extend to me. Ishould talk to her to find out more once she wakes up.

 Chapter 119

    As Maxine walked into the room that held her elven charge with a bowel of a thin vegetable soup in her hands, she got cursed at in at least two different languages that she didn''t understand. This wasn''t the first time Maxinegot to hear this tongue lashing either. Not twenty minutes ago the poor woman woke up after sleeping for a day and hurled venom filled words at her. Maxine was only grateful that she couldn''t understand a single word of it.


    "Enough of that. You need to eat to regain your strength," Maxine said in the most professional tone that she could muster, and the elven girl gave Maxine a look filled with caution, "If I wanted tokill you, it would have been simpler to do it while you slept. At least that way, I could have avoided the tongue lashing." She set the bowel down on a bed side table and got a spoonful of the soup before bringing it to the elven girl''s lips. Reluctantly, the girl sipped the soup. Once she finished that spoonful, Maxine quickly brought another to the elven girl''s lips and repeated this action untilshe decided to speak.


    "Thank you," the elven girl finally said after eating a dozen spoonfuls.


    "You''re very lucky that I was able to save your limbs and that those idiots decided to bring you to me instead of someone else," Maxine said as she continued to feed the elven girl, "If anyone else had tried, they would have killed you and even if you had survived, you would have been turned into someone''s sex toy."


    The elven girl''s eyes burned with fury as soon as Maxine finished speaking, but the anger quickly passed as it was replaced with confusion. "How were you able to keep a straight face earlier?" the elven girl asked, "The insults I hurled at you would have caused several of my elders to at least glare at me angrily. It''s almost as if you didn''t understand your own native tongue."


    "That''s because I didn''t understand it," Maxine answered honestly.


    "How can a Shadow Lordnot understand her own people''s language?" the elven girl asked and Maxine nearly locked up. However she had been expecting that question so she wasn''t as bothered by it as she normally would have been.


    "I don''t know what a ''Shadow Lord'' is. Is it a type of elf?" Maxine asked while trying her best to play dumb. Acting wasn''t her strong suit, but thankfully, it worked.


    "They used to be," the elven girl said sadly, "But they left this world eons ago, before humans began to appear on this world. Their excuse was there was no need to stay with a bunch of inferior beings."


    "I see. I''m sorry," Maxine said softly.So good to see that thier attitude was always garbage and that it isn''t a new development. I wish they could understand that there is no superior or inferior beings. Just those that have different strengths.


    "It''s alright. It doesn''t matter and I''m sorry for saying those things even if you didn''t understand any of it," the elven girl said apologetically, "Just out of curiosity, how many of those jewels do you have? Most normal Shadow Elves only have one that corresponds with the energies that they use."So that explains why I found only one on her. Although, I found it rather odd that she has a ki core.


    "Three, why do you ask?" Maxine asked, but she already knew the answer when she saw the elven girl''s reaction.


    "That would make you a Shadow Queen, but that''s only if I follow the fucked up logic of those Shadow Lords," the elven girl said but in the next moment, she started cackling as she seemed to realize something, "Those idiots! They ruined themselves by killing one of the Poison Emperor''s daughters seeking a Shadow Queen when one was on this world the whole time."I wonder how she knows that little detail. Although it might be possible they have a means to contact the Shadow Lords using some ancient tech.


    "And why is that funny? And what do you mean they killed someone?!" Maxine asked angrily.


    "I''m not laughing at that poor girl''s death. I''m laughing at the irony of this situation. They left this world thinking themselves superior and after all of that, the being that they sought after was birthed on the planet they abandoned," the shadow elf girl laughed all the harder, "And those same idiots antagonized the deadliest, if not the strongest, man in the known universe. It''s priceless."


    "I see your point," Maxine agreed, but didn''t laugh with her, "If you are done laughing, what do you intend to do once you''ve recovered?


    "I don''t know. Before those fucking ''heroes'' dragged me into fighting those beasts, I was planning on returning to my people once I found a my beast companion," the shadow elf girl said, "But now, I think I will stick around this city. You clearly have a lot to learn about our people and it gives me a good excuse to put something off."


    "I hate to break it to you, but I''m only a half-elf," Maxine said and finally realized she hadn''t introduced herself yet, "I''m Maxine Cinderson by the way."


    "I''m Mara," the shadow elf girl said, "So, you''ve taken the path of a healer?"


    "That''s right, and I''m probably one of the best healers amongst the humans," Maxine said with an iota of pride.


    "Don''t let it get to your head," Emily said as she walked into the room, "We both have a ways to go before either one of us are the best."


    However, Mara was looking rapidly between them in disbelief before smirking and saying, "You two are lovers. You two must have thrown the humans for a loop."


    "And how did you know that little detail?" Maxine asked out of curiosity.


    "It''s easy. You two looked at each other like my parents often do," Mara answered. Maxine felt her face heat up slightly and got the treat of seeing Emily blush as well.


    "I''m not sure how to take that," Maxine said with a smile.


    "Take it as a compliment," Mara said while weakly lifting on her her hands.


    "Then we will," Emily said happily. Maxine noticed that Mara was quickly running out of strength and would most likely fall back to sleep in a few moments.


    "Now you need to get some rest," Maxine said firmly as she noticed Mara''s strength quickly fading.


    "Fine, but we are going to talk more later," Mara said in a progressively weaker tone as her eyes quickly closed. Within seconds, Mara was snoring softly.


    "Well, that was interesting," Emily remarked.


    "Indeed, I always thought Shadow Lords came out of the primordial muck as a group of insufferable jackasses, but it seems they had to work at it," Maxine said with amusement and Emily chuckled lightly.


    A sudden thought occured to Maxine and she placed her palm on Mara''s belly. She extended her spiritual sense into Mara''s body through her hand towards her ovaries. To her surprise, Mara''s ovarieshad a lot of viable eggs. She had expected Mara to have only a few hundred viable eggs due to how long shadow elves had existed, but in the next moment, Maxine smiled.So, they interbred with other races. Although from the looks of it, they didn''t do it very often. Just enough so that their race remains fertile. They are much wiser than the Shadow Lords.


    "Teacher, I''m here to remind you about our training session today," Lanitherin said from outside the room.


    "Head to the training courtyard. I''ll be there in a moment," Maxine answered him before turning to Emily and saying via spitual sense, [I hope I''m just being paranoid, but I think we should keep an eye on Mara.]


    [Why? She seems friendly to me,] Emily replied, [What are you worried about?]


    [I''m worried that she might tell her people about me and that in turn could lead to one of them letting slip that I''m on this world to the Shadow Lords. They seem to have a means to contact them,] Maxine replied, [We need to be extremely cautious while I grow stronger. I don''t need to tell you what might happen if we get discovered.]


    [Alright, I understand,] Emily said, [You best get to training with Lan. I believe you promised togive him some practical training today.]


    [That I did,] Maxine said with a smile on her face.


    Maxine got up and made her way to the training courtyard to find Lanitherinalreadypracticing his basic forms. She watched him for several minutes trying to find a flaw in his movements, but even after he did six sets, he hadn''t made a single error. In fact, he was approaching the dancelike stage.


    "Very good," Maxine said once Lanitherin took a moment to catch his breath, "But remember, those twelve forms are only the foundation and the stronger your foundation, the more powerful you will become. It doesn''t matter how destructive or swift a special attack is. If you lack a solid foundation, you could loose to someone that only knows the basics."


    "Yes, teacher," Lanitherin said as he paid Maxine special attention.


    "I think you''re ready for the next stage of your training. Normally, I would take you out to fight against some beasts, but at your current strength, that would be no different than suicide. There is a safer, but slower, method to gain experience," Maxine said as a smile slowly spread across her lips as she grabbed a wooden blade and took up a stance facing her student, "And that is to spar against me. Don''t worry I will lower my strength and speed to your level so that this won''t be a one sided beating. Ready?"


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    "Yes, teacher," Lanitherin said nervously after he got into a proper stance.


    Maxine didn''t waste a moment and slashed diagonally at Lanitherin. He positioned his blade so that hers would slide off the flat of his blade.Good, so far.However he made a mistake by trying a spinning strike when he took his eyes off of her.


    Maxine twisted her wrist and smacked him on the back of his head with her wooden blade knocking him down. "Never take your eyes off of your opponent. The only exception is if they are dead," Maxine scolded Lanitherin, "Now back on your feet and try again."


    Lanitherin rubbed his head for a moment in surprise before he got back onto his feet, but he didn''t wait to be attacked. He rushed at Maxine and unleashed a vicious waist chop. Maxine retreated a step as his strike threw him around slightly. She shook her head and thunked him on top of his head with her blade. "Never strike so wildly. It will leave you open to attack," Maxine instructed him, "Always have a follow up ora path of retreat preparedin case your opponent dodges your attack."


    This time Lanitherin was angry at being hit and attacked with a series ofaggressive slashes. Maxine simply examined his attacks. He hadn''t over extended his attack in any of them, but he was quickly loosing strength due to the ferocity of his assault. She simply dodged and parried his attacks until he wore himself out and gently tapped him on the head again to prove a point. "Do not fall for the goading or taunts of your opponent and act on anger. All you will do is wear yourself out in your rage while they perserve their strength. Once you become tired, you will be as helpless as a child in his mother''s arms," Maxine said firmly, but her tone softened, "However you did manage to combo those earlier attacks quite nicely without over extending yourself. Were you against an opponent of equal skill, they would''ve had a hard time defending. Well done."


    Lanitherin sat down hard and rubbed his head with his free hand while his other was still grasping his wooden blade. "Teacher, did you have to hit me on the head every time?" he asked.


    "No, but I like the hollow sound it makes when Ihityou there," Maxine teased a nowspeechless Lanitherin, "Teasing aside, you did a good job for our first sparring session."


    Lanitherin eventually regained himself and asked, "When will I be as good as you?"


    "Only time will tell," Maxine answered honestly, "Although it may not be as long as you might believe. You''re absorbing everything phenominally fast and you never make the same mistake twice, once it''s been revealed to you. You will make a fine blademaster one day."


    "It''s still not fair for you to spar with me," Lanitherin complained, "I should be practicing against others at my skill level or at the very least my age."


    "And who do you suggest you spar against? Someone else''s student who, I might add, could cripple you for life by ''accident'' at the first opportunity. No, I think not," Maxine said as she shook her head.


    "What about Silky?" Lanitherin asked.That''s a big no.


    "I doubt you would be able to fight at full strength against her. I''ve seen how you look at her when you think I''m not looking," Maxine said with a knowing smile, "Not to mention,you and her use completely different weapons."


    "What do you mean?" Lanitherin asked, "I''ve never seen her use a weapon at all."


    "That''s because she has reached a level of mastery that I can no longer teach her anything. Her weapon type is beyond my knowledge," Maxine said honestly, "But if you must see her practice, very well. Silky, could you come here please. I know you''re watching us."


    Silky skipped cheerfully out of the shadows nearby. "What''s up, mama?" Silky asked.


    "Could you give Lan a demonstration of your whip skills?" Maxine asked.


    "Sure!" Silky said cheerfully before she grabbed what looked like a belt at her waist and pulled it free. Her belt came off of her waist to reveal itself as a long whip. The whip was twenty feet long with a trio of small blades at the end. It was a very narrow whip, but it was more durable than steel. It was afterall made of Silky''s arachne silk and she had nearly perfect control of it.


    Maxine walked over to a table and threw a single piece of fruit. Silky lashed out a single time with her whip cutting the piece of fruit into five different pieces. The newly sliced fruit on a plate set on the table directly infront of her. "As you can see, Silky''s skill is quite impressive and if she were to fight against you, you wouldn''t ever get close enough to even use your blade," Maxine cautioned Lanitherin, "It''s why I haven''t allowed you to spar against her as of yet."


    "I see," Lanitherin said as he quickly got to his feet and began training with remarkable vigor. However he kept glancing at Silky while he trained and every once in awhile Silky would glance back.And that''s how it starts. And if we are going to live here for five to ten years, those two will no doubt start dating. I might as well let him know what I expect of him if he wants to persue Silky.


    "Keep this in mind, Lan. If you want to woo my daughter, you need to be able to keep up with her in combat," Maxine cautioned Lanitherin as a smile appeared on her lips, "Otherwise you will be wasting your and her time. For I will not let my daughter be wed to a man that can''t even stand beside her."


    "Yes, ma''am," Lanitherin said firmly without stopping his training.


    "Good," Maxine said, "Now, I''ll get to my training."


    Maxine got into a loose stance and began training. However she sent a portion of her mind to the task of examining the Four-Horned Kanzil''s ship. She had created a shadow clone just for this occassion, but without a core, it wouldn''t stay active for more than a few days before she had to make another.


    She just had one big problem. The whole computer system was setup in such a way that anyone that tried to access it incorrectly would trigger the defensive protocols. Which of course caused the whole ship to self-destruct. She hadn''t ever heard of such extreme measures to protect the ship''s main computer. She knew there was a way around the biometric scanner to access the computer systems, but thus far she hadn''t found it. It was so frustrating that she was almost at the point that she was going to remove the computer system and make one of her own in it''s place.


    But she had to remind herself that she knew nothing about computer programming and she would have to trust the locals to program it. That was definitely not an option. She could barely trust them not to stab her in the back as long as she did her job. There was no way she could trust them to program a ship that was quite literately centuries ahead of their own technological level. They were more likely to just steal the ship to reverse engineer it rather than do what she asked. She would just have to do some studying so that she could do it herself.If all else fails, I could sell it too them. Although they would probably complain when the damn thing explodes on them. Hell, I almost lost my shadow clone due to the numberous traps on this thing and I knew where the traps were from the Four-Horned Kanzil''s memories. I can''t imagine how badly someone going through this ship blindly would end up.


    Maxine returned her focus back to her main body when she felt someone besides Silky and Lanitherin was watching her. She turned her head and saw an unfamiliar greying old man with noticeably thinning hair. However he was staring at her far more intently than she was comfortable with.


    "I don''t recall telling the staff to let anyone in without notifying me first," Maxine commented loudly, but it didn''t seem to bother the older man.


    "I apologize for staring. It''s not every day I get to behold a beauty such as yourself," the old man said, "Your daughter will do doubt grow into a similarly beautiful maiden herself one day."Okay, I''m not against getting complimented, but he still hasn''t told me why he is here.


    "Who are you and why are you here?" Maxine asked coldly.


    "I''m Norman Gates, or to your tree dwelling cousins, Delegate Gates," the old man said smoothly, "I''ve simply come to see the person they were negotiating so fiercely for and another matter as well, Ms. Cinderson."


    "You''ve seen me.So unless there is something else you wish to see me about, I ask that you leave," Maxine said as neutrally as she could and added, "I''m sure you are aware that I do not like men."


    "I''m very sorry that my presence upsets you," Delegate Gates said apologetically and quickly asked, "How much do your services cost? And are you able to restore limbs? And if so, to what extent?"Huh? Where did that come from? And here I thought he was going to be an asshole.


    "The Hero''s Association pays me monthly for my services," Maxine answered neutrally, "And to answer your second question, I can''t restore limbs without certainherbs, but if I had them, I could completely restore a severed limb." Delegate Gates'' eyes sparkled with hope.One of his relatives must have lost a limb.


    "Which herbs and how much of each do you need?" Delegate Gates asked quickly.


    "The primary herb I need is actually a blood red tree sap and I do mean blood red. The amount I need is the size of a large nut. There are a few other herbs that I need, but that one is the rarest," Maxine answered, "I can find the rest quite easily."


    "I''m familiar with that substance. It will indeed regenerate a limb at the cost of one year for ever five pounds of flesh regenerated," Delegate Gates answered, "My grandson lost both of his legs and using that ''herb'' would cut his lifespan considerably."


    "That is why I need the auxillary herbs. They nearly eliminate the side-effect of the primary herb," Maxine explained professionally.


    "Huh? How come I''ve never heard of this before?" Delegate Gates asked in confusion.


    "As you said, the blood-red sap is expensive. I doubt anyone even considered finding a way to mitigate it''s side-effect due to the cost," Maxine answered logically.


    "I see," Delegate Gates said as he stroked his chin, "Can you give me a complete list of all the herbs that you need to heal my son? It would save you the trouble of finding them yourself."


    "Certainly," Maxine said as she got a pen and paper before drawing several very detailed pictures of the herbs she needed, "I''m not sure what your people call these herbs, so I drew pictures of them instead. I only need one of each."


    "Good," Delegate Gates said business-like and looked at the pictures, "I know what most of these are and it shouldn''t take me long to procure them."


    "Just get them to me," Maxine said confidently, "I will need some time to get the concoction ready. May I ask how it happened?"


    "A demihuman terrorist managed to get a hold of a bomb," Delegate Gates said sadly, "My grandson happened to be playing nearby and a peice of debris landed on his legs. By the time they were able to free him, his legs were too damaged to save."


    "I''m sorry to hear that," Maxine said sympathetically, "Just bring me the herbs and I should have the potion ready the next day. He will need a lot of nutrition dense foods once he drinks it. It will speed up his regeneration."


    "I''m aware and thank you," Delegate Gates said.


    "Don''t thank me yet. It''s my job to restore those in need," Maxine replied.And it doesn''t hurt to have a friend in this world''s government. It will definitely deter a lot of idiots from trying something stupid.


    "I will get those herbs to you in the next few days," Delegate Gates said with a smile.


    "Alright," Maxine said and watched Delegate Gates leave. She noticed he had two peak silver stage bodyguards trailing behind him.


    Maxine turned around and resumed her training. While she did so, she thought about a few things.Well, I just revealed that I''m an alchemist. I''ll probably be swamped with requests to make potions now. Ugh, that will definitely cut down my free time quite a bit and it will become hard to make time to spend with Emily. Perhaps I can cut that down somewhat if I start requesting rare herbs for those potions. It''s what Guan did. Regardless, I will have a friend in this world''s government. I know it will keep any idiots at by, but I wonder for how long. No matter, It will give me plenty of time to try finding a way to bypass that ship''s biometric scanner and access the computer system.

 Chapter 120

    Maxine checked on Mara once again and found her walking on her own after nearly a week of bedrest. She still looked a bit too thin for Maxine to in good conscious to let her leave, but she knew Mara wanted to go back home to make a report.


    "You should rest for another few days before leaving," Maxine advised, "You''re still too weak to travel very far."


    "I know better than anyone what kind of condition my body is in and my decision stands. I will be leaving today," Mara replied firmly, "Our people need to know that you live here and don''t worry, I won''t mention that you''re a Shadow Queen. If it makes you feel any better, I will be back as soon as I can."


    "It does not," Maxine answered angrily. She had learned a great deal about shadow elves from Mara. Like humans, they believed in the persuit of knowledge, but unlike humans, they didn''t wish to compromise nature in that persuit. Hence their progress was extremely slow. However it didn''t stop them from developing an interstellar communicator. On the plus side, the thing only worked under very specific circumstances which only occur for three days every five years.Considering they just got very recent information on me, I''m guessing they won''t be able to use it for another five years. That should give me plenty of time to increase my cultivation by a few levels as long as I can get my hands on some potent cores.


    "I''m sorry, but if I don''t return soon, they may think I died," Mara said apologetically.


    "You could at least have one of the forest elves escort you most of the way," Maxine complained, but as Mara opened her mouth to protest, Maxine continued, "I know, I know. You can''t reveal where your people are located, even to other elves. I get it. I just wish you could bend the rule just once."


    "I wish I could too. But without approval of the elders, I would be imprisoned for years, and my escorts would be killed," Mara said sorrowfully.


    Maxine was exasperated. She didn''t go through all the trouble of nursing Mara for her to commit suicide by leaving in her condition, but she didn''t know of a way to convince the idiot from leaving. "Fine, do as you wish. You can get yourself killed for all I care," Maxine said angrily and stormed out of the room.


    Maxine didn''t look back, but she knew Mara hadn''t wasted a moment to leave. Maxine could only refocus her mind back to Lanitherin. He had mentioned yesterday that he had gathered the pre-requisite threads of energy. Although she was curious why he used the word ''energy'' rather than essence, ki or mana, but she would figure that out when she reached the training courtyard.


    "Teacher," Lanitherin greeted Maxine as she entered the training courtyard. He was standing in the absolute center of it.


    "Lan, stay right there," Maxine said as she walked up to him, "We are going to form your cores today. I''m curious which kind of core are you going to form?"


    "Essence and ki, I think," Lanitherin answered.


    "A Ki core is a great choice for a blade user," Maxine said happily without thinking, but she instantly realized what he had just said, "What do you mean essence and ki?!"


    "You said I should gather the energy in the air and refine it, and I did," Lanitherin answered honestly, "Based on the descriptions in the manual, I''m positive I can form a ki and mana core." Maxine had a very hard time believing him.


    "Lan, hold still. I''m going to check this for myself. Is that alright?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, teacher. I trust you," Lanitherin said fearlessly. Maxine gently scanned Lanitherin''s body and to her surprise and glee, he had told the truth. He had nine strands of both ki and essence.


    "Wonderful," Maxine said happily, but her tone quickly became grave, "Remember do not form both cores at the same time. You could make a mistake and permnamently ruin your future if you try to form both of them at the same time."


    "Understood," Lanitherin said as he lowered himself into a lotus position to meditate.


    Maxine observed the energies cycling in his body. True to his word he formed his ki core first. The strands of ki quickly converged in his lower body and formed a spiral. She could have sworn they felt sharp to her spiritual sense, but she quickly dismissed it as her imagination playing tricks on her. Unfortunately this feeling grew stronger as his core took form and when it finally formed, she saw small blades etched into his core. However it didn''t seem to be effecting his core''s stability. If anything, his core felt more powerful because of it.What the actual fuck is going on?!


    Maxine investigated the interior of Lanitherin''s ki core and found that his blade energy mixed perfectly with his ki to form a hybrid energy. She barely noticed when he started forming his essence core. This time she paid special attention to it. His blade energy was merging with his essence strands just as it had with his ki.Incredible. I never knew that energies could be combined in a core safely. Hmmm. I might try experimenting with my own energies, but I will use beast cores for this. I won''t risk going insane if I do it improperly on my own cores.


    When Lanitherin''s essence core finished forming, he opened his eyes and Maxine congratualted him, "Congratulations. You have formed both of your cores, young Blade Lord." Maxine felt a someone watching them and became angry.Who dares interrupt my student''s core formation!?She whipped her head around to look at the offender and saw Aenwynn.


    "What did you just call him?!" Aenwynn demanded.


    "A blade lord, why?" Maxine asked.


    "Blade Lords only appear in elven tribes. Never before has one appeared amongst humans," Aenwynn explained, "Humans simply cannot form two cores while infusing them with the special energy." Maxine chuckled lightly.


    "Lan, grab your training blade and try to coat it with your energies," Maxine instructed Lanitherin. He bowed slightly and quickly did as he was bid. It took him a few moments to coat his training blade in both essence and ki, but the blade energy made itself known very quickly by making a slight humming noise in the air.


    Maxine glanced at a gobsmacked Aenwynn. "Cannot do it, you say? It seems like my student is just like me: capable of the impossible," Maxine said calmly while trying her best not to sound smug, but she knew she failed.


    "I wish you had told me he was this gifted. If you had-," Aenwynn said grievously, but Maxine cut her off, "He would be instructed by an elvenblademaster that would be prejudiced against him due to Lan being human? Lan deserves better than that."


    "Teacher, I don''t want to be taught by anyone other than you," Lanitherin spoke up before either of them could continue.


    Maxine raised her eyebrow at Lanitherin and looked at Aenwynn before saying, "Well, you heard him. He rather I teach him."Although, I know he wants to stay here due to Silky being here.


    "Fine, but should he ever change his mind, all he needs to do is make his desire known," Aenwynn said, but her attitude quickly changed when she seemed to remember something, "I just remembered why I came here in the first place. Why is it that you didn''t say anything about your recent guest?"


    "She asked me not to," Maxine answered honestly, "I was simply respecting her wishes."


    Aenwynn sighed, "I know you have a duty and obligation to protect the privacy of your patients, but couldn''t you have stalled her until I got here?"


    "No," Maxine said flatly, "She was quite adamant about leaving this morning against my advice. I don''t even know if she will survive the journey back to her people."


    "Fine," Aenwynn said with a growl, "Just so you know, I will be leaving in the next few days. Our negotiations are nearly at an end. Do you still wish to remainhere? Wouldn''t you be more comfortable amongst other elves?"


    "No, thank you. I''ve been given enough looks of distain from my elven cousins for one lifetime as it is," Maxine answered.No matter how much you say otherwise, your companions have given me enough of those looks for me to figure out the kind of welcome I would recieve.


    "I understand," Aenwynn said with disappointment in her voice.


    "If there is nothing else, we need to give Lan some time to get used to his new strength," Maxine said to Aenwynn before turning to Lanitherin, "Go ahead and experiment with your newfound abilities for as long as you want. Try not to damage anything, but I understand if can''t avoid it. We can resume your normal training tomorrow."


    "Yes, teacher," Lanitherin said with a slight bow before he started swinging his energy clad, wooden training sword.


    Maxine left the training courtyard with Aenwynn and escorted her to the front door of her mansion. "Is there something else on your mind? You seem edgy," Maxine said knowingly and Aenwynn sighed audibly.


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "Why didn''t you mention that you were an alchemist earlier?" Aenwynn asked.It seems Delegate Gates couldn''t contain himself and said something to them.


    "I didn''t think it was important," Maxine answered, "As a healer, it''s my duty to learn everything that I can to help my patients. My alchemical knowledge is just another means to heal my patients."


    "Where did you learn your skills?" Aenwynn asked.


    "Self-study," Maxine answered simply.I''m technically telling the truth. Guan only gave me his notes. He never guided me personally.


    "You keep making a habit of doing the impossible. First you are a blademaster, teacher of a human Blade Lord and now a skilled, self-taught alchemist. Is there any other impossible feat you wish to add to this?" Aenwynn asked almost humorously.


    "Not at the moment," Maxine said with an amused smile on her lips.


    "Good. You''ve given me enough of a headache to deal with as it is," Aenwynn said, "I won''t be able to come visit you again after today and there is one last thing I want to ask you."


    "Go for it," Maxine replied encouragingly.


    "What are you going to do once the humans realize what your daughter is?" Aenwynn asked and Maxine felt her blood run cold, "You know how their greed will influence their actions."


    "I know perfectly well how they will behave in that situation and I have a plan in place in that event," Maxine answered.I will let my Shadow Wolves loose to cause as much havoc as they can while I flee with everyone atop my dragon.


    "Whatever plan you have, it may not be enough to deter the humans," Aenwynn said gravely and she handed Maxine a map and a silver token, "Just know that if you ever need shelter, you will always be welcome amongst the forest elves." Maxine already knew it was a map to the closest forest elf city. She guess the silver token was a form of identification amongst the elves or at the very least, a pass of some kind.


    "Thank you," Maxine said gratefully, "But I already have a place picked out to hide at."


    "All the same, my invitation still stands," Aenwynn said.


    "Thank you again and may you have safe travels," Maxine said as they finally reached the front door to her mansion.


    "I will since our guardian beast will be escorting us home," Aenwynn said, "Farewell, my friend."


    "Farewell," Maxine said in return as Aenwynn left.


    However as Aenwynn left her sight, Hero Alec Ard appeared with a strange man in tow. He was skinny, almost skeletal, in appearance and had raven black hair. She glanced at the badge on the man''s hip. He was an A ranked hero, and for some reason, he made her skin crawl more than normal.God I hate this unreasonable fear of men.


    "Maxine!" Hero Alec Ard called to her as he jogged up to her with that strange man, "I''m glad I caught you. This is Hero Malcolm. He was recently recruited and I wanted to introduce him to this city''s best healer."I doubt that''s the truth. I bet he just wanted another excuse to come here and invite me to his team again. Doesn''t he ever give up?


    "I''m one of the top two healers," Maxine corrected him, "While I am the strongest, there are others far more efficient at using their energies to heal than I am."


    "Regardless, you can nearly fully heal almost any injury," Hero Alec Ard countered.


    "While true, it''s also ruinously inefficient for me to heal an injury to that extent," Maxine answered honestly. However Maxine felt something brush against her mental defenses. Someone''s spiritual sense was trying to effect her mind. She traced it to Hero Malcolm.I don''t know what he is trying, but he can''t break through my defenses. It''s rather annoying.


    "That by itself still requires skill," Hero Alec Ard complimented Maxine.


    "Not at much as you would think," Maxine answered and looked into Hero Malcolm''s eyes. He wasn''t looking at her face. His gaze was locked onto her chest.I know I have a nice pair of breasts, but he should know better than to stare at them so blatantly.She took a closer look at what he was trying to do with his spiritual sense. It looked like he was trying to stimulate a certain part of her brain. She had no idea what it would do for certain, but she was guessing it would put her in a very suggestive state of mind.


    "Don''t sell yourself short. You are a miracle worker," Hero Alec Ard continued to flatter Maxine and in that moment, Maxine finally realized what Hero Malcolm was trying to do.That piece of shit.


    "If you truly felt that way, you wouldn''t bring this sex crazed idiot here. He''s actively trying to turn me into his sex puppet," Maxine said angrily and saw Hero Alec Ard''s surprise, "Although his attempts are rather pathetic. I could resist his psychic attacks all day."


    "What?!" Hero Alec Ard roared angrily before slamming Hero Malcolm to the ground, "Are you stupid?! Pissing off the healers is a sure way to ensure that you die!"You''re one to talk. You''re probably the one that put him up to this in the first place.


    "I''ll leave you to deal with this," Maxine said as she walked inside and sighed. It wasn''t even lunch time yet and she was already stressed. Thankfully she hoped nothing else would add onto this stress. What she needed to do was relax and she knew just how to do that.


    Maxine headed to the library to grab a book. She had made a promise to the children in the refugee camp to read them a children''s story last week. She had formed a habit of visiting those children at least once a week to either teach them how to read or tell them stories. But that wasn''t all she did for them. She had arranged a charity to help feed the children in the refugee camp. She supplied most of the wealth to make it happen and only a few other heroes pitched in. Because of their kindness, she made it a priority to see to their wounds first and far more thoroughly than she normally would if they ever came to her with injuries.


    Once she had a book in hand, she went outside and used her energies to fly to the eastern gate at sub sonic speed. Only a few people glanced at her. She flew around the city enough that very few people considered it odd.


    When she reached the eastern gate, she immediately noticed something was off. Soldiers were scrambling atop the walls and heroes were rushing out of the eastern gate. It was then that she heard a siren going off and her heart dropped into her stomach. That siren was to warn everyone that a beast horde was on it''s way.Shit, shit, shit! Those fuckers made laws so that even in this kind of situation the children amongst the refugees can''t take shelter within the city''s walls.


    Maxine flew past the wall and found the children clustered together with their parents forming a fleshy wall between them and the forest. Each one of their parents had some kind of makeshift weapon in their hands. She felt a familiar pain as she saw that scene. It reminded her of several events from her past life where several parents sacrificed their lives for their children to live just for a few moments longer.At that instant, she decided to help them. She didn''t carewho she pissed off with her actions.


    Maxine dived down to a spot directly infront of the refugees protecting their children and landed with enough force to knock up a dust cloud. She used that as a screen to put her dress she was wearing and the book in her hand into her dimensional ring and summon forth her Shadow''s Embrace armor minus the hood and face mask. Familiar white scaled leather armor covered her from neck to foot. It was only white due to her conscious effort to change it''s color.


    She admonished herself that she hadn''t actually used it since she had gotten it from Guan and thus it wasn''t battle tested yet. However she couldn''t think about that right now.


    As the dust cloud cleared, she used her energies to put her loosely hanging hair into a tight braid since she didn''t want her long hair to get into her eyes. Getting blinded by her own hair would not be pleasant while dodging attacks from multiple angles.


    She couldsensethe refugees and the nearby heroes look at her with disbelief, but she wasn''t going to stop there. She pulled the remaining dust cloud in to help form two silver blades with her energies in each of her hands. These blades were not as strong as her Twilight Iron Blades, but they were good enough to kill most silver stage beasts. But to kill a gold stage beast, they were completely inadequate. Thankfully she doubted she would have to face a beast of that strength considering the number of heroes nearby.


    Still, Maxine wasted no time and walked straight to the highest ranked hero present. "Why havn''t you taken these people, or at the very least the children, inside of the walls?" she asked angrily.


    "We can''t," the hero responded, "They would disrupt our defense."


    "And how pray tell would a group of children do that?" Maxine asked, "If anything, they would motivate the soldiers to fight harder."


    "Well, I ...," the hero said, but after only a moment of being glared at, he folded, "We can''t. It''s against the govenor''s orders to let them in."She gave him a withering glare.


    "Then go inform the govenor that as long as they remain out here, so will I," Maxine growled and when he didn''t move quickly, she added, "You bestinform himquickly. The beast horde is almost here. I may be a skilled blademaster as well as a healer, but even I won''t last that long against a beast horde." She didn''t bother to see if he was going to do it or not as she walked back infront of the refugees and their children.


    He had apparently sent a runner because not five minutes after she finished talking to him Aenwynn charged out of the eastern gate. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Aenwynn demanded, "Why are you risking your life for some ordinary humans?! Do you have any idea what you''ve cost us?!"


    "Hello, Aenwynn. It''s nice to see you too," Maxine said casually, "I thought I wouldn''t be able to see you again for awhile."


    "Don''t play around!" Aenwynn roared, "We won''t be able to free as many of my people now because of you!"


    "Then simply buy them all back," Maxine countered coldly, "You should know as well as I do humans are highly motivated by greed. You said so earlier. But if that doesn''t suit you, start assasinating their government officials and tell them you won''t stop until your people are freed."


    "That''s barbaric," Aenwynn said in horror.


    "And that attitude is why humans will always take advantage of you," Maxine replied, "If you won''t be ruthless to the people that enslave your people, they will just walk all over you."


    "That still doesn''t tell me why you are trying to kill yourself over some humans," Aenwynn growled.


    "Think what you will. I''m not moving until they are inside those walls," Maxine said firmly, "In any case, I doubt your people will have to do much at the negotiation table. I gave a limb restoring potion to Delegate Gates two days ago and his grandson is already showing signs of regeneration without side-effects. And the heroes that I''ve saved from loss of life and limb will no doubt make acommotion about me being out here in harm''s way."


    "And if you''re wrong?" Aenwynn asked.


    "Then that''s my problem, not yours," Maxine answered without emotion.If they really don''tbring these people inside the wallsand I survive this, I''m probably going to kill all of the delegates and the govenor. After that, I will take everyone to a cave near the Four-Horned Kanzil''s ship. Compared to putting up with these corrupt assholes, living in the wilds would be a piece of cake.


    Somehow Aenwynn caught onto her thoughts and she backed away from Maxine with a fearful look. "I will try to get them to change their minds," Aenwynn said, "Stay alive until then." She turned into a blur as she ran back into the city.Now all I need to do is wait. Since the sirens just went off, those beasts should be here in roughly thirty minutes to an hour. They better make their decision quick. It will take time to get these people beind those walls and I really don''t want to be here when that beast horde arrives. Although I would probably survive it as long as these ''heroes'' arn''t completely idiots. However these refugees won''t be so fortunate.

 Chapter 121

    Maxine immediately regretted standing infront of the refugees. Without the distraction of interacting with the children, she felt the full weight of her androphobia. She could quite literately feel the gazes of every man nearby. It took a conscious effort for her to stay vigilant to whatever may come out of the forest. She had been hoping that the delegation would have taken their heads out of their asses and let the refugees in. But even after twenty minutes of waiting, she hadn''t seen a single sign of them changing their mind.


    However she noticed the hero that she yelled at before was walking towards her with a complicated expression on his face. "Miss Cinderson, it isn''t a beast horde that''s coming. It''s an orcish army," the hero said once he reached Maxine, "They number over two thousand. Even the weakest amongst them is stronger than most C ranked heroes. Their leader is at least the very top of A class, if not S class." Oh, shit. No wonder they won''t open up the gates. But don''t they know that with that kind of strength, that wall might as well be made of styrofoam. Their leader would just tear right through it. And unless those automated turrets have guass cannons on them, they will have a hard time hitting the bulk of that orcish army.


    "I see. Thank you for telling me, but I sitll won''t leave this spot," Maxine said. I may not need to fight if it''s a bunch of orcs. From what I''ve gathered, they don''t like attacking non-combatants due to their sense of honor. It brings them no honor to kill someone too much weaker than themselves. I wonder. Could I challenge their leader to single combat to resolve this without a lot of bloodshed? It''s worth a try, but first, let''s see how strong he or she actually is.


    "Please, go inside. It''s not too late if you go now," the hero pleaded with Maxine, "They will be here in less than ten minutes."


    "Thank you for the warning, but I already told you. I intend to stay right here until the refugees are safely behind the city walls," Maxine answered calmly, "Just a quick question, has anyone ever challenged an orc warchief to single combat before?"


    "Yes, but before you get your hopes up, everyone that''s tried that has died horribly," the hero replied.


    "I bet none of those that challenged an orc warcheif were S class or S class equivalent. Am I right?" Maxine asked.


    "Well, you''re not wrong," the hero said, "But you''re a healer. You don''t stand a chance against an orc that has lived and breathed battle for who knows how long."


    "I can handle myself," Maxine answered more calmly than she felt. She really didn''t like him being this close to her.


    The hero opened his mouth to protest some more, but what sounded like a warhorn sounded off. Oddly, it was at this moment that the refugees were being directed inside the walls though a small door built into the main gate.Better late than not at all. At least, they are bringing in the children first.


    Maxine scanned the forest with her spiritual sense. She found that the orcs were taking their time at a slow walk. However they would still get here before the refugees finished getting behind the walls.


    She quickly found the orc warcheif. He was grotesquely muscular and his strength was at gold stage rank two. He was wearing heavy metallic armor, not that he needed it, and wielded an oversized war ax strapped over his shoulder. But what was most intimidating was his sheer size. He was close to seven feet tall. Wow, talk about a beefcake. I''m not sure if I can beat him without my battleform, but then again, I''ve only been in one real fight since I formed my ki core. Still, all that muscle will most likely slow him down and his weapon should be slow as well. I should have the advantage when it comes to speed. Still, I don''t want to fight him. Perhaps I can get the refugees inside of the walls faster.


    Maxine tried to think of a way to get the refugees inside the city walls faster, but she kept coming up with plans that either revealed her status as a Shadow Queen or another ability that would get her just as much attention. She couldn''t even bring her Shadow Wolves to bear because they were currently protecting Emily, and the others.


    As if Maxine''s thoughts summoned her, Emily ran out of the city to Maxine''s side. Emily glanced over to the children behind Maxine and a look of understanding covered her face. "Looks like I can''t convince you to go back. You always had a soft spot for children," Emily said knowingly, "Is there anything I can do to help?"


    "It would make me feel a bit better if you were covering the children''s retreat into the city," Maxine admitted after a few seconds of thought.


    "On it," Emily said, but she gave Maxine a reluctant look.She knows that I sent her back there to be out of the fight. But why wouldn''t I? She has almost no offensive abilities.


    Seconds after Emily went to the children, Hero Alec Ard seemed to just appear beside Maxine. He was decked out in armor and had a massivewar hammer in his hands. "What do you want Hero Ard?" Maxine asked so coldly that her expression became that of an ice queen.


    "I''m here to apologize for Malcolm''s behavior. I told him not to use his abilities, but he ignored me," Hero Alec Ard said remorsefully. Maxine looked at him angrily, but once she saw his eyes, she knew he was telling the truth. It genuinely surprised Maxine that he apologized and meant it.


    "Are you here to convince me to go behind the city walls as well?" Maxine asked neutrally as she turned back to face the forest.


    "I was," Hero Alec Ard admitted, "But after seeing how your companion failed to, I doubt that I will have any chance at all."


    "Then why are you talking to me?" Maxine asked.


    "Is it wrong to talk to the only woman that I''ve cared about other than my mother before I have a life and death battle?" Hero Alec Ard said.Maxine whipped her head around and looked at him in disbelief.That sounded a whole lot like a love confession.


    "What is that supposed to mean?" Maxine asked while trying to keep her calm.


    "I''m going to battle it out with the orc warchief in a death match to protect you and I just wanted to talk to you before I did," Hero Alec Ard answered more clearly, but he was far too calm. It was almost creepy. Maxine didn''t think she could beat the orc warchief and she estimated that Hero Alec Ard would put up some fight before being killed.


    "You''ll die. He''s more powerful and more skilled than you are," Maxine told him.


    "I know, but if it keeps you from having to face that beast, I''ll die with a smile on my face," Hero Alec Ard announced bravely. Well, that settles it. He really does love me or at least, he thinks he does. So, Hero Malcolm did that shit on his own. Now I feellike shit for thinkingHero Alec Ard put him up to it. Now all I need to do is stop this love-struck idiot from commiting suicide.


    "I''m faster and more agile than you are and that muscle-bound orc doesn''t look like he has either attribute in high supply. Neither do you for that matter. Thus, I have a better chance at winning than you," Maxine affirmed, "I don''t care how well you can take a hit. That oversized ax will do some serious damage if it hits you."


    "Thank you for worrying about me. You have no idea how happy that makes me feel," Hero Alec Ard said happily, "But I will not be detered from this fight."


    Maxine glared at him angrily, but before either of them could say anything a booming voice said, "Why don''t both of you come together? Humans and elves are so weak it''s the only way you will have a chance at beating me." Both of them whipped their heads to the side and saw the Orc Warchief standing a few hundred feet away. Apparently he had arrived, got within earshot and heard them arguing.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "Are you sure?" Maxine asked, "You can''t decide to only fight one of us mid-way through the battle."


    "Yes, yes. Unlike humans, orcs keep their word. The terms of our match are simple. Should you beat me, my warriors will leave peacefully," the orc warchief said and added with a wicked smile, "But should I win, I will take your heads and claim this city as my own."


    "Agreed," Hero Alec Ard said.


    "I don''t agree to the taking my head part, but feel free to do that to this big idiot beside me," Maxine said angrily, "I intend to live." The orc warchief smiled at Maxine''s comment.


    "I''m Grom Stonescream, Warchief of the RocRoc clan," the orc warchief said as he pulled his ax off of his back and took a very aggressive stance.


    "I''m Maxine Cinderson, daughter of the hydra," Maxine answered politely as she took a fighting stance, but when Maxine noticed that Hero Alec Ard hadn''t gotten announced his name yet, she scolded him, "Tell him who you are. Don''t you know proper dueling etiquette?"


    "What? Oh! S-class Hero Alec Ard," Hero Alec Ard announced and hefted his warhammer.


    After a breif moment, Grom Stonescream roared and charged at them. Maxine cursed under her breath at how close they still were to the refugees, and charged forward to meet him.


    Just as Maxine got into range to attack, Grom Stonescream thrust the end of his axe at Maxine''s shoulder.Oh? Not going to use the sharp end of your ax to attack me? Big mistake.Maxine dodged underneith the blow and slashed out twice with her blades as she passed. Unfortunately, his armor was better than she thought and she only managed to score the armor rather than cut through it.Well, that didn''t work. I better try a softer spot next time.


    Hero Alec Ard was right behind her and swung his warhammer in an overhand swing at Grom Stonescream. Grom simply side-stepped the blow and let it hit the ground with a massive impact before cleaving his ax at Hero Alec Ard''s chest. The expected bloodspray didn''t happen. Instead Hero Alec Ard went airborne followed by a shower of sparks.


    Maxine didn''t pay attention to their short scuffle. Instead she managed to catch up and stabbed both of her blades into Grom Stonescreams knees from behind. I don''t care how good your armor is. There is always a place that doesn''t have any and one of them is behind the knees! To her surprise, her weapons only sunk in a few inches. She had expected them to go through his legs entirely and explode out of his knee caps. Shit! These blade constructs are too weak!


    Before she could react, a huge guantleted fist smashed her in the face in a backhand swing. She dropped her weapons as she was thrown off of her feet and through the air almost seventy feet back. She skid on the ground for a while, before coming to a stop. However she didn''t waste a moment and quickly got back on her feet.


    Maxine saw Grom Stonescream hadn''t moved from where she had attacked him. She smiled to herself as she realized he lost a great deal of his mobility from her last attack. Although she still had no idea how to actually inflict a lethal blow on him and that''s when she felt blood coming out of her nose. She took a quick swipe at it with her hand and looked at the blood on the back of her hand. This gives me an idea. I wonder if my blood is toxic as the hydra''s was in greek mythology. I already have acid breath and rapid regeneration, albeit a weaker version, while I''m in my Shadow Queen form. Why wouldn''t I have at least a weakened form of the hydra''s ultra poisonous blood?


    Hero Alec Ard had returned with a roaring charge to fighting with Grom Stonescream. What came next left Maxine dumbfoudned. They were swinging their weapons at each other with very little in the way of defense. It would have been comical if their attacks weren''t leaving bloody injuries on each other. That''s just stupid. Why would you just stand there taking a beating without making a serious attempt to dodge?! I know Hero Alec Ard can infuse his flesh with metal essence, but that''s not excuse. He''s taking damage for no good reason.


    Maxine quickly coated her fingernails in the blood that had leaked out of her nose. Thankfully, her bleeding had already stopped so she didn''t need to worry about accidentally poisoning anyone.


    She quickly charged forward and leaped onto Grom Stonescream''s back. In an instant, she found a gap in his armor and started clawing at him. But his skin was so thick that she had trouble penetrating through it.No wonder my blades didn''t do much. This guy puts a whole new meaning to thick skinned. Still she had left several smears of her blood on the back of his neck and his skin was starting to discolor. It was a sign that her blood was indeed a contact poison.


    Unfortunately, Grom Stonescream got a hold of her braid after knocking Hero Alec Ard away and slammed her violently on the ground repeatedly. Her scalp was hurting more than the rest of her body as she was being used like a mallet. She was promptly thrown of into the distance once Hero Alec Ard managed to return.


    When she hit the ground, Maxine checked her injuries. She was mostly bruised and thankfully, nothing was broken. And she had only lost a few strands of hair. Ugh, that hurt. I really wish I could use my Twighlight Iron Blades on this guy, but with just energy formed ones, I can''t do much to penetrate that bastard''s armor. Well, in any case, he should start feeling the poison any second now. However beyond her expectations, Grom Stonescream kept fighting Hero Alec Ard without missing a beat.Or not. Maybe it will take some time to be fully effective.


    Maxine unsteadily returned to her feet, and reformed her blades before charging again. She slashed twice at his back leaving a couple more shallow cuts in his armor and retreated a step when he swung a backhanded fist in her direction. However she noticed his strike was noticeably slower than it had been before.


    Maxine smiled and started harrying him from the rear. It kept him from investing heavily into fighting Hero Alec Ard. After a handful of seconds, Hero Alec Ard managed to bring his warhammer down on top of Grom Stonescream''s head causing it to explode out in chunks out of his now flattened helmet.


    With Grom Stonescream dead, his orc warriors had no more reason to remain. She saw them turn around and treading back into the forest. Maxine sighed out in relief. She had half-expected them to charge in fury once their leader died.


    Finally, she turned to see how badly Hero Alec Ard was injured and winced in sympathetic pain. He was covered in lacerations both big and small. His right arm was completely limp with a huge gash down the length of it and his face looked like a mishappened tomato.If nothing else, he knows how to take a beating.


    As Maxine moved towards him, she heard cheers just before he collapsed onto his back. Without thinking, she scanned his body with her spiritual sense. Aside from the gash on his arm, most of his wounds were superficial. Although, if he didn''t get some kind of treatment for the inflamation on his face, he would probably loose one of his eyes.


    She walked up to him and quickly healed with the huge wound on his left arm. Partway through, Emily knelt on the other side of Hero Alec Ard and worked on healing his face. Maxine appreciated the help immensely since most of her own energies were going into healing the various bruises on her body. I wonder how hydras in the wild keep up with the energy and nutritional needs for their rapid regeneration. Perhaps it has something to do with their voracious appetite that''s often depicted in ancient legends. I might try eating something in a little bit once I''m running low on essence, mana and ki.


    "At least, you arn''t hurt too bad this time," Emily said, "I have this big idiot to thank for that. If he hadn''t been so fierce keeping that orc occupied, it may have considered you to be the biggest threat and tried to finish you off first." He''s still an idiot.


    "Don''t call him an ''it,'' Emily. Grom Stonescream deserves respect for fighting with honor," Maxine said calmly. They continued to heal Hero Alec Ard.


    Maxine had just finished healing his arm and had moved to heal his stomach when she felt someone groping her butt. She quickly turned her head and found that Hero Alec Ard was using his healed arm to grope her butt. He only made things worse for himself by flashing her a happy smile.


    "I think I''ve died and gone to heaven," Hero Alec Ard said dreamily.


    Maxine''s expression twisted into rage and felt her right eye twitch several times. "Just because you''re injured," Maxine said angrily and she punched Hero Alec Ard in the crotch as she roared, "doesn''t mean you can cop a feel!" Hero Alec Ard unleashed a blood curdling scream. Every single man winced sympathetically. Fortunately for him, he was durable enough that she didn''t break his balls.


    Maxine was so angry that she got to her feet and stormed back into the city without tending to any of Hero Alec Ard''s other injuries. Once inside, she saw the refugees were standing just inside the walls under guard by soldiers. They were scared, but unharmed. A few of the children smiled at her and her fury evaporated. She just couldn''t stay angry in the presence of children.


    A small girl walked up to Maxine and asked, "Are the big green men gone?"


    "Yes, they''re gone," Maxine answered the little girl.


    "Are they going to send us back outside?" the little girl asked fearfully.


    "I don''t know," Maxine answered honestly, "But I imagine they will."


    "Will you still read to us?" the little girl asked.


    "Of course," Maxine said, "But first let me go change. My current attire is hardly suited for storytelling."


    "''Kay," the little girl said and she ran back to the other refugees. Maxine smiled at the little girl''s retreating form before heading back to the mansion using flight. She didn''t want to keep the children waiting.I really look forward to what kind of people those children will grow into. I just hope Hero Alec Ard won''t be a pest after this. Who am I kidding? Of course, he will. But with how things are, I can just avoid him. I wonder if Mara will report that I''m a Shadow Queen. I better plan for the eventuality that she has. Although I doubt they will make a move until they have the backing of the Shadow Lords. So, I shouldn''t need to expect them to move for another five years. That should be plenty of time to get that Four Horned Kanzil''s ship up and running. Even if it doesn''t, I still have that warp crystal to send me to another world.

 Chapter 122

    Maxine''s talent for alchemy had become wide spread in the past five years since she has been on this world. Thankfully, she was able to mislead everyone into thinking she only knew how to make healing potions as well as a limb regrowth potion and had asked the Hero''s Association for various herbs and beast cores to ''experiment'' with in exchange for healing potions. When in truth, she was using those herbs to concoct potions to increase the strength of her group or for poisons that she could use to fight with.


    Silky made great strides in her cultivation and had reached silver stage rank three. Although Maxine had a great deal of trouble formulating a breakthrough potion for her. Thankfully, the arachne twins provided her with the necessary recipe. Unfortunately, finding herbs those particular herbs was too difficult since the main ingredient was non-existent on this world. Thus she had the heroes find a suitable alternatives, which was no easy task. It was difficult refining it with such limited herbs, but she managed it. She only failed a dozen times before she was able to make the breakthrough potion.


    Emily had a similar problem due to her divine essence while trying to break through to silver stage. Mostly because there were no herbs on this world with that posessed the divine attribute, but that wasn''t a big issue. Maxine just made a normal breakthrough potion and it seemed to work. Although, Emily had to drink a few of them for it to actually work. Unfortunately, she wasn''t able to progress very far into silver stage and was still at rank one.


    Howard, on the other hand, reached iron stage rank one. It surprised Maxine to no end that he was able to reach that stage at the age of eighty-eight and he gained a gift by regressing in his physical age to look like someone in his fifties. It made Maxine remark once again that he would have been a cultivation monster had he been introduced to essence earlier in his life.


    Lanitherin, on the other hand, was the freak of nature Howard should have been. He had gone from having almost no cultivation to the peak of iron stage in just five years with only minimal help from potions. In another month, he would be ready to breakthrough to silver stage. Maxine had no doubt that his rapid rise in cultivation was in part due to his desire to be with Silky.


    Unfortunately, Maxine''s own progress was far less substantial. She had only managed to increase two ranks to match with Silky. However it was only because she had to focus on cultivating three energies rather than Silky''s one. It would have been far less had she not managed to convince the heroes to gather beast cores and herbs in exchange for healing potions.


    There was one other good bit of news. She managed to hack the main computer of the Four Horned Kanzil''s ship two months ago. Although she nearly caused it to self-destruct in the process. She hadn''t realized how dangerous that had been until after she saw the specifications of the ship. It ran on a zero-point energy reactor. If it had exploded, the explosion would have undoubtedly left a five mile wide crater at a minimum, but even at the maximum of fifty miles, the city she was in was well out of the blast radius. Thankfully, that was the end of the issues with that ship. It was relatively easy to repair once she got a hold of a few rare materials in the city and decided to start calling her new ship ''Hallas.''


    There was one very large problem however. Hero Alec Ard had become increasingly more affectionate towards Maxine and he brought Maxine more of the beast cores and herbs than anyone else. He even went so far as to free every non-criminal slave in the city using his own wealth to prove that he was a changed man. While she appreciated the help, she didn''t like attention from him, but even she had to admit that it helped with her androphobia.


    But something was beginning to make Maxine very nervous. She hadn''t seen much of Mara or Aenwynn for the last few months and the time for the communication window with the Alliance had come and gone. She was worried that they were planning to capture her and it was why she insisted on everyone staying close to each other for the time being.


    As of that moment, everyone in her group was resting in the room reserved for entertainment while Maxine nervously paced. "Mom, do you really need to pace like that?" Silky asked. She had grown up into a very beautiful young woman and was slightly taller than Maxine. Her bust was as big as Maxine''s as well and she still had a little room left to grow. She kept her black hair at shoulder length for some odd reason that Maxine couldn''t divine.


    "It would make me feel more at ease as well if you sat down, teacher," Lanitherin agreed with Silky as usual. He had grown into a muscular young man. Although she found it odd that he let his hair grow halfway down his back in a pony tail tied with a leather cord.


    Maxine stopped pacing and looked at Lanitherin and Silky. She hated to admit it, but Lanitherin''s love for Silky had only grown since he had been here and had openly flirted with Silky for the past couple years. Even with her harsh requirements, she knew it was only a matter of time before they ended up getting married, but Silky had yet to reveal that she was an arachne to him. Maxine was worried he would reject her once he found out, but the mere fact that he liked spiders made her more optimistic.


    "Fine," Maxine said and sat down on a rather comfortable chair.


    "Why are you so nervous?" Emily asked with concern.


    "I havn''t seen either Mara or Aenwynn in the past couple months and it doesn''t help that they were behaving oddly before they decided to disappear. It almost feels like they are up to something," Maxine answered and she sensed something very faint as if it was far away directly above her. But no matter how she scanned that area with her spiritual sense, she found nothing there. I know I''m not imagining things. So what the hell is that? I know it''s getting closer because that sensation is getting stronger.


    "If you''ve forgotten, Aenwynn mentioned that she had a few blind dates set up by her parents before she left. Maybe she found someone she likes. That would definitely be a good reason she isn''t here and why she was nervous before she left," Emily offered, "And Mara has always been like this. She can be gone for three months at a time without a word. So calm down."


    "Alright, alright. I get it," Maxine finally acquiesced, but she added via spiritual sense, [I feel something coming from very far away in the sky and it''s approaching fast. It''s possible that it''s a large group of Shadow Lords come to capture me. That''s the real reason I''m so damn nervous.]


    [Jesus, Maxine. Why didn''t you say so earlier? It would''ve at least given me some context as to why you were as nervous as a chihuahua at a tap dancing convention,] Emily replied angrily, [But if you''re right, we need to get out of here as quickly as we can.]


    [I know,] Maxine answered, [But I don''t want to leave this place unless we have to. It could just as easily be a first contact mission, but if it isn''t, I may have to use that ship I repaired to get us off world in a hurry.]


    [What about Lanitherin and his sisters?] Emily asked, [Are you just going to abandon your student?]


    [No, I won''t, but I need to know where he stands,] Maxine answered.


    [He''s head over heels in love with Silky. Wherever she goes, he will too,] Emily answered with a knowing smile.


    [But he doesn''t know that she''s an arachne yet,] Maxine countered.


    [Are you so sure about that?] Emily asked, [You may not have noticed this, but he drew a very accurate drawing of an arachne not two weeks ago. It looked a hell of a lot like Silky.] That surprised Maxine.


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    Instead of talking with Emily more about it, Maxine decided to ask Lanitherin directly about his drawing. "Lan, I heard you drew a picture of a spider beastkin. Can I see it?" Maxine asked neutrally.


    "He doesn''t have it any more, mom," Silky said before Lanitherin could answer, "He gave it to me."


    "All the same, can I see it?" Maxine asked yet again as a hint of suspicion entered her mind.


    "No, it''s mine," Silky said defensively. Oh? Now I''m really curious as to what it looks like.With a thought, Maxine searched Silky''s room and found the picture in question. It was without a doubt a drawing of Silky in her arachne form and she was only wearing a bra and a thin strip of cloth over her crotch. She had clearly posed for this drawing. Why am I not surprised?


    "Oh, really?" Maxine said with a voice laced with curiosity and a hint of hostility.


    "Yes," Silky said with confidence.


    "I can''t believe your relationship has gone this far forward without me realizing it," Maxine said while shaking her head, "I will have to keep a closer eye on both of you."


    "Teacher, what are you talking about?" Lanitherin asked nervously.


    "I''m talking about that picture you drew," Maxine said and decided to tease them a bit, "To think, you would use my daughter as a model to draw strange beastkin variants. That had best be the limit of what you two have been doing. If it isn''t, I think it would be wise to arrange for your wedding before Silky''s condition starts to show."


    "Wait, what?!" Lanitherin said hastily while blushing fiercely.


    While Silky said at the same time with a face just as crimson red, "But we havn''t done that yet."


    "Yet?" Maxine asked as she raised an eyebrow. She was really enjoying teasing these two.


    "Well, we.. um.. uhhh...," Silky stuttered nervously as her face burned a deeper red. Maxine couldn''t take it anymore and just laughed happily. To think, I was worried that Silky would be rejected by Lan, but in truth, he has already found out and accepted her entirely.


    "I''m not mad," Maxine said happily as she walked up and hugged Silky, "In fact, I''m incredibly happy that you found someone that loves you, regardless of your situation. But I would have liked to know that you took that risk beforehand."


    "I just wanted him to know the real me, not just what he has seen," Silky said quietly.


    "I know, sweetie. I know," Maxine said comfortinlgy and she glared at Lanitherin, "You better not have said anything hurtful."


    "I thought her legs were charming," Lanitherin said fondly. He''s an ... odd one to find an arachne''s legs charming.


    "That''s good to hear," Maxine said happily and she looked at Lanitherin, "When do you plan to propose to my daughter?"


    "But I''m not as strong as she is yet. That was one of your requirements," Lanitherin said reflexively.Good, he didn''t say he wasn''t going to.


    "I may have neglected to mention that you were as strong as Silky a few months ago," Maxine commented.


    "But I''m only at the very top of B rank and Silky is at lower middle A rank.," Lanitherin said hollowly.


    "True, but having two cores has a massive benefit. Your strength is nearly four times greater than someone at the same level," Maxine replied honestly, "So you are just a little bit stronger than she is right now. That means you can court her with my blessing, but I expect the both of your to keep your clothes on until you are both considered adults by my standards."


    "But mom, that''s a few years from now," Silky complained.


    "Precisely. It will give you two plenty of time to be sure about your feelings," Maxine said.


    "I''m sorry to interrupt," Olga, the head maid, said from the doorway, "But miss Mara is here to see you. She seems quite distressed." That doesn''t bode well.


    "Then please lead me to her," Maxine said as she got to her feet and Olga took her to the main hall.


    As soon as Maxine walked into the main hall, she saw Mara nervously pacing. It only took a moment for Mara to notice her and she came running to Maxine.


    "My elders mentioned you to the Shadow Lords," Mara explained. Maxine instantly paled.


    "What do they know?" Maxine asked in horror.


    "They believe that you are just a half shadow elf that lived here and you know some alchemy. So you should still have time to find a way off world," Mara explained, "As far as I know, the Shadow Lords sent word of your abilities to a large clan they owed a debt to called Kavros and they''re on their way here now to persuade you to join them." Maxine sighed in relief. The Kavros Clan was far less of a threat to her than the Shadow Lords, but she had no doubt that any member of her clan would be able to identify her easily. Even if they didn''t, they would easily infer who she is by the company she keeps. Damn it. Those idiots will just be happy to know that I''m still alive and will tell everyone that I''m alive without thinking. I need to disappear before they get here. Or at the very least, send everyone close to me away while they are here. Who am I kidding? As soon as they start asking around, they will know it''s me. It''s just better I disappear before they get here. I can always create a portal back to Earth before I use my ship to leave.


    "How long do I have before these people arrive?" Maxine asked.


    "Two weeks at the earliest," Mara answered, "But from what I heard, they will slowly approach while broadcasting their intentions to avoid frightening the humans that live here, so probably closer to a month."


    "I see," Maxine replied, "I need to talk to Emily and the others to figure out what I will do about it." That gives me enough time to figure out what I will do.


    "Alright, but if you need anything, let me know," Mara said.


    Maxine walked back to the room Emily and the others were at, but as soon as she entered that room, all of them were staring at her. She had no idea why.


    "So what are you going to do?" Emily asked.Oh, it seems they listened in.


    "I don''t know," Maxine answered honestly.


    "That isn''t like you. You always have an escape strategy," Emily said, "It''s like your thing."


    "Not this time," Maxine answered.I just can''t think of a strategy to hide this many people, especially when the Shadow Lords realize that I''m still alive. I won''t even try and I don''t want those precious to me to get hurt. I will leave alone.


    "We can just leave like we did last time," Emily offered.


    "No," Maxine said firmly, "If anyone is to leave, it will be just me. It''s far harder to find a single person than half a dozen."


    Emily looked like she was about to protest, but Howard cut her off, "She''s right, Emily. It was a poor choice in the first place for us to come with her. If it was Maxine by herself, it would be far less suspicious. Our mere presence here is an obvious clue as to who she is. Without us, she could quite literately disappear if she wanted to."


    "So what will happen with me and Silky?" Lanitherin asked as he looked at Silky with concern written all over his face, "Will we be going back to Earth? Or will both me and my sisters be abandoned here?"So, Silky told him that as well. Why am I not surprised.


    "You can do whatever you wish. Although I would prefer it if Silky returned to Earth," Maxine answered, "My mother probably wonders how she is doing and I can imagine she would love to meet you and your sisters as well."


    "Wherever Silky goes, I will follow," Lanitherin said resolutely, "What do you wish to do, Silky?"


    "I want to go home," Silky said honestly, "I miss eating chocolate."


    "What''s chocolate?" Illana, Lanitherin''s youngest sister, asked.


    "It''s a declicious treat," Silky answered, "Mom forgot to pack much of it and we ran out before we met the three of you."


    "Don''t remind me," Emily complained and she quickly changed the subject, "So when are you going to leave?"


    "Before the Kavros Clan arrives," Maxine answered, "To where, I don''t know." That''s a lie and I know it. I already have an idea in mind to where I will go. It''s a planet that is going to be invaded by the Four Horned Kanzils. I should be able to get there before they do. The only problem with that idea is that I will need to figure out the recipe and gather the ingredients for a potion to breakingthrough to gold stage. Beyond that, all I need to do is make a lot of nutritional potions and bring lots of food and water with me. If I hadn''t done those experiments when low on energy, I would''ve probably just brough some healing potions. But it seems food and nutrition potions work better than anything else. The only drawback is that I have to use the restroom more often.


    "I can help you decide where you will go," Howard said calmly, "It shouldn''t be too hard to find a nice quiet world to hide on."


    "Thank you, but I think it''s better if I pick one for myself. It will be safer for all of us if you don''t know where I will be going," Maxine answered.


    "Fine, but will you at least keep contact?" Emily asked.


    "I will try," Maxine answered.It''s not like I''m any good at staying low key anyways, so I might as well keep in contact. As a bonus, any persuers are probably going to have to fight the Four Horned Kanzils just to get to me. Hell, I could even train a large group of those things into my persuers.


    "Better than nothing," Emily grumbled, "Do you want me to come with you to go shopping for supplies?"


    "Of course, I do," Maxine answered happily as the two of them headed out of the mansion and to the market square. Afterall, she had a huge amount of space in her dimensional ring and fully intended to fill it to the limit with food stuffs, water and nutritional potions. She had no intention of much clothing with her. They would only get ruined from all the fighting she would go through.

 Chapter 123

    Maxine grumbled to herself as she browsed in a clothing store with Emily. She hadn''t anticipated that she would''ve been talked into sticking around after their shopping spree for food and survival goods. She had wanted to leave after concocting the last of the nutritional potions, but Silky and Emily insisted that she not leave until the last possible moment. Maxine couldn''t even blame them for insisting this. She was about to disappear for what they thought would be a considerable period of time.


    Maxine didn''t see a reason to deny Emily this small thing. However she didn''t want to arrive after the Four Horned Kanzils did to that world. She wanted to beat them there by at least a week to find a couple places to hide in for when she needed heal from her wounds. Thus, she put one of her Shadow Wolves on her ship and sent it on it''s way. She could quite literately warp herself onto the ship in an instant if she needed to and after three weeks, her ship had nearly reached the planet in question.


    "So do you think this will look good on me?" Emily asked as she held up a red dress with a low cut V neckline against herself.


    "I think everything looks good on you," Maxine answered truthfully.


    "Flatterer," Emily answered with a smile, "Don''t you want to pick something out?"


    "Not really," Maxine answered, "I prefer to keep an eye on the love birds." Silky was trying out various dresses and asking Lanitherin''s opinion. It was no surprise that most of the staff in the store quickly figured out that they were a couple.


    "Lan has definitely been more affectionate with Silky since he got your blessing," Emily commented, "I''m surprised Silky isn''t trying on wedding dresses yet."


    "Just give it a few minutes," Maxine said knowingly. Two minutes later, Silky came out of the dressing room wearing a wedding dress. She looked the part of a blushing bride. Lanitherin, on the other hand, was stunned to silence.


    "She looks so beautiful," Emily said admiringly, "Please, tell me you''re going to be there for their wedding."


    "I plan to be," Maxine answered happily. Three years of constant combat should bring me up to gold stage, but that''s assuming I can find something to catalyze my breakthrough to gold stage. It''ll definitely be challenging, but I already have a few sets of the special medicinal herbs that has light and dark essence. It cost me five limb regrowth potions and fifty powerful healing potions to get it from the shadow elves, but it was worth it. Now I just have to find an herb suitable for my hydra bloodline, make sure it''s compatible with my other medicinal herb, and a couple other auxillery herbs to finish up my breakthrough potion.


    "Good. It would break Silky''s heart if you weren''t there," Emily said.


    "I know," Maxine answered, "I''m the one that raised her remember?"


    "Not on your own," Emily corrected Maxine, "Still it''s good to see she''s found love."


    "That it is," Maxine agreed as she looked at Lanitherin and Silky flirting. A smile spread across Maxine''s lips, but it faltered when she felt a spiritual sense connect to her own. Strangely enough, she recognized it. It was Orianna''s spiritual sense. That''s impossible. She should be back at the Kavros clan with Maxwell. How is she able to contact me?


    [Maxine?] Orianna''s voice transmitted into her head.


    [Orianna?! How the hell are you able to contact me?] Maxine asked.


    [Yes! I knew it! I knew you weren''t dead!] Orianna replied excitedly and after she calmed down, she continued, [Dad has some serious explaining to do, but never mind that. How are you?]


    [I''m fine for the most part, but you still havn''t answered my question,] Maxine replied.


    [Oh, sorry about that. I''m just so happy to find out you''re alive,] Orianna said cheerfully, [I''m coming towards a planet with a skilled alchemist on it. Grandma sent me with Elder Heathcliff to recruit her. I was able to sense you as we approached and after awhile I was able to contact you. Am I right in guessing that you''re that alchemist?]


    [You guessed it,] Maxine confirmed Orianna''s suspicion.


    [That''s amazing! I never had the patience to learn alchemy from dad,] Orianna admitted, [It''s just involves too much memorization.]


    [It can be a headache,] Maxine agreed.


    [So, how are Emily and Silky doing?] Orianna asked.


    [They are both doing great. Silky even has a boyfriend,] Maxine answered happily.


    [That''s great! Does he know that she''s an arachne?] Orianna asked.


    "Who are you talking to?" Emily asked in english to avoid anyone from understanding her.


    "Orianna. I need a few moments to talk to her. She''s on the ship that''s approaching us and is somehow able to contact me," Maxine answered and replied to Orianna, [Yes, he knows and he loves her for it.]


    [I''m so happy for her,] Orianna said happily, [Is it okay if I tell Maxwell about this? I don''t like keeping things from my husband.]


    [Of course,] Maxine answered and did a double take, [Did you say husband? When did that happen?]


    [June of last year,] Orianna answered, [Grandma wasn''t happy when I insisted that the ceremony be on Earth, but I wanted Max''s and our parents to be present for it. You should''ve seen Alice in her bride''s maid gown. Purple is such a good color on her.]


    [That sounds like it was amazing,] Maxine said honestly, [I''m bummed that I missed it.]


    [Don''t worry about it. I can just share the memory with you once I touch down,] Orianna said happily.


    [That may be a problem,] Maxine cautioned, [I''m planning on leaving before you get here.]


    [Why?] Orianna asked, [Dad took out all of the Shadow Lords involved with what happened to you.]


    [No matter how thorough Daddy was about dealing with them, there could be a few that weren''t openly with those bastards. I do not want to be caught unaware by them and used for their ''breeding'' program,] Maxine said as she shuddered in disgust, [I really don''t want to take that chance. Thus I''m going to hide until I''m gold stage.]


    [I understand. I don''t want that to happen to you either,] Orianna agreed, but her tone was trembling, [What do you plan on doing with Emily and Silky? You''re not leaving them on that world are you?]


    [I was planning on warping them to Earth, unless you want to give them a ride home,] Maxine answered.


    [No, you go ahead. I doubt they want to take a month and a half trip back to Earth. The rooms on this ship are tiny. The room that I share with Max is barely big enough for a bunk bed,] Orianna complained.


    [Say no more,] Maxine said and noticed Emily was glancing over Maxine''s shoulder, [I better cut our conversation short. Something is bothering Emily. I need to find out what. Talk to you later.]


    [Talk to you later, sis,] Orianna said before severing her spiritual sense connection.


    Maxine promptly looked over her shoulder and saw Hero Alec Ard waiting just outside of the clothing store. She sighed. This wasn''t the first time he ambushed them outside of a store, but it would be the last. She had no more plans to go shopping since they were leaving this world tonight.


    "I''ll go see what he wants and I''ll wait for you outside afterwards," Maxine said, "Just let me know if Silky buys that dress or not."


    "Will do," Emily said happily.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Maxine quickly headed out of the clothing store to see what Hero Alec Ard wanted, but as she got closer to Hero Alec Ard, she noticed that he wasn''t looking at her. His gaze was scanning over the streets as if he was looking for anything out of place. This caused Maxine to feel a moment of pause. She had no idea what had him spooked like this, but the only way to find out was to ask.


    As soon as she got close enough, Maxine asked him, "What has you so wound up?" Hero Alec Ard jumped slightly and looked relieved when he realized it was her.


    "I know you''re going to leave soon. There is no other reason for you to be stocking up on so much travel food. My father noticed this as well and he''s going to get you to stay one way or another," Hero Alec Ard said while continuing to scan the surroundings, "I think it has something to do with a transmission we recieved recently. It very specifically singled you out as a person of interest to them from what we could translate." Just perfect. They''re getting excited over a mistranslation.


    "Oh, that? It''s nothing," Maxine answered, "Those offworlders just want to recruit me to be an alchemist for their clan. I''m not interested in going there. At least, not for now."


    "How the hell do you know that?" Hero Alec Ard asked, but he seemed to wave that thought away as he continued, "Regardless of how you know this, you need to leave the city as soon as you can. My father is planning on handing you over to avoid angering a race capable of interstellar space travel."


    "I''m not sure whether to call him pragmatic or cowardly," Maxine commented.


    "How can you be so relaxed about this?" Hero Alec Ard.


    "It''s because I''m going to leave just before sunset on today," Maxine answered.


    "That''s not soon enough. My father is already gathering his personal force to detain you. They could be here within the hour," Hero Alec Ard warned her, "You need to leave now."


    "You really think it''s that bad?" Maxine asked. Although Maxine didn''t like Hero Alec Ard, she understood that the man was besotted with her and as far as she could tell, he hadn''t lied once to her during the entire time that he was trying to court her.


    "I would have a hard time getting away from these people on my own," Hero Alec Ard admitted, "You have your whole family to look after. If you don''t leave now, you may not be able to later."


    "Very well. I will leave as soon as my daughter is done with her shopping," Maxine said and she looked Hero Alec Ard in the eyes, "Thank you for warning me."


    "Any time," Hero Alec Ard said with a loving expression on his face.


    "Mom, we''re done shopping," Silky said in the next moment as she walked out with everyone else and paused as she saw Maxine and Hero Alec Ard, "What''s going on?" In that instant, Maxine felt several people lock onto her. She felt no killing intent, but that didn''t really make her feel any better.It seems Govenor Ard is making his move earlier than expected. Too bad those idiots don''t know I can warp away with a thought.


    "We are leaving. Now," Maxine said angrily and made sure everyone was in a shadow of some kind. With a mere snap of her fingers, Maxine used Shadow Step to bring Emily, Silky, Howard, Lanitherin, Illana, Nala and herself out of the city. They appeared on an empty piece of land where her ship used to be sitting.


    "I''m sorry about that Silky," Maxine said, "But a large group was coming towards us and I didn''t want to stick around to find out their intentions."


    "It''s okay, mom. I knew we had to leave today anyways," Silky said understandingly and she blushed slightly as she added, "At least, Lanitherin got his wish that I get my wedding dress from this world."


    "Oh? So is that why we went there?" Maxine asked with a great deal of interest, "I was under the impression that I had to make your wedding dress myself. At least, that''s what Mikari told me."


    "Mom, that''s only if you''re an arachne, so that rule doesn''t apply to you. You at most have to buy it," Silky said firmly, "But honestly, you only know how to knit and you''re not that good at it."


    "Fair enough," Maxine chuckled.


    "So what do we do now?" Emily asked.


    "I could send all of you back to Earth," Maxine offered, "Are you okay with that Lan?"


    "Yeah, I am," Lanitherin said, "Although I''m still wondering what is this chocolate Silky keeps raving about."


    "Believe me you will find out shortly. I have no doubt that Silky will want to share some with you," Maxine said, "Everyone ready?"


    "Yes, just send us already," Howard said in gruffly and Maxine smiled in response.


    "Let me make sure that the exit point is clear," Maxine said as she focused on a Shadow Wolf inside of Claudia Levings'' shadow. It was night and Claudia was sleeping soundly with a small brown-haired boy laying next to her. Wow, mom really looks a lot older now. I guess that little guy next to her is my adoptive brother. Cute little guy. I guess he had a nightmare or something if he''s laying down next to her. I better warp Emily and the others away from the house to avoid waking those two up.


    Maxine ordered her Shadow Wolf to leap from shadow to shadow until it reached the nearby park. It was the best place she could think of that would have plenty of open space. Once her Shadow Wolf was in position, Maxine looked at everyone one last time. They all looked sad.


    Maxine walked up to Emily and shared one last kiss."See you later," Maxine said sadly into Emily''s ear and warped them to that park before ordering her Shadow Wolf to return to Claudia''s shadow. She stared at the spot that they were at for a few more moments, but she didn''t warp to her ship just yet. She had two things left to do before she did that.


    Maxine searched for the link to Orianna in the air above her and connected to her via spiritual sense, [Are you still free to talk?]


    [Yeah, what''s up?] Orianna asked. However Maxine felt somewhat uncomfortable with what she was going to ask next, but she really needed to know how Patrick was doing. Regardless of anything else, she still saw him as her brother and she was worried about him.


    [How''s Patrick doing? Did he get married to Meagan yet?] Maxine asked.


    [About that,] Orianna said uncomfortably, [He proposed to Meagan during banquet after my wedding. Meagan told him no.]


    [Why?!] Maxine asked in bewilderment. She knew for a fact that Patrick and Meagan loved each other. It blew her mind to find out that they hadn''t.


    [I''m not completely sure as to why, but I think she said something about being unable to compete for a spot in his heart with a dead girl,] Orianna answered, [I can only assume that she was refering to you, but that''s strange. I thought he hated you.]


    [I did too until I heard he cried at my funeral,] Maxine replied.


    [Well is there anything else you wanted to know?] Orianna asked.


    [Yes, how is Sara, Amanda''s daughter?] Maxine asked.


    [She''s beautiful, just like her mom,] Orianna said fondly, [The sweet little thing called me ''Auntie'' and insisted I read a story book to her the last time I saw her.]


    [I wish I could''ve been there,] Maxine said happily.


    [I know, sis. You always did love being around kids,] Orianna said.


    [That I do,] Maxine agreed, [Now I best head off. I have one last thing to do before I leave this world.]


    [Talk to you later, Maxine. And don''t be a stranger,] Orianna said as she sent Maxine her communication disk frequency before Maxine could severe their spiritual sense connection.


    Maxine extended out her spiritual sense and located her herb garden at her mansion. It was still intact, but she could sense several people rapidly approaching it. I have no doubt that they are coming to steal my things after I''ve apparently left. Fucking assholes. With a thought, she retrieved all of the herbs, root and all, using small portals of shadow and placed them into her dimensional ring. She had left just enough space left to put them into it.


    With that out of the way, Maxine transformed into her battleform to assess it before leaving. The first thing she noticed that her scales seemed to be thicker, but they didn''t seem to impede her movement. She decided to test their durability and brought one her claws against it.


    She gradually applied force and stopped when she felt her claws puncture her scales. It had taken a third of her strength to penetrate them. Whereas just before she came to this world, it took only five percent of her strength. My scales have become tougher, but my bloodline didn''t improve any during this time. So why did my scales get tougher? Could it be that juvenile hydras have softer scales to accomodate faster growth? I guess that sort of makes sense. If their scales are too tough, they won''t stretch or be able to shed them as easily while they grow and it makes sense as to why my scales have always been so weak considering my bloodline. Afterall, hydras are a type of dragon.


    Maxine shook her head to dismiss her thoughts. It was more important that she get of off world than wonder why her scales were not as durable several years ago. With that in mind, she reached out to her Shadow Wolf on her ship and warped herself onto the bridge.


    The bridge was rather spartan in design. It had the pilots chair and a large instrument panel infront of it. There was a huge viewing screen above the instrument panel for manual piloting, but she didn''t see much use for that aside from landing the ship. The main computer took care of everything else including combat, but if the need arose, she could take over manually.


    The world she was headed to was still a couple days away and she wanted to know as much as she could about it in the meantime. To get that information, she sat down in the pilot''s chair and used a computer terminal to her right. After a few keystrokes, she brought up the information she wanted.


    The ship''s databanks didn''t have much on that world, but what it did have surprised her. The Four Horned Kanzils have assaulted that world five times already in the past one hundred years and failed each time. The most recent attack was ten years ago and they sent nearly one million peak iron stage, ten thousand silver stage and four gold stage warriors to it. The reason they lost was because the inhabitants possessed a high level of technology in combination with powerful cultivators.


    Strangely though, she didn''t find any reason for the Four Horned Kanzil to invade that world beyond stealing the technologies of the natives. There were other easier worlds to conquer with greater resources than this one. That was until she found out that every last single one of the local cultivators had a dragon bloodline. Although it didn''t mention which bloodline that it was. Well, that explains it. The four horned kanzils want access to a dragon bloodline to bolster their forces, even if they don''t know what it is. That just means they will be sending a lot more warriors to that world than what I previously expected, especially since they failed to conquer so many times. So I should expect there to be at least three to four times the last assaults numbers. On the upside, I have better defenses now, and unlike my other attempts to hide, I fully intend to go all out at that place. But if that four horned kanzil from before was any sign of how nasty they are, I will have my hands full with even the weakest of their gold stage experts and if more than one comes at me, I will have to flee. Now let''s see if those bastards have any up-to-date geographical maps.

 Chapter 124

    Maxine had arrived on the planet safely and undetected, but it wasn''t as easy as she had foreseen. She had expected a few blindspots in the planetary detection grid, but once she got there, there was only one very small one. It was just barely big enough for her ship to slip through, and it was open for only five minutes every few days. She left it to the ship''s onboard computer to time their entry into the planet''s atomosphere and land it in a rather large lake to hide it. As far as she could tell, the locals hadn''t shown any sign that they detected her ship. Thus Maxine was free to adjust to her new lifestyle, which involved hunting and cooking her own food.


    Speaking of which, she was currently stalking a type of elk through thick jungle foliage in her battle form. She had tried to attack just like this one two days ago from above, but failed to break it''s neck using a pouncing attack like a panther would. In retaliation, it struch her hard in the ribs with it''s antlers before running off. She still managed to kill it in the end, but the training clothes she had been wearing were shredded during that encounter. To avoid ruining anymore of her clothes, she made a few sets of hide tank tops and shorts to wear instead.


    She took one more look at the deer and checked the time by looking at the position of the sun. It was less than four hours before the four-horned kanzils were supposed to begin their invasion and she needed this fresh meal to be at her best. It bothered her that she needed to eat at least ten pounds of meat a day to maintain her full strength while in her battleform. However if she gorged herself, she wouldn''t feel her hunger for a couple days. It didn''t work as well if she used the food stored in her dimensional ring and her increased consumption meant she had to spend more time voiding her bowels. She hated being in a vunerable state like that for any period of time. Still it was a small price to pay to be at her maximum battle readiness.


    Maxine slowly climbed up a tree while staying out of sight and finally sighted her prey. It was a large buck, but unlike Earth''s deer, this thing had six legs and it''s antlers were green. It also had peak iron stage cultivation. She watching it bite and tear bark off of a tree a large tree for a few moments to make sure it hadn''t scented her yet. She stealthily moving on all fours along a branch that ran above it.


    After checking one last time that the elk hadn''t noticed her yet, she leaped out and slashed it''s throat with her claws before leaping away to avoid getting hit with it''s counter attack. However instead of attacking, it bolted away at top speed. She chased after it through dense foliage to avoid another predator from getting a free meal once her venom took it down. Thankfully, it didn''t get far before it succumed to her venom and blood loss.


    Still she didn''t approach it just yet. It might still have enough life in it to hit her hard with one of it''s hooved feet. Even though she could heal quickly, a mild head wound would take half her half a day to completely heal. Head wounds just healed far more slowly than any other injury she''s had and she wanted to avoid it.


    So she waited while scanning it with her spiritual sense until it''s heart stopped before taking the now dead elk back to one of her dens. She had five of them roughly fifty miles from the nearest city and another twenty scattered near other cities.


    A short distance from her den, which was little more than a hole in the ground, she had a cooking pit set up. She quickly skinned, gutted and beheaded the deer. After throwing the innards and the head off to the side, she placed the deer skin on a rock for now and she started the fire in the bottom of the pit. She quickly assembled a makeshift cooking spit to hold the entire carcass of the deer so that she could spint it to cook it evenly. She really hated eating raw meat, but she could if she needed to.


    She began to rotate the deer carcass on the cooking spit slowly and periodically added a log to the fire in order to keep the heat up. It would take an hour to cook it enough for Maxine''s tastes, but even with her immense appetite, she wouldn''t be able to eat all of this meat on her own. She could at most eat a fifth of it before it went bad, but there was at least two hundred pounds of edible meat on this carcass. Thankfully, she knew that she would be gettting some company.


    As if on cue, several serpents of various sizes started approaching her and waited patiently for the meat to finish cooking. They had been coming to her ever since she arrived on this world and since they were peaceful, she had shared her recent kills with these serpents. She could always use a few friends even if they were just beasts.


    The biggest of them was at least sixty feet long and could probably eat this elk carcass whole without being fully sated. She playfully named it ''Titania'' due to it being both a female and it''s size.


    But three quarters the way through cooking the deer carcass, she felt several sets of curious eyes on her and reflexively extended out her spiritual sense. As usual, her instincts were spot on and she found seven humans. Only one of them was a non-cultivator and he looked a great deal like a scholar with a set of glasses and short cropped brown hair.


    The cultivators with him were wearing armor over most of their body, except for their hands and heads. But that lack of armor was mostly due to the fact that they had a set of narrow, sharp horns on their heads that prevented them from wearing any kind of helmet and gloves would''ve been torn apart by the claws on their hands. Brown scales covered their faces and hands, and she couldn''t help noticing that none of them had tails or wings. The lack of a tail was a dead giveaway that they weren''t born with a draconic bloodline. So they have a captive or tamed dragon and have a way to effectively bestow a bloodline to people. Judging by the type and coloration of their scales and horns, the dragon they have could be a variety of drake or wyvern. Although I can''t be sure without actually seeing it.


    They continued to watch her in silence even after she finished cooking the deer.They are observing me. But why? She took a thigh for herself while keeping track of the locals and cut a few pieces of flesh off to feed the smaller snakes before tossing the remainder of the carcass into the open mouth of Titania. All of the snakes gulped down the meat greedily.


    While she ate, her observers were talking to each other very softly. However Maxine didn''t understand a word of it and felt frustrated about it. Her ship had nothing in relation to the local language and that left Maxine without a means to communicate. Still, she picked up the meaning of a few of their words as well as the name of the scholar: Decaan. Hmm, based on their behavior, they must think I''m either a new species on their world or that I''ve recently migrated to this area. Or they may think I''m an alien, but they would be bringing a lot more than just those guys in that case. Regardless, I''m thinking they want to recruit me to help defend their world.


    After taking the last bite of meat off the bone, she stared directly at them and so did the serpents around her. Decaan paled, but his bodyguards were instantly on guard. Well, this is as good a time as any to show I''m not hostile.


    Maxine slowly walked towards them while standing fully upright with her claws retracted and made sure that none of the serpents were following her. She was careful to appear as non-threatening as possible. Regardless all of the cultivators were putting themselves between Maxine and Decaan. Decaan, on the other hand, was studying her movements very carefully and she was just a few steps away from them when she noticed that all of them were shorter than her. Decaan, being the shortest, was half a head shorter than herself. Now that''s wierd. No matter where I''ve gone, I''ve always been either slightly above or below average height and most men were taller than me.


    Unfortunately her greater height made them more nervous than they would be normally and it was clear that they were going to attack her out of fear in mere moments even if she turned around and ran. Damn it. They are too wound up. I need to find a way to calm them down. I wish it was as easy as talking to them through spiritual sense but I can''t. A dumb human-beast hybrid is way less threatening than a telepathic one. I guess there is only the simplest method left.


    Maxine quickly raised up her hand slowly and pointed at Decaan before saying his name. Thankfully the simple act of her speaking was enough to stun them into inaction. She quickly patted her own chest just above her breasts and said her own name. She repeated those actions several times before Decaan figured out what she was doing. He swiftly said ''Maxine'' while pointing at her with a smile on his lips and Maxine nodded her head while mimicking his smile. His bodyguards had calmed down at this point. That''s right. I''m friendly. I''m not going to attack you like some mindless beast.


    To solidify her peaceful intentions, she slowly reached for a small bag tied to her pants and retrieved a strip of jerky. She held out the jerky towards Decaan and was careful not to let her claws touch it to avoid poisoning him by accident. He took it carefully against the protests of his bodyguards, and took a big bite out of it.


    Once he finished eating it, he retrieved a small package out of his backpack and took off it''s wrapper before handing it to Maxine. It looked a lot like a fruit bar, but she had no idea what it was made of. She took it from him and sniffed at it as a cover while scanning it with her spiritual sense. It wasn''t toxic as far as she could tell, so she figured it was safe to eat. She bit down on it to see what it tastes like.


    As soon as it touched her tongue, she moaned with enjoyment and her tail was swishing back and forth excitedly. It was quite possibly the best thing she had ever tasted in her life and it felt like her body craved what it was made out of. Even as she quickly devoured it, she knew whatever fruit it was made out of was, quite possibly, the medicinal herb that she needed for her breakthrough potion.


    She had enjoyed it so much that she hadn''t noticed Decaan had recieved a call via a small earbud and was holding his hand up to his ear to hear it more clearly. His previous friendly demeanor had vanished and he looked very concerned. If they''ve just now detected the four-horned kanzil ships, their early detection systems leave much to be desired. Still they are way better than Earth''s.


    She took one more glance at Decaan''s bodyguards and reached out with a very thin thread of spiritual sense to touch Decaan''s mind. She was going to learn as many words of his language as possible from his conversation.


    "...us?" a voice in Decaan''s earbud said.


    "Possibly, but I can''t say for sure until we break the language barrier," Decaan said.


    "You don''t have time for that. Just drag her back with you. Those four-armed pricks made landfall and will be on top of you in less than an hour," the voice said.


    "I don''t advise using force of any kind against her, general. She is an ambush hunter and even if one of our people manages to mostly avoid her initial attack, all it would take is a scratch for her envenomed claws to kill," Decaan said, "And that''s not even taking into account the damage she could cause with her brute strength and speed."


    "I don''t care. Drug it if you have to. Just bring it back here before those four armed freaks kill it. We need it to help us defend against those things," the general said. It seems the four-horned kanzils have arrived early. Still, I don''t like being called an ''it.'' It''s insulting.


    Maxine felt several spiritual senses wash over her from the right and she immediately whipped her head in that direction they were coming from. Her face refexively twisted into anger since she knew it was the four-horned kanzils. "I think that''s no longer a possibility, general. She''s entered an aggitated state and may attack us if we even make any sudden moves," Decaan said nervously and added, "I think she may have detected the invaders and sensed their intent. Although I have no idea how."


    "Then run your ass back here," the general growled in obvious frustration, "You can only hope that this ''Maxine'' is smart enough to run the other direction once she sees how many of those four armed bastards there are."


    "But..," Decaan said, but Maxine heard enough. She leaned in close to his face and said a single word, "Run." Decaan looked dumbfounded, but his bodyguards had apparently recieved some orders at that moment. They grabbed and dragged him away at a sprint while shielding Decaan with a barrier. Smart. That way they can make it back to the city long before the four-horned Kanzils show up. Now, let''s size up the forces of the invading forces.


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Maxine spread her spiritual sense in the direction of the spiritual sense signals from earlier. Her earlier assumption was proven correct when she spotted a few thousand four-horned kanzils approaching to her right roughly one hundred miles away. They had touched down on this world ahead of schedule. Oh? That force seems kind of small to invade the nearby city. It''s got mounted plasma and particle turrets. It''s basically suicide. Perhaps this is a probing attack and those idiots somehow pissed off their leader. Still, this would be a good time to see how strong they really are.


    Maxine wasn''t going to flee from this force. She planned on skirting the edges of that force while performing short, but deadly, assaults. With that in mind, she ran over to pick up the deer hide before putting it in her dimensional ring and ran towards the right edge the approaching four-horned kanzils. Halfway there she completely masked her energies and bent light around her to effectively become invisible.


    As soon as she spotted them, it looked like a small sea of red was moving forward. The ones infront were wielding axes and were cutting down the jungle to clear the way for the rest of their forces. The remaining four-horned kanzils used either swords or blades. Although she spotted a couple using war picks. None of them wore shirts and she had to look hard to find any of them that wore armor of any kind. It seemed like a stupid way to engage in large scale warfare to her, but she guessed their lack of armor was cultural. Maybe they consider wearing armor as a form of cowardice.I will definitely make them rethink that belief.


    She let them approach her rather than risk getting spotted prematurely. When they were close enough, Maxine made sure that they were down wind of her before taking a deep breath in and unleashed her acid breath attack over their heads. Immediately after, she charged into their ranks slashing her claws at any of them in reach and began to hear screams of agony as a large group of their forces were coated in her acid breath attack a dozen feet away from her.


    It took them nearly two seconds before the four horned kanzils began to retaliate. By then, Maxine had clawed no less than fourty of them, but none of her attacks were meant to be immediately lethal. The venom on her claws woud take care of that part.


    Maxine avoided every attack that she could as she continued her assault, but some of the attacks still landed on her. Thankfully they only put small scratches on her scales, but damage was slowly beginning to accumulate as scratches overlaped. Thankfully, after ten seconds, her scales had held up, but her hide tank top was torn to ribbons. If she didn''t retreat, her shorts were soon to follow. Okay, time to retreat. I don''t want to end up fighting naked. It''s embaressing enough as it is to be topless.


    She quickly formed energy darts all over her and launched them out in a rapidly expanding ring to force the four-horned kanzils back. Unexpectedly, she ended up killing them instead. Regardless, she turned to flee back into the jungle, but quickly discovered, her path of retreat had been blocked. The four horned kanzils had moved to surround her without her realizing it. That''s not good. I got too caught up ripping these pricks apart. Shit, now I have to fight my way out. She glanced up and cursed that there were no clouds out today. If there were, she could simply wait for one to move over her to Shadow Step away.


    Maxine spread out her spiritual sense instantly to find the shortest path out of her encirclement but the five hundred of the three thousand four-horned kanzils had completely surounded her while kanzils while the rest of their forces continued on to the city. Well, I should be able to handle this many on my own. Let''s see how they like my draconic essence armor doubled up over my Shadow''s Embrace armor.


    With a battle-crazed smile on her lips, she summoned her Shadow''s Embrace armor onto herself and ordered her dragon hiding within her shadow to merge with her armor. As always, her draconic essence armor covered her from head to toe in heavy silver scales, a large set of bat-like wings sprouted out of her back and a draconic head with golden horns served as her helmet.


    The four-horned kanzils surrounding her retreated a step at seeing her apparent transformation, but shortly after, she felt their greed-filled eyes roaming over her body. Oh, shit. I forgot. They wanted a draconic bloodline and I look a hell of a lot like a humaniod dragon right now.


    Maxine couldn''t wait for them to attack her. She had a limited amount of time that she could sustain this state due to how rapidly it drained her energies and she charged at them with a roar. They, of course, unleashed a barage of attacks at her of every shape and form, but most of the attacks were aimed at her arms and legs. It was clear they were intent on wounding and capturing her, but only the attacks from the silver stages amongst them were able to barely scratch her draconic essence armor.


    Once she was close enough, she slashed out with her claws and swiped at them with her tail she plowed through them with brutal efficiency. She was like a wolf among sheep. That was until an attack actually got through her defenses and left a very shallow wound on her left shoulder. Still, the force of the attack nearly knocked her down. I really need to pay more attention to attacks from behind. That''s the second time I''ve been wounded by an attack from behind.


    Maxine quickly spun around to rake her claws against the one that wounded her. Her claws tore open his gut spilling his entrails onto the ground. He tried to grab his intestines and put them back into himself as his war picks fell uselessly to the ground. She didn''t pay him any more attention as she continued to slaughter them. She wasn''t sure how long it took her to kill all of them, and she felt rather tired when she struck down the last one of them. Damn. I used up more of my strength than I intended to. I still have about 30% of my reserves, so I should be able to run if a weaker gold stage warrior shows up.


    Some of the scales on her draconic essence armor were damaged, and it''s wings had a few holes in them. Thankfully now that she was out of combat, the damage to her draconic essence armor was repairing itself. However she didn''t drop it because she suddenly sensed a powerful presence above and behind her.


    Instinctively, she dodged to the side and an attack that was meant to sever her right arm completely destroyed half of her right wing instead. Shit, he''s at least gold stage rank six! I might be able to fight him evenly at full strength, but right now I don''t have the stamina to deal with him. Time to run!


    She bolted towards the jungle at top speed. Meanwhile, the powerful four horned kanzil kept raining attacks down at her from above almost lazily. Even in her haste to retreat, she noticed that all of his attacks were non-lethal and that he seemed to be charging an attack in his upper right hand. She knew the other attacks were mere distractions while he charged up his powerful attack. She had no choice, but hoped she made it to the jungle and Shadow Step away before he finished charging it.


    Unfortunately she couldn''t reach it before he unleashed his charged attack. It moved far faster than his other attacks and she barely managed to avoid a crippling blow to her right leg by moving her tail in the way. She howled in pain as she collasped on the ground as a sizeable part of her tail was blown off. Even through the onslaught of pain, she heard the four-horned kanzil touch down onto the ground before slowly walking towards her.


    She could literately feel her blood gushing out of her tail, but she still assessed the damage done to her to figure out just how badly she was hurt. The attack that hit had hit her tail dead center and completely disintegrated away a twelve inch section of her tail leaving two and a half foot of it on either end. She looked over her shoulder and saw a still twitching section of her tail just behind the gold stage four-horned kanzil sixty feet away. With her injury, his proximity and her current reserves, she knew she couldn''t get away anymore and that she had to come up with something quickly before he reached her.


    In a moment of inspiration, she whimpered in pain and she acted like she was going into shock. This was her only chance to lure him into being careless and if it worked, it would cause him to drop his guard just enough for her to hit him with a surprise attack.


    She began twitching the stump of her tail sporadically as she splattered her blood in every which direction and she continued to whimper in pain while breathing rapidly as she tried to weakly crawl away. Next, she dismissed her dragon back to her shadow and retracted her Shadow''s Embrace armor just as he got within ten feet of her. That''s it. Just a couple more steps.


    The four-horned kanzil continued to get closer, but he was being cautious as he walked around the area her blood was splattered to grab her right arm. NOW! Maxine used her energies to tear the wound on her tail wide open since the wound had almost completely closed up and she lashed her tail violently at him to cause the resulting bloodflow to be hurled at the four-horned kanzil''s face. She leapt up in the next instant and lashed out with her claws. However, he grabbed her wrists as if expecting it before her claws could reach him and she finally got a good look at him.


    Aside from the horns, red skin and extra set of arms, he could have passed as a handsome man and unlike the member of his race that tried to rape her, his gaze was deviod of lust. Only cold indifference was reflected on his face. Still, she smiled when she noticed he''d only avoided some of the blood she hurled at him and quite a bit of it got into his eyes. Excellent. The toxins in my blood should be able to enter his bloodstream more easily through soft tissue like his eyes than through his skin. I should see it effect him much faster than with the orc warchief.


    Still, Maxine couldn''t rely on just that to put him down and struggled to free her arms. She shifted and jerked this way and that, but his grip was solid as stone. So, she reared her head back slightly to bite one of his arms, but one of his free hands clamped over her mouth before she could. Not only did he stop her from biting him, he prevented her from using her acid breath attack as well. Wow, he must have seen that fight from start to finish and was waiting for me to exhaust myself. This guy is smart. Too bad he doesn''t know just how toxic my blood is. It should start to take effect on him any second now.


    Without wasting her breath, she lashed out a kick, but her leg wasn''t long enough to reach him. He was keeping her beyond her kicking range. His superior height, not to mention arm length, was too great of an advantage over her. Before she could come up with any other strategies to deal with him, he tightened his grip on her wrists, which confused Maxine, but she paled when she saw him lean backwards to headbutt her. Oh, god please not that. However she could tell this was a desperation move when she noticed his eyes were watering. So he figured out my blood has some poisons in it and he wants to knock me out before it incapacitates him. I guess I can''t wait for it to do it''s work anymore.


    When he struck with his head headbutt, Maxine leaned back to avoid it and threw her legs around his neck since he was now much closer. She quickly hooked her feet together behind his neck and tried to strangle him. In the process of this, he released his hand from her face and grabed her thighs in an attempt to pry her legs off of him. However his attempts were futile. She had a lot more leverage than he did and he was quickly weakening. Regardless his hands were still strong enough that his fingers digging into her thighs hurt like hell.


    Even after all of this, he still hadn''t released her wrists from his grasp, but when his face started changing colors, he became desperate. He let go of her to use all four of his arms to pry her legs off his neck. Unfortunately for him, Maxine was waiting just for this situation.


    She allowed her upper body to fall and even as her thighs were pried off of his neck, she arched her back as far as she could. When she saw his thighs, she dug her claws deeply into them near his crotch and dragged down. She didn''t even get halfway down his thighs before her legs were pried off his neck and she violently flung away from him. She landed headfirst onto a rather large rock causing her to be dazed for a moment. Oddly she wasn''t attacked afterwards while in this state.


    When Maxine regained her senses, she looked up and saw him laying on the ground bleeding out. She still hadn''t fully recovered from hitting her head and staggered over to him. She slashed out his throat to ensure that he died. She didn''t want to take the chance that he was strong enough to survive from both her venom, toxic blood exposure, and bloodloss. God, my legs hurt. Running is going to suck.


    She fell to her knees in exhaustion and pain eminating from her very bruised thighs. If she could, she would lay down on the spot to sleep, but she knew that she couldn''t. She could already sense five more gold stage warriors rapidly approaching her position and she was quite positive that they were not friendly.


    She forced herself to stand and glanced at her severed tail. I can''t leave that there. They may be able to figure out how to extract my bloodlines using it. I need to take it with me. She quickly ran and grabbed her severed tail before sprinting at top speed, regardless of how much it hurt, back into the jungle and while she was at it, she masked her energies to avoid being tracked via spiritual sense. She made it just as they arrived and used Shadow Step repeatedly until she was safely inside of her closest lair. The large meal she had earlier had already been completely absorbed and the wound on her tail had almost completely sealed up. Her shoulder had long since healed. Sadly, her tail would require more time to regrow. Fuck that was just the opening skirmish and I''ve already more than half of my tail. Who knows how long that''s going to grow back! And I don''t dare revert back to my baseform to heal. The wound could cause a good chunk of my spine to end up missing and I do not want to be paralyzed from the waist down.


    She laid down on a pile of leaves to rest, but was hit with a sudden realization. "I''m such a fucking idiot!" Maxine said outloud. She had forgotten about her shadow wolves that she left at the shadow world. She could have easily summoned them to her to help fight a large portion of the four-horned kanzils'' forces since the Shadow Lords probably knew she was alive at this point. It wouldn''t have revealed anything they didn''t already know. I guess I got too used to living my life without my constructs. Time to remedy that.


    With a thought, she summoned fifty of her Shadow Wolves. Their cultivation had jumped to silver stage rank three since she saw them last. Excellent, my wolves will definitely increase my survivability. With that done, she sent her wolves to act as bodyguards while she rested up and healed. However there was a nagging thought in the back of her head as she closed her eyes to take a nap. Why do I feel like someone else is going to be upset about my tail?

 Chapter 125

    As soon as Maxine woke up, she felt ravenously hungry and she didn''t understand why. She had eaten at least thirty pounds of cooked meat yesterday and shouldn''t need to eat for a couple days. But as soon as she remembered her fight yesterday, it made sense. Her body had used up all the nutrients and calories of her meal to restore her stamina and heal her wounds.


    She glanced at her tail and felt bummed that her tail hadn''t regrown much. It had only regrown an inch while she slept. At this rate, it will take me a month and a half to regrow my tail. I need to find a way to speed up this process. I guess I need to eat more. I hope it doesn''t make me fat.


    She finally noticed that she was still covered in gore. She felt her bile rising in the back of her throat at her own smell. Yeah, definitely time for a bath, a very long bath at that, and I don''t care if I have to bathe in ice cold water. I need to get clean. With a thought, she disintegrated most of the gore off of her using a movement of her energies, but could still feel quite a bit of it clinging to her hair and skin.


    She quickly replaced her hide tank top that was destroyed yesterday and she crawled out of her lair. The tunnel leading out of her lair was just big enough for her to squeeze through and the entrance was concealed by a several bushes. It was nearly an ideal lair. They only way it could have been better is if it was formed in a granite deposit behind a waterfall.


    She noticed it was dark outside before she exited her lair and used her Shadow Wolves to check the area for any threats. They didn''t detect anything immediately threatening, but they could hear a hum of some kind in the space above them.


    Just to be extra cautious, she scanned the area above her lair. She didn''t find anything at first, but after a few moments, she noticed a very sizeable distortion in the sky just above the tree tops. It was more than twice the size of a school bus and it was hovering over her cooking pit as if waiting for something. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion while trying to remember if the four-horned kanzils possessed cloaking technology, but her gnawing hunger was making it hard to think clearly.


    To help banish this hunger, Maxine retrieved food from her dimensional ring and stuffed her face until her hunger abated. Now that she could think more clearly, she completely concealed her energies and bent light around her to become invisible.


    She slowly crawled out of her den and looked skyward to see if she could actually see what it was. She didn''t. So, she decided she wanted to get cleaned up before she dealt with whatever or whoever it was and stalked towards the nearest river.


    When she got to the river, she stripped off her hide garments and walked into the ice-cold river before scrubbing her scale-covered skin thoroughly. The river flow around her quickly became dyed red from her efforts due to all the residual gore and became disgusted when she started cleaning her hair. Chunks of flesh kept appearing in her hair while she tried to brush it out with her fingers. Ugh, the drawbacks of not braiding my long hair before a battle. I didn''t even detect this crap in it using my spiritual sense. I guess I will have to spend some extra time to make sure that I brush it all out. It took her nearly an hour to get clean enough for Maxine to be satisfied. Most of that was spent cleaning her hair.


    She quickly dressed and headed back to her lair. The ship was still cloaked and hovering in the same spot as before, and as soon as she was standing beneith it, she released her cloaking techniques. It didn''t react instantly like she had though, which left her confused. However after a few minutes, she felt something wash over her and a mere moment later, the ship decloaked as a hatch on the side of it opened up.


    Decaan appeared from inside of the hatch and looked like he was prepping to drop down to her via some kind of rope mechanism. It was clear he was quite worried about her. She smiled at his caring nature and levitated up to float just outside of that hatch. She waited patiently for him to notice that she was hovering not ten feet from him. It didn''t take long, but his reaction was comical as he literately jumped and stumbled backwards into the ship.


    "Decaan," Maxine said and tilted her head to the side to express her curiosity at his presence.It took him a moment to collect his wits and she saw his gaze land on her tail. She saw anger and sadness in his gaze.


    Before he could speak, Maxine sent a thread of her spiritual sense to his mind. "I need you to come with me and I know you understan a little bit of what I''m trying to say. The invaders are amassing a large force to both attack one of my people''s cities, and your home is in their path to it," Decaan said urgently, but Maxine played dumb on purpose as he continued to beg her, "Please, just get inside and flee with me. If you stay here, you will die. Also if you come with me, you won''t ever be hungry again. I can even get you more of those fruit bars that you like. All you need to do is just get inside." I need access to that fruit from that fruit bar he gave me earlier to make my breakthrough potion. Damn it, I wish I could talk to him more clearly. I don''t have the necessary vocabulary just yet. Or maybe I do. I just really don''t want to sound like a primitive, but it looks like I don''t have much of a choice.


    "Hungry," Maxine said just as she used her energies to make the sound of a growling stomach. Decaan coughed out a laugh and withdrew a fruit bar from his pocket.


    "Is this what you want?" Decaan asked and Maxine nodded enthusiastically, "Well, come and get it." Maxine floated into his ship and took the fruit bar from him. While she tore off the wrapper, the hatch behind her closed, but she acted as if she hadn''t noticed as she enjoyed the exquisite flavor of the fruit bar. To her surprise, the regeneration of her tail was speeding up as she ate this fruit bar. Just from eating this one fruit bar, her tail regrew half an inch and this regrowth didn''t drain her energy reserves like she had expected. Yeah, this stuff is definitely stimulating the hydra portion of my bloodline.


    Only when the ship began to move, did Maxine show any sign that she realized that the hatch had closed. She looked around with both caution and curiosity written on her face. Besides the hatch behind her, it appeared she was in some kind of small cargo bay.


    "It''s alright," Decaan said soothingly, "Nothing is going to happen to you. Just relax. You won''t be in this enclosed space for long." Maxine looked straight at him and decided to play along by making a show of relaxing. True to his word, the ship only traveled for roughly five minutes before coming to a stop. The hatch opened moments later.


    Outside of the hatch, Maxine saw soldiers and cultivators armed to the teeth in defensive positions. And that''s when she saw someone that caught her attention. It was a red headed young woman with red scales. She was about the same size as Maxine and her cultivation was gold stage rank seven. She had the same kind of horns as the others. But what really drew her attention was the scars on her hands and face. Those scars were signs of a verteran warrior.


    Regardless, Maxine had no trouble identifying which draconic bloodline the locals had now. It was a red fire drake. They were definitely a lesser form of wingless dragon. The thing that gave it away was that only the males had brown scales while the females all had vibrant red scales. Unfortunately they were also endowed with very short temper. She just hoped that trait didn''t carry over to those that possessed this bloodline.


    "It seems you were successful in bringing her back here, Decaan," the red head said as Maxine followed Decaan out of the ship, "Just remember, that thing is only here to suppliment our forces, so don''t slack in training it. We need it''s help as soon as possible." Training? I''ve probably got more combat experience and martial training than almost everyone here. Although the training she has in mind probably involves me attacking on command, or something of that nature.


    A very fat man with a thick mustache and what seemed like a permnament scowl plastered on his face walked out from behind the assembled forces and said, "What I want to know is if it will follow orders?"


    "Honestly, I don''t know, general," Decaan answered, "I was only able to get her aboard my aircraft by bribing her with food. Rest assured, she does at least trust me to some extent."That''s because you are so honest. The rest of these guys I''m not so sure about.


    "No, I don''t think so. She probably considers you her mate," the red head joked, "Are you two going to have some lizard babies?" The woman started laughing uproarously and everyone, except for Decaan and the fat general, followed suit. Oh, great. A bully.


    "Stop joking around, Cassandra. If he''s right and this ''Maxine'' can understand you, your antics will likely loose us a valueable ally," the general scolded the red headed dragonkin.


    "Yes, sir," Cassandra said as she stood at attention, "I still don''t like the idea of working with this primitive. For fucks sake, she can''t even speak properly."


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    "I can speak perfectly fine, bitch," Maxine said angrily in english while folding her arms beneith her breasts. Damn it. It still feels awkward to curse even after all this time.


    "Decaan, do you know what she just said?" Cassandra asked angrily, "I have a feeling she just insulted me."


    "I have no idea, but I have to agree with you. Her tone and stance definitely indicated she cursed at you," Decaan agreed with an amused smile on his face.


    "You''re enjoying this, arn''t you?" Cassandra asked angrily.


    "Absolutely," Decaan said honestly and Maxine noticed the general was looking at her tail rather intently.


    "It seems this Maxine''s healing factor is much higher than our own," the general said and when everyone looked confused, he added, "Just look at her tail. Wasn''t the end of it a gaping wound not half a day ago? If she couldn''t heal quickly, there is no way the end of her tail wouldn''t be a bloody mess." Decaan jerked his head to look at Maxine''s tail for himself.


    "You''re right, sir. I can''t believe I didn''t notice it earlier and I don''t think that''s all," Decaan said excitedly as he pulled out a PDA and after a few key strokes, he looked even more excited, "I was right! Her tail has regrown three senctars. Which means, she can regenerate her tail. So that''s why she used it to block that attack!"


    "We need to study that abilty," the general said and motioned his hand as he continued, "Medic, get us a blood sample. Perhaps the secret to her regeneration is in her blood." However when this ''medic'' approached her with a needle in hand, Maxine hissed warningly like a snake at him. I sure as hell do not want them to take a blood sample. I left enough of it on the battlefield. The medic stopped in place and looked fearfully at the general.


    "Fine, coward. I will do it," Cassandra said as she snatched the needle and syringe from the medic while she walked towards Maxine. But Maxine wasn''t going to have it and she blasted Cassandra with her killing intent. To her credit, Cassandra only hesitated for half a second before stopping in place. She was giving Maxine a very wary look.Well, that''s new. My killing intent has always left people really nervous. I guess it''s due to her being far more experienced than I gave her credit for.


    "What''s wrong, Cassandra?" the very fat general asked.


    "She really doesn''t like needles," Cassandra said without breaking eye contact with Maxine and turned around to slowly walk away, "And I don''t recommend anyone besides lover boy to even make the attempt to take a blood sample from her. She might claw them to death."


    Maxine finally retracted her killing intent and heard a thump just behind her. She turned her head to see what it was and saw Decaan trembling beside her on the ground. Did I do that? Shit, I must have unconsciously spread part of my killing intent to my immediate surroundings. She helped Decaan back to his feet and gazed at him with concern to show her remorse. It seemed to work as he calmed down rather quickly.


    "I wonder," the fat general said mysteriously from behind Maxine, "Decaan, why don''t you take her home with you? The more interactions she has, the faster she will learn our language. Which means we can have her aide us in battle sooner and Cassandra seems to be right to a degree. Maxine seems to be rather fond of you. Why else would she how such concern for you?" I don''t like where this is going.


    "Sir, I don''t understand your intent, or rather, I dont want to," Decaan said firmly.


    "I''m not saying you should persue her romantically, but if it happens, it happens. For all you know, the females of her species are the aggressive ones when choosing a mate," the fat general said with a wink, "But only if you believe it''s possible. We need her powerful bloodline to protect our people, so I do encourage you to at least try. And before you complain or speak against it, you already have a head start since she seems to trust you quite a bit. Try to expand that trust to something more."


    "I will not," Decaan said angrily.


    "That wasn''t a request," the fat general growled.


    "You just as bad as four-arms. Four arms want mate with me by force, but I claw them to death. I trust Decaan, but I no want mate with him," Maxine said firmly. Well that''s the best I can do withmy limited vocabulary. The fat general looked surprised that she spoke so clearly.


    "You can speak our language?" Decaan asked incredulously.


    "I speak your language after I ... uhh," Maxine said uncertainly as she pointed to her ears and eyes.


    "You learned our language just by listening and watching us?" Decaan asked in obvious disbelief and Maxine nodded her head to agree just before Decaan''s eyes shined with wonder, "That''s incredible!"


    "Terrifying is the word I would use," the fat general commented and the other cultivators and soldiers present looked even more nervous as they nervously gripped their assorted weaponry.


    "Why?" Decaan asked, "Her capacity to learn would be an asset."


    "Possibly, but if she becomes too intelligent, she will be harder to control," the fat general said coldly while staring daggars at Maxine. I need to defuse this situation quickly. I need this fat asshole to think he has some means of controlling me. Oh, I know!


    "But that''s only a possibility," Decaan explained, "If we treat her good, it doesn''t matter how smart she gets. She will see the benefit of aiding us against a common foe and if you had read my report, you would know how much she hates the four-armed invaders." The fat general looked like he was thinking about what Decaan said, and Maxine knew this was the moment for her to make a move.


    "Decaan, can I have fruit?" Maxine asked innocently before the fat general could continue his arguements.


    Decaan looked at Maxine in confusion before asking, "Do you mean a fruit bar?"


    "No, I mean fruit," Maxine answered firmly.


    "What is she on about now?" the fat general asked cautiously.


    "Well, I think she wants the fruit that this is made out of," Decaan answered as he held up a fruit bar, "I used one of these fruit bars to bribe her into my ship."


    "That''s all it took?" the fat general asked while raising an eyebrow and a smile spreads across his lips, "Alright, escort her to the cafeteria. We should have some of that fruit there."


    Decaan beckoned Maxine to follow him and the general walked beside him as a group of soldiers took up position around them. Maxine followed them out of the large hangar and down several halls. All the while, various workers were giving their procession a curious glance and many of them did a double take when they saw Maxine.


    It wasn''t long before Maxine caught the sweet scent of the fruit she was looking for. It caused a shiver to go up her spine.I hope that fruit isn''t some kind of hydra narcotic. That would just be embaressing.As soon as they entered the cafeteria, she instantly saw the fruit in question. The fruit were purple and egg shaped.


    It took Maxine a moment to realize that all the workers and guards in the cafeteria were staring right at her. It made her feel uncomfortable, but not intolerably so.


    "Sit down at one of the tables, Maxine. I will go fetch you one of those fruits," Decaan said. Maxine saw an empty table and sat down at it. Unfortunately the soldiers decided to block everyone''s sight of her.


    Within moments, Decaan brought her one of the fruit. "I know it doesn''t look apetizing, but it''s very delicious," Decaan said apologetically, but Maxine ignored him as she snatch up the fruit before taking a bite out of it. The taste of it exploded on her tongue and she didn''t have to act like she enjoyed it at all as she unconsciously moaned in appreciation. As she ate the fruit, she barely noticed that some of the soldiers were looking rather uncomfortable.


    Just after swallowing the first bite down, she felt each of her cells rejoice and the fruit was almost instantly converted into energy that shot straight to her stump of a tail. She continued eating the fruit happily and within mere moments, she noticed that her tail began to regenerate at a visible speed.Holy shit! It''s definitely more effective when it''s fresh. I may grow back five inches of my tail just from eating this one fruit!It''s too bad it''s starting to slowing down alot, but as long as I eat another five to six of these fruit, my tail should fully regenerate by tomorrow. Unfortunately, everyone else saw her tail regrowing as well.


    "Decaan, do you see what I''m seeing?" the fat general asked Decaan.


    "Yes, I do," Decaan answered and added in an almost academic tone, "It''s clearly an effect of her biology with the purple snake fruit. There is a similar regenerative effect when snakes eat it as well, so logically, her species must be related to snakes. But without checking her DNA, I have no way to be certain."


    "That can wait until later," the fat general said and he leaned in closer to Decaan as he asked at a whisper, "Do you think we could control her using those fruit? I mean the way she was moaning while eating that fruit was almost sexual."


    "Probably, but I don''t approve of this method," Decaan said firmly, "I would prefer she help us willingly."


    "We don''t have time for that approach. Two of our fortress cities have already fallen to the invaders," the fat general said forcefully, "And as you said yourself, she hates these invaders and she stated herself that she wanted to ''claw the four arms to death'' because one of them tried to rape her."


    "I still don''t like controlling her like that," Decaan said in resignation.


    "It can''t be helped. If this was a time of peace, I would let you take any approach you wanted to get her on our side, but we are in a war of survival," the fat general said sadly. Now, I can''t be mad at him. He''s just trying to help his people survive.


    "Can I have more fruit?" Maxine asked innocently.


    "Yeah, sure," Decaan said despondently as he stood up to fetch her another fruit.


    Once Decaan was out of ear shot, the general started to talking to her threateningly, but she only caught bits and pieces of what he was saying without Decaan''s mind to translate for her, "If you !@#$ my !@#, I will make sure your @$@# is a !@##%@ @#!#. Understand?" Oh, great.He is threatening me and I don''t even know what about. Although it doesn''t take much to figure out what he''s saying if I really think about it, but he''s acting like Decaan is his son. Well, I guess I can see that their related by the fact that their eyes are almost the exact same shade of green. Maxine acted nervous to make it appear that she got his message.


    A few moments later, Decaan arrived with five more of the snake fruit and Maxine revealed a huge smile. She had calculated it would take at least that many to fully regenerate her tail. She stood up and kissed Decaan''s cheek before digging into the snake fruit. She discreetly hid a few of the seeds for it into her dimensional ring.I just need to put up with this crap of being treated like an idiot for a little while longer. I just need to find the growing conditions for these plants and afterwards, I can go fight the four-horned kanzils on my own. From what I can tell, these fruit have a quick growth rate and/or are very common. Otherwise the locals wouldn''t turn them into fruit bars or serve them in a cafeteria.

 Chapter 126

    Maxine woke up with a smile on her lips since she had woken up on a comfortable bed. She had forgotten how good it felts. It didn''t matter how big of a pile of leaves was, nothing could beat an actual bed, but she felt kind of bad that Decaan had given it up so that she could sleep on it. He had slept on a couch in the other room.


    She spread out her spiritual sense to check on him and found that he was still sleeping. Good, this gives me an opportunity to look around for those snake fruit trees, but I better not take too long. It''s already light out and he could wake up any minute. With a thought, she spread her spiritual sense out in every direction to see if they grew the snake fruit locally.


    After searching ten miles in every direction, she only found buildings and various a long line of vehicles, both ground and air, heading for what looked like a large underground bunker. She remembered that there was a large force amassing and figured that was why these people were moving to the bunke. Thus she continued looking for the snake fruit orchards, but even after her spiritual sense encompassed the whole city, she didn''t find a single snake fruit tree. Or rather, she didn''t find any trees that had snake fruit growing on them. Damn it. I guess I will have to put up with them for awhile longer. At least, Decaan is a gentleman.


    Maxine popped her neck and pulled herself out of bed. She slowly stretched and noticed her hide tank top on the floor. Oh, that''s right. I took it off last night because it was chaffing me. I better put that back on before Decaan wakes up. I really prefer it if he didn''t get an eyeful.


    As Maxine reached down for her hide tank top, she heard the door knob starting to turn and began to panic as she quickly slipped her hide tank top on as quickly as she could. Decaan opened the door just as she pushed her head through the top of it.


    Maxine felt a light blush on her cheeks, but Decaan wasn''t looking at her chest or face. His eyes were glued to her fully regenerated tail. "I heal fast when I eat snake fruit," Maxine said reflexively.God, I can''t wait to drop this charade, but it''s better for me if they think I''m stupid. Hell, from their perspective, I''m already capable of fighting Cassandra equally at the very least and the only thing that keeps them from going apeshit is the fact that they think I''m easily controlled with food due my lack of intelligence.


    "I can see that," Decaan said as he shook his head, "I''m just surprised you can heal that fast. It would definitely be a boon if we could stimulate a similar regenerative effect for the wounded." Maxine nodded her head in understanding. She wanted to help him with that since she was grateful to him for helping her learn his language by using him as a translator. Unfortunately, any help she gave couldn''t continue once she left. Not just anyone could learn how to be an alchemist.


    "Why people running away?" Maxine asked and Decaan was momentarily surprised before he relaxed.


    "I told you yesterday. There is a large army of the four armed invaders amassing to attack a city. This city," Decaan explained, "General Detar ordered the civilians to evacuate to the bunker, even though he knows it won''t save them if the invaders defeat us."


    "Cassandra fight too?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, she will be fighting against them," Decaan replied, "I would as well, but I''m far too weak. There are times that I wish my body wasn''t too weak to withstand the draconic bloodline infusion."


    "You not need bloodline to be stronge," Maxine said confidently.


    "How do you know that?" Decaan asked.


    "The four-arms no need bloodline to be stronge," Maxine pointed out.


    "I see. That makes sense," Decaan said to himself before his eyes sparkled, "You''re far more intelligent than my uncle could ever realize. He just thinks you are at best a primitive with the mind of a child, but I know better. You''ve shown signs of an extremely sharp mind just from how quickly you are learning our language. You see my people are very militaristic, and many have cultivated a sense of superiority over everything else due to our many victories. But that belief has been proven wrong on several occasions. Take the invaders for example. They vastly superior bodies compared to ours and have proven themselves to be our equal, if not superior, in intellect. Yet my people still see them as inferior in every way. They just don''t see the kind of threat the invaders present this time. Even if we win this time, our forces will greatly diminshed and in the next invasion, we will most certainly loose. That''s why we desperately need an ally, or another means to strengthen ourselfs. I''m hoping that you could be a mediator for an alliance between our races." So that''s why he is different from everyone else, but he''s in for a bad surprise. The only other person like me is Orianna and she is technically using my clone.


    Maxine stared at him while thinking.I want to help him, but not the rest of his people. And I can''t act as an ambassador to another species for him. I guess I only have once real choice. I will have to check his essence pathways to see if he can use any of the cultivation techniques that I can share.


    She quickly grabbed his wrist and scanned his body with her spiritual sense. This was the simplest way she knew of that could narrow down the possible techniques that he could use, but it wouldn''t guarantee that the techniques wouldn''t have some kind of side-effect. She hoped that if it wasn''t a perfect match to his physiology that it would only have a minor side-effect like hair, eye or skin color changing.


    "Uhh, I don''t mean to pry, but what are you doing?" Decaan asked after a few moments, but by that time, Maxine had already completely mapped his essence pathways. The best match for him was a cultivation technique from the Kavros Clan''s library. However, now wasn''t the time to teach him it yet. There were dozens of cameras and listening devices just in this room. She needed a more isolated location to bestow it to him.


    "Decaan''s skin feel soft," Maxine said innocently and released his wrist, "Mine scaly."


    "That''s because I''m a human. We don''t have scales at all," Decaan said with a slight chuckle, "Are you up for breakfast?"


    "Yes, I hungry," Maxine said happily, "We have more fruit?"


    "I''m afraid not. I only have frozen meals here," Decaan said calmly and he turned around to leave the bedroom, "After we eat, I need to get you something besides animal pelts to wear." She followed him out a moment later.


    Their breakfast consisted off a strange steak covered in gravy with an assortment of vegetables. It didn''t taste that good, but it wasn''t bad either. After they were done, Decaan took her to a clothing store and to her dismay, everything looked extremely plan. There were only a few long dresses that were barely passable by Earth''s standards. The fashion on this world is terrible and I havn''t seen anything that resembled entertainment aside from a few board games similar to chess since I''ve been here. These people really do have a miliataristic mindset.Unfortunately, none of it would fit Maxine due to her tail and they had to modify a pair of pants for her to wear. Decaan wanted to get her a set of shoes too, but one look at clawed toes was all it took to ruin that idea.


    Next, Decaan escorted her to a training ground of some kind with a large number of cultivators and soldiers doing drills and sparring. Decaan lead her to a very sturdy looking training dummy. It looked like it was made of metal.


    "They want me to teach you how to attack on command, but as I said before, I believe you''re smarter than they think. So I only want to guage how quick and strong you are," Decaan whispered to her before he spoke louder, "Can you attack this metal man''s head?" Maxine looked at him for half a second before slapping the head of the training dummy with her tail. The metallic head caved inward slightly from the force of Maxine''s strike.


    "My, my. That was fast. I only saw a blurr when she struck," Cassandra said in amusement as she descended from the sky and she directed her gaze at Decaan after she landed, "I see you''ve gotten her into some real clothes and that you''ve made some progress in her training, lover boy. But will she follow anyone else''s commands?"


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "I don''t think so," Decaan said, "She only listens to those she respects and I don''t think that includes you just yet."


    "That just means you get to keep her to yourself for a longer period, lover boy," Cassandra said, but Maxine saw a jealous look flash over Cassandra''s face for half an instant. Huh? She likes Decaan? No wonder she doesn''t like me.


    "Can you keep the ''lover boy'' remarks to yourself?" Decaan asked.


    "Now where''s the fun in that?" Cassandra teased.


    "Why are you here, Cassandra?" Decaan asked in annoyance instead of responding to Cassandra''s teasing.


    "I thought you might like to know about a transmission we recieved last night while you were ''entertaining'' Maxine," Cassandra said with a smile that wasn''t a smile, "We only managed to translate part of it with the quantum computer, but from what we can tell, they are offering to help us against the invaders." Who the hell is coming here? The closest members of the Alliance are the Divine Marks clan and the Marktell Academy. The Divine Marks clan doesn''t have any wealth to spare to offer in aid. I don''t see any reason for them to. Unless of course, they are going to insist on ''protection'' fees or they are being forced to help by the Alliance. On the other hand, the Marktell Academy might send some iron and silver stage cultivators to give them some battle experience. I think the only thing they would ask is for some food and some housing.


    "That''s amazing," Decaan said excitedly, "When are they due to arrive?"


    "Not soon enough to help us with the army that''s forming up to attack this city," Cassandra lamented, "So speed up her education. We need her help."


    "If you want her help, treat her with some respect by asking her directly," Decaan said sternly, "And you don''t have to be worried that she won''t understand you. She learned to speak our tongue over night."


    "Fine," Cassandra said in a huff and her gaze locked on Maxine, "You heard us talking clearly enough. Will you help us fight the four armed invaders?"


    "I fight four-arms. I no like them," Maxine answered honestly.


    "That''s probably about as good of an answer as I''m likely to get," Cassandra commented to herself, "What should I expect from a dumb beast?"


    "I not dumb," Maxine asserted.


    "And you couldn''t talk right yesterday, dummy," Cassandra retorted.


    "You mad Decaan talk to me more and I sleep his den night before," Maxine pointed out.


    "What do I care if you talk two talk or spent the night with him doing heaven knows what. I sure as hell don''t," Cassandra said angrily before storming off.


    "Cassandra like you, Decaan," Maxine said while smiling.


    "No, she doesn''t," Decaan answered reflexively, "She''s a rude and violent woman, who torments me at every opportunity. I don''t see how you came up with that conclusion."


    "She only want attention from you," Maxine said more firmly.


    Decaan sighed, "It doesn''t matter if she wants attention from me or not. Draconic warriors are nearly infertile and become even more infertile the stronger they become. There are laws against marriage between normal people and draconic warriors because of that. We need as many people as we can get and a fruitless marriage would hinder that." What?! Infertility wouldn''t happen even if they used the crudest method to infuse that bloodline, at least not by that much. I guess this is another thing I need to talk to Decaan about. This problem certainly explains why they don''t have any natural born bloodline holders.


    "So sad," Maxine commented.


    "Indeed," Decaan said sadly and Maxine felt it would be better to distract him. So she clawed the metal training dummy viciously creating inch deep claw marks on it from groin to neck. Decaan stepped back in surprise.


    "That good?" Maxine asked.


    "That training dummy was made of kachin, one of the hardest metals we have. I had it made specifically so you wouldn''t destroy it by accident, but you still damaged it easily. I can''t imagine how sharp and durable your claws are," Decaan said in a shaken tone, but after he recovered, he leaned into examine the damaged training dummy as he talked to himself, "That''s odd. Why is there traces of a fluid in there? Could her claws be envenomed?" He quickly grabbed Maxine''s wrist and examined her claws. "I was right. There are venom tracts," Decaan said to himself and he looked into Maxine''s eyes, "Can I take a sample of your venom?"


    "Umm, okay," Maxine said in an uncertain tone as she held out her hand. It''s not like you can find an antidote for it. You need herbs containing shadow essence to bind with my venom first before you can neutralize it and shadow essence doesn''t exist in many herbs. Those that have it are almost exclusively controlled by the Kavros clan and the Shadow Lords. That doesn''t even include the difficulty finding a compatible herb with a potent enough life essence to counter the killing effects of my venom. To top it off, the number of alchemists that could concoct an anti-venom could be counted with one hand and they would need a large supply of my venom to test it on to make sure it works. The cost of it all would just be too extortionate for a singular being like myself. Unless, of course, the group funding it is out to kill me.


    Decaan retrieved a chemestry vial from his pocket and held it under one of her claws. She obliged him by consciously causing a few drops of her venom to drip off the end of her claw, but he wasn''t satisfied with such a small ammount. He collected a few drops from each of her claws giving him a little more than a third of a vial of her venom. "Thank you, Maxine. I just want to know how lethal your venom is on the off chance you scratch someone by accident," Decaan said. Yeah, right. You want to give someone an antidote if I get pissed off and claw them. I just hope those idiots don''t get too excited once they realize just how nasty it is. The amount in that vial could probably kill a few million people if it gets into their water supply. Now there''s a chilling thought.


    "You''re welcome," Maxine said with a childish smile, but less than three seconds later, she heard a siren to the southwest start howling, "What that sound?" She turned her head towards it.


    "This soon? I thought they would ... It doesn''t matter. You need to go help them," Decaan said to Maxine and he started shouting at her, "Go! The four-armed bastards that tried to rape you are in the direction of that siren!"


    Maxine whipped around to face that direction and gently pushed Decaan away from her with her tail before launching towards the southwest like a rocket. Thankfully the city wasn''t that large and after flying two minutes at full speed, she arrived to the outer walls of the city.


    She saw literately thousands of draconic bloodline warriors floating in the air and Maxine spotted Cassandra''s distinct red hair near the front of it. Down below, the walls were covered with weaponry of various sizes and it looked like they were about to start firing. In front of those walls were thousands of draconic warriors standing firm in their defensive positions. Finally, Maxine looked into the distance and saw what could only be called a red sea of warriors on the ground.


    But when she sent out her spiritual sense, furious tears flowed freely from her cheeks. They were eating children alive. Some were barely more than infants. She could see red on the edges of her vision as her rage threatened to take over. NO! Don''t loose control! That''s what they want! I can''t help them anyways. Even if I charged over there, those bastards would kill the children to incite me further.After taking a few calming breaths, she managed to restrain her rage. She would use it later when killing the four-horned kanzils.


    Maxine flew up beside Cassandra, whom looked just as angry as Maxine, and she wasn''t the only one. Most of the silver stage warriors floating around them looked like they were about to charge forward regardless of orders. "Brothers! Sisters! Hold fast! Do not break formation!" Cassandra roared as tears streamed down her cheeks, "I know you''re feeling pain and rage right now! I feel it myself! But you cannot charge forward in an attempt to save those kids. It''s what those fuckers want! We must protect those that we still can! But that doesn''t mean we arn''t going to make those fuckers pay. I say we show them who the cruel ones really are! Whose with me?!" It wasn''t the most stirring speech, but it worked. The silver stage cultivators floating in the air roared out their fury, but none of them broke formation. It was at that point that the remaining children had breathed their last and the four-horned kanzil horde start its charge.


    As she watched them charged forward, Maxine felt something waking up within her mind, and whatever it was it was hungry. She shook her head to banish this odd feeling and tried to regain her focus for the battle.


    The weaponry on the walls activated shooting beams of light into the charging four-horned kanzils. Anything caught in the path of those beams was disintegrated.Particle cannons? Or are they some kind of high powered pulse weapons. Either way, that''s some nasty weaponry. Only immortal stage cultivators can shield themselves from particle cannons and if it''s a high powered pulse laser, only the strongest gold stage cultivators can take a hit from those and live. In response to this, the silver stage four horned kanzils took flight to avoid the attacks.Good move. It''s what I would have done. But where are their gold stage warriors? Wait, are they going to pull the ''wear them down with numbers'' tactic before showing themselves?


    She no longer had any more time to watch the charging enemy as the weaponry on the walls shredded the four-horned kanzil ground troops. The amassed silver stage attackers were less than four miles away from her.


    Maxine knew she couldn''t rely on her claws this time. Having a reduced striking range would put her at too much of a disadvantage against gold stage opponents. Thus she created a small portal under her shirt before reaching into it and withdrawing both of her Twilight Iron Blades from her dimensional ring to make it look like she stored her blades under her shirt. Cassandra spared Maxine a quick ''what the fuck'' look, but she quickly focused on the charging aerial enemies.


    Maxine smiled to herself in anticipation of the coming battle.Now that I think on it, this would be the first time I actually participated in an army versus army battle. It should be a great place to hone my skill and I will be able to feast to my heart''s content on flesh of those child murdering bastards. A mental image of herself tearing off the flesh of a four-horned kanzil and swallowing it caused her to instantly pale. She shook her head violently to banish that thought. Where the hell did that thought come from?! I can''t think about it now. Those fuckers are almost in striking range.

 Chapter 127

    Maxine growled angrily as five peak silver stage four-horned kanzils charged straight at her and ignored everyone else in their path. She was pissed since no one else got such treatment, not even Cassandra, and it didn''t help her mood that she was feeling hungry as well due to the small breakfast she ate. The only thing she could think of to encourage this behavior was that her fighting prowess was known to them. Well, this is what I get for showing off, but then again it''s not like they are much of a threat. Now if there were twenty of them attacking me at a distance, I would have a hard time.


    She charged at them before they could reach her and beheaded the closest one with a swift slash. She followed up by stabbing at the second closest. He was able to bring up all of his swords to block her stab, but her blade pierced through his weapons and his heart without loosing speed. While she pulled back her blade, one of them tried to sneak attack her from above, but she lashed out with her tail. She felt his neck break when she struck his throat.


    The last two attacked her from below and she kicked at both of them. They quickly dodged to the side and slashed their weapons at her. Maxine dropped down and used her weight to hack through their weapons towards the top of their heads. Both of them were split down the middle and each of their half left a trail of blood and organs behind them as they fell.


    She quickly looked around for her next opponent and saw several draconic warriors were gradually being pushed back. However even though they were gradually loosing, each draconic warrior was fighting against a pair of equal strength four-horned kanzils by unleashing their pent up wrath. She felt respect for these men and women.


    She started attacking the four-horned kanzils viciously from behind to help these valiant warriors. She killed twenty of them before fifty of them caught on and blasted their opponents away wtih energy attacks before charging at her. Now, that''s more like it.


    Maxine charged at them with a roar and struck down several energy attacks thrown at her. She didn''t even slow down when she cut the lead one down and she moved fluidly to attack the next one. He dodged back and lead her into a trap. Two more appeared to either side of her and the three of them attacked her together. She unleashed a rapid flurry to defend against the twelve attacks with such speed that it left an afterimage that made her appear as if she had twelve arms.


    As the three four-horned kanzils recoiled from her assault, she gazed at the afterimage that she had caused for a moment and thought that those attacks resembled the form of a striking snake. An idea for a fighting style that suited her battle form popped into her head and she quickly started using the Yin Yang Blades technique. She coupled this technique with the understanding of the speed of a striking snake and began were lashing out with her arms creating in a greyish blurr at the fourty eight that were now surrounding her. Her attacks were still not fast enough. So, she quickly visualized the striking speed and power of a serpent and infused that mental image into each of her strikes to maximize her speed. Slowly her strikes began to resemble a serpent strikes and the weapons of her opponents seemed to have what looked like very shallow snake bite marks on them when they blocked or parried. My technique is powerful, but it''s still missing something. What is it?


    Four-horned kanzils were dropping out of the sky all around Maxine as she continued her vicious assault, but no matter what approach she took to finish her technique, it didn''t feel like it was right. I guess I need to watch snakes in the wild or better yet a hydra in the wild to see how it moves and attacks to finish this technique.


    There were only twelve four-horned kanzils left when she felt a spiritual sense flow over her like a wave. Immediately her attackers, along with the other four-horned kanzils, started to flee enmasse. She was confused as to why they were fleeing, but that didn''t stop her from unleashing some harrying attacks at them once their backs were turned to her. She sent out her spiritual sense infront of her to see where they were fleeing to and it wasn''t towards the place they attacked from. However she stopped dead in her tracks once she felt something very faint on the ground not too far away. It was a child that was barely clinging to life.


    She ignored the fleeing four-horned kanzils and flew over towards that child. Her face lit up with hope when she realized it was where the four-horned kanzils fed on the children before the battle.


    She quickly landed on the ground very close to the kid. Her eyes locked onto a small ten year old boy. His arms and legs have been chewed off. He had no signs of life in him, but she saw a determined look forever plastered on his face. She walked over to him and returned her blades back inside of her dimensional ring in the same way that she removed them and she flipped the dead boy over to reveal the boy''s still-living three year old brother. The small boy was unconscious and had a sizeable chunk of flesh missing in the shape of a bite mark from his left shoulder. He was extremely weak from bloodloss, but he was alive.


    Maxine knelt down beside the boy and retrieved a nutritional potion from her dimensional ring. She very carefully poured ten drops of it into his mouth before he swallowed reflexively. Normally a full potion could sustain her for a day. Ten drops should be more than enough to restore his strength enough for her to heal him. She drank the rest herself to replenish the reserves she spent earlier, but oddly, she was still hungry.I definitely didn''t get enough to eat this morning.


    She channeled the healing half of her essence into the boy as a faint silver glow eminated off of her flesh. She didn''t dare allow her healing to draw strength from his already weakened body. It would kill him in his weakened state even with a nutritional potion in him. Instead, she used only her power to heal him. It was extremely draining to heal someone in this way, but it was the safest way for the patient. The wound on his shoulder closed very quickly and his missing flesh started to regrow in place.


    Once his wound completely closed, she started to feel extremly hungry to the point it was concerning. The scent of blood and gore, combined with her hunger, caused her to salivate without her realizing it. What the fuck is wrong with me?! I''m acting like an ... animal. I need to get out of her and get something to eat. I have a feeling that if I don''t something bad will happen.


    "Why the hell did you come all the way out here instead of ..." Cassandra''s angry rant died on her lips as she descended from the skies and she quickly landed beside Maxine, "By the heavens, a survivor!" She quickly scooped up the boy and embraced him protectively.


    "Four arms bit his shoulder. Piece of it was missing. I heal him and make him whole," Maxine explained and suddenly realized something was very wrong with this situation. She hadn''t thought about it earlier due to her concern over the little boy. Now that I think about it, the four-horned kanzils could''ve sensed this boy was alive just as easily as I could. So why did they let him live? Was he... bait? But who was their intended prey? Me, Cassandra or worse yet, both?


    "I...," Cassandra said weakly without releasing the boy before she gave Maxine a look of respect, "Thank you. We need to get back ot the city. I need to get this little guy behind ..." Cassandra''s face paled as she looked into the sky behind Maxine. Damn it. I hate being right.


    Maxine turned around and stared at not one, but a dozen gold stage four-horned kanzils. The strongest of them had a cultivation equal to Cassandra''s and he was showing a very confident smile. However his gaze wasn''t on Cassandra, like Maxine would have expected. He was looking at Maxine instead.And that answers who the bait was for.


    "You need to run. Right now," Maxine said without taking her eyes off of the four-horned kanzils and when Cassandra didn''t move, she roared, "Didn''t you hear me?! I said RUN! They only want me!" Maxine didn''t look at Cassandra. Instead she did locked her spiritual senst onto Cassandra. She saw the surprise on Cassandra''s face a moment before she flew off at top speed while shielding the boy. A couple of the four-horned kanzils looked reluctant about letting her leave. Otherwise they made no move to stop Cassandra from leaving.


    The gold rank seven four-horned kanzil gaze never left Maxine. It was as if Cassandra didn''t even matter to him. He slowly descended to the ground and walked towards Maxine before stopping ten paces away from her. "My name is Sitan," the powerful four-horned kanzil said in the local''s language, "I apologize for the previous demonstration. I can see, based on your anger, that you must have a child of your own. We meant no offense to you. We were only trying to incite our enemies into attacking us. But I have to ask, do they have your child? Is that why you fight for them?" It sounded like he was genuinely concerned, but she saw his earlier smile. He only wanted her for her unusual bloodline. I still need to play along to buy Cassandra some time to get away. I hope my acting skills are up to it. Ugh, I wish I wasn''t getting so damn hungry. It''s making it hard to think straight. On the upside, whatever bad happens, will happen to these four-horned assholes.


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Instead of answering him, Maxine gave him a glare colder than ice and withdrew her Twilight Iron Blades from her dimensional ring. "I''m sorry. As I said before, I didn''t mean to offend or upset you," Sitan said as he backed off a couple steps while holding up his open palms defensively, "I could think of no other reason for a noble creature such as you to fight for them. I simply wish to help reunite you with your child."


    "Why?" Maxine asked in a frigid tone as she felt her stomach rumble ever so softly as her hunger began increasing in intensity.


    "It''s painful to watch a hydra, especially one that has taken a humaniod form, to be force to work for those weaklings without even being fed properly simply because they took her child while she was away hunting," Sitan explained.


    "Lies," Maxine growled and she instantly got into a fighting stance, "You only want to mate with me so that your child will have my bloodline."God, I can''t put up with this hunger for much longer. It''s so strong that this asshole infront of me is starting to look like a big juicy steak. I just need to last for a few more seconds until Cassandra is safely back in the city.


    "I do admit that was on my mind, but only if you are willing," Sitan said as he backed off a few more steps, "If not, we will part ways after your child is safely back in your care."


    "I think not. Even if they had my daughter, all agreeing to your help would change is who has my daughter. But thankfully, they don''t have her. She is safe with her future husband on another world," Maxine said with a grin as Cassandra finally reached inside of the city, "I''m only associating with them for access to a certain resource and to find out how it''s grown." Why did I just tell him that? I''m so fucking hungry I can barely think straight. God, all I can see when I look at them is a big pile of meat.


    "You...," Sitan said in surprise and he quickly became angry, "You played me. Well done. Now we do it the fun way."Damn it. I can''t take it anymore!


    "I must FEED!" Maxine roared as couldn''t hold back her maddening hunger any longer and she charged at the weakest of the gold stage four-horned kanzils. Two of them were close enough to intercept Maxine, but she lashed out at them twelve times to knock them out of her way.


    Just as she got infront of her opponent, she attacked his weapons four weapons to break them and once they broke, she hacked off his hands at the wrist. She sent her Twilight Iron Blades back into her dimensional ring and grabbed a hold of the four-horned kanzil''s shoulder before she bit down onto his meaty neck muscles. The taste of his flesh could only be described as a high class meat. An expression of bliss covered her face as she tore his flesh free with her teeth and chewed it only a couple times before swallowing it down. For the breifest moment, a dim part of her mind was horrified, but that feeling was squashed in moments by a maddening hunger that overwhelmed her mind.


    She bit several pieces off of the screaming four-horned kanzil in the span of a second before two of his companions could tackle her away from him, but it was too late to stop her now. Her body began to rapidly expand and the scales on her skin started to get larger and more numberous. Her clothes were torn to shreds almost instantly.


    Her neck rapidly lengthened as her head changed shape into that of a large snake. She felt eleven new necks and heads rapidly formed from around her collar bone and upper back. Her shoulders widened and her limbs grew longer as thick muscle began forming on them. Her tail grew even longer and thicker than before as the rest of her body rapidly changed.


    Once her transformation was complete, her body was the size of a greyhound bus and each of her twelve serpentine heads were a two and a half feet long and a foot wide with a quill-like white mane extending out of the base of their skulls. Her four legs were laden muscle and her tail was nearly twice as long as her body.


    The two that had tackled her earlier were retreating backwards quickly with terror written all over their faces just to her right. However she wasn''t going to get very far. She was too hungry for that.


    Her two rightmost heads stretched out ten feet to grab them and pulled them in to the rest of her heads. In a matter of seconds, those two were stripped of flesh in a blurr of chomping teeth. She couldn''t get enough of their delicious flesh and barely noticed when she ate their cores along with their hearts. She tossed the almost skeletal remains away and looked at the other ten prey.


    One of them was badly wounded since it was missing it''s hands and the other nine were preparing to fight her. She instantly targeted the wounded one as the others unleashed their attacks at her. These prey were hurting her, but the wounds were so shallow that they healed almost as fast as they could inflict them on her. Thus she ignored them as she snatched up the wounded one. She stripped the flesh from his bones and devoured his core and felt her strength surging at her latest meal.More! I MUST HAVE MORE!


    Just as she finished her meal, one of her heads was blasted apart. She howled in pain as her heads flailed wildly in the air. As her destroyed head rapidly regenerated, her twelve heads locked their gaze onto the culprit that caused her such pain. He wasn''t the weakest, nor strongest. However that creature incited her wrath and she charged at him. He foolishly tried to escape, but he flew far too slowly to escape from her. She snatched him up like the others and started to slowly strip the flesh from arms and legs to punish him for destroying one of her heads. His screams were like music to her, but he didn''t last long before her hunger overwrote her desire for revenge. She quickly finished him off by devouring his core.


    She turned her heads to look at the other prey before her and flicked her tongues in the air. She scented their fear, but noticed that there were only two left. She was confused since she thought there was more of them and saw six rapidly shrinking dots in the distance. This momentary pause in her assault allowed the human part of her mind to take over for few moments and caused her to freeze in place. Oh, my god. What have I done?! I can''t stop myself! You idiots have to run away! No one deserves to be eaten alive, not even child murdering bastards like you. Don''t just stand there. RUN!!


    Unfortunately, her mental cries were not heard as the forever hungry beast within her took over once more and she rushed the two gold stage four-horned kanzils that were buying their comerades time to flee. They flew in different directions and she chased after the slower of the two. She caught up to him, but unlike the others, he chose to self-destruct rather than be eaten alive.


    The explosion burnt the scales covering her faces off and damaged most her eyes rendering her blind. However it only took a handful of seconds for the damage to repair itself. She looked around with each of her heads to look for the closest source of fresh meat to satisfy her hunger. There were two large sources. One was a rapidly fleeing group of the same delicious prey that she just feasted on and another group of that was further away but wasn''t moving. However she didn''t know what they tasted like.


    She couldn''t decide which one to go after and that was all the opportunity that her human side needed to take control once more. This time she was able to maintain control and with every ounce of will th at Maxine possessed, she forced herself to fly away from both groups at top speed. She didn''t want to become a mindless forever hungry beast again. She knew that so long as there wasn''t any living creatures in close proximity to her she could control herself.


    She closed all of her eyes and mouths to avoid seeing or scenting any sources of meat as she forced herself to revert to her battle form, but she felt extreme resistance to this change. Her intense hunger was inhibiting her attempts to revert. It took longer to change than she wanted, but after ten minutes of flying, she managed to revert back regardless of the resistance. Unfortunately as a side effect, she was exhausted.


    She dashed into a jungle and retrieved a dozen nutritional potions and food stuffs from her dimensional ring before consuming them like someone that hadn''t eaten for weeks. She needed to get this abnormal hunger satisfied before it took control of her again. Once her hunger was down to a more manageable level, she retrieved a set of hide clothing from her dimensional ring before getting dressed. Afterwards when it finally set in what she had done, she her stomach lurched, but nothing came up. All of the potions and food she consumed had been digested as quickly as she ate it. I ate them! And what''s worse, I enjoyed it! NO! Don''t think about it.


    She kept dry heaving for several minutes, but eventually, the urge to vomit disappeared. She still felt sick to her stomach, but it wasn''t as bad as it was before. However she felt the blood run out of her face when her hunger started to build up once more. No, I will not be ruled bymy hydra bloodline''s instincts to feed! She closed her eyes and took a deep breath while she steadied her mind.


    "This is my body. I will not be ruled by my hydra bloodline," Maxine said to herself to solidify her mental defenses, "My hunger is only in my mind. I don''t actually need to eat. I''m a human with a hydra bloodline, not an actual hydra." The hunger slowly receded as she directed her will to fight it. However she knew it was a temporary measure. She could still feel her hydra bloodline demanding that she dine on the flesh of her enemies. She needed to loosen the hold that her hydra bloodline had on her and to do that, she needed to spend some a few days out of her battle form at a minimum. Well, this poses a problem. I don''t want to change into a hydra again if I can''t control it, but I also don''t want to be caught out of my battle form. It just takes too long to transform into it. Even with my wolves guarding my lair, it would take me too long to get to full combat readiness if a gold stage four-horned kanzil attacked. My wolves just wouldn''t be able to last that long. And hiding somewhere on this planet until my issue is resolve isn''t an option either. The four-horned kanzils have planetary scanners that would track me down fairly easily. That just leaves staying in one of the cities. I''m not a big fan of that idea. They already don''t like the idea of me being intelligent. Although after my recent transformation, they might prefer that I''m intelligent. An intelligent being would realize that transforming into a hungry hydra would be very bad for those around them. But now that I think about it, I may have revealed my intelligence to Cassandra when I yelled at her to run away. Still, there''s the problem that I need to be out of my battle form. How do I explain it to them when they see me in my base or shadow queen form? At least, I have some time to come up with an explaination while I run back.

 Chapter 128

    It had taken Maxine the whole day and part of the night to run most of the way back to the city while remaining undetected since she cut her speed in half since she had reverted to her shadow queen form and while she ran, she discovered something that made her feel horrible. Her cultivation had jumped two ranks making her silver stage rank six. She concluded that it was due to devouring four gold stage essence cores of various ranks and oddly, it hadn''t made her foundation unstable. She could only guess that it was due to the unique way that her full-hydra form processed the energies into her cores. It made her slightly tempted to unleash this form to rapidly increase her cultivation by eating a large number of beasts, but when she remembered eating those four-horned kanzil''s alive, she quickly dismissed that idea as her nausea began to rise again. Since she couldn''t control herself when she was in that form, very little would be able to stop her from eating people. In any case, just the thought of eating any kind of meat made her feel sick to her stomach. If it wasn''t necessary to maintain her health, she wouldn''t eat any at all for a good while. I definitely need to talk to Madam Neshan after I leave this world.


    She just reached the area where the four-horned kanzils were eating children, but found that all of the bodies had been removed. She didn''t even detect any four-horned kanzils within one hundred miles either. But something was still bugging her. There hadn''t been a single search party looking for her. Decaan, at the very least, would''ve insisted on it.


    Maxine searched the city with her spiritual sense and was a little surprised at what she found. They were celebrating. Many young women were dancing around draconic warriors, but Maxine felt some surprise when she noticed that several of them were wearing false pointed ears. I don''t think I''m that popular. Is this another cultural thing that they do after winning a battle? I will figure that out later if I have time. Now where is Decaan? Oh, he''s near the center of the excitement and Cassandra and his uncle are with him. It looks they are arguing.


    "... resources looking for her," General Detar said to Decaan.


    "She''s proven that she isn''t a threat to us by helping us during that battle," Decaan reasoned, "Doubly so since she didn''t charge at us when she changed into that thing."


    "I''ve heard this arguement already," General Detar retorted calmly, "It still won''t change the kind of resources we can spare. You don''t even know if she is still alive and that she''s in control of herself."


    "Can you at least spare a man or two to monitor the cameras I set up around her den?" Decaan asked.


    "I can if the general will not," Cassandra said, "She saved a life and we owe her a life. The least we can do is make sure she is alright."


    "I see you two have already have it worked out. Why am I even here?" General Detar asked grumpily before turning around and vanishing into the crowds to enjoy the celebration. Well, that solves that problem. I just need to turn back into my battleform and revert to my shadow queen form on camera. I really don''t like that plan, but I don''t have many other options when it comes to places to hide while I wait for my hydra bloodline to calm down.


    After the general left, Decaan asked Cassandra, "Did she really speak that clearly?"


    "I''m still having a hard time believing it myself," Cassandra said, "Still, I could just be remembering it wrong."


    "I doubt that. It''s been proven countless times that draconic warriors have far superior memory compared to normal people. It''s one of the reasons I wanted to become one," Decaan said, "By the way, when are you going to assign those men? The sooner it happens, the better. She could have snuck back into her den already."


    "Fine, fine. I will make the call," Cassandra said as she walked off, "But you better share a drink with me after." Nice, she''s finally on the offensive in the romantic department. Anyways, it will be at least an hour, probably more, before they get someone monitoring those cameras, but they should have them recording video at the very least.


    Maxine swiftly disengaged her spiritual sense from the city and began searching her surroundings. She was looking for the remains of the clothes she was wearing earlier. She found them, but there wasn''t a strip of cloth wider than her thumb. Well, trying to wear that is out of the question. I would be practically naked. Instead, she kept what she was wearing on.


    She started running to her den surrounded by her shadow wolves. It took her roughly an hour to run it, but she stopped a quarter mile away from it. She scanned the jungle surrounding her den, but didn''t immediately find the cameras. However she found some rather immobile insects. On closer inspection, they were tiny robots that looked like bugs with very high definition cameras and all of them were active. Well, the stage is set. Now I just need to have them see me revert back to my shadow queen form. That should grab their attention. Hmm, now that I think about it, it''s been over five years since I''ve been in my base form. It might be a good idea to revert to that instead. I''m kind of worried I won''t be able to.


    She took a deep breath and transformed to her battle form and began acting like she was completely exhausted while she walked back to her den. This display was necessary, especially after her hydra transformation. It would cause them to be very afraid if she revealed that she was still at full strength.


    Once she was in the clearing, she knew the small cameras had sighted her. She stumbled and caught herself a few times. She was just a handful of steps away from the hole in the ground she called her den when she collapsed onto the ground and reverted back to her base form over the course of three minutes. It was agonizing slow in comparison to her normal transformation, but she had done it intentionally. Well, that''s one worry I don''t have anymore. Now I just have to wait for them to come and get me.


    After waiting half an hour, Maxine got bored and searched for Decaan in the city again. He was sharing a drink with Cassandra and it was clear that it wasn''t their first one of the night. There were three very large empty bottles on the bar infront of them. Damn someone''s drinken alot of booze.


    Decaan oddly didn''t seem to be fazed. Cassandra, on the other hand, was tipsy, and leaned in close to Decaan''s ear to whisper, "How about I take you to my place for the night?"Uhhh, should I be watching this?


    "I won''t take advantage of you while your drunk," Decaan said calmly.Aww, and here I thought he was going to get lucky.


    "Aww, come on. You know you want to," Cassandra teased.


    "I said no," Decaan said firmly, "I''m worried about Maxine and I need my wits about me if and when she''s spotted. She could be hurt."


    "You''re so mean to ignore me. I''m practically throwing myself at you and all you can do is think about another woman," Cassandra pouted and she downed another bottle of what passes for beer on this world.


    Before Decaan could admonish Cassandra, a soldier came up to them and reported, "Sir. Ma''am, you won''t believe this, but that beast woman was spotted near her den."


    Decaan instantly turned to him and demanded, "How long ago? And what''s her condition?"


    "Well, sir. She came stumbling towards her lair and collapsed just outside of it, but..," the soldier trailed off.


    "But what?" Decaan demanded, "Is she injured?"


    "No, it''s hard to explain, sir. It''s easier if you saw it for yourself," the soldier presented a data pad and it played a video of her in night vision. Decaan''s jaw dropped when he saw her physically revert back to a human over the course of three minutes.


    "I think I must have hit the liquor a bit too hard. Because I just saw Maxine transform into a human," Cassandra said in disbelief.


    "She''s a hybrid," Decaan stated in disbelief and quickly recovered, "We have to get her right now."


    "What''s a hybrid?" Cassandra asked.


    "Draconic warriors had a draconic bloodline infused into them. Maxine, on the other hand, was likely born with her beast bloodline since she was able to actively transform into a different shape. It''s almost exactly like Dr. Stein''s hypothosis. The only difference is that her transformation occurs over a shorter period of time than predicted," Decaan said quickly, "And her being a hybrid also means that one or both of her parents had beast blood in them. If we study her biology, we might be able to figure out why draconic warriors are infertile and correct it. That''s why we need to go get her right now!" Every draconic warrior in earshot quickly turned their heads towards Decaan with hope in their eyes.


    "Are you serious?!" Cassandra asked in nearly uncontrollable excitement as she grabbed the front of his clothes.


    "I''m dead serious," Decaan said as he broke free from her grip and he moved to leave, "I need to get a transport to go fetch her."


    "Don''t bother," Cassandra said as she grabbed his shoulder, "It will be faster if I got get her myself. Meet me at infirmary number three. I won''t be long." She ran out of the bar and launched off the ground like a rocket.


    Maxine retracted her spiritual sense and waited for only a couple more minutes before Cassandra landed next to her. "Easy does it," Cassandra said as she rolled Maxine over and picked her up in a princess carry. Maxine continued to fiegn unconsciousness. Within seconds, they were airborne again, but Cassandra was flying far slower than before.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    Out of curiosity, Maxine scanned Cassandra''s ovaries and womb for any defects that might explain her apparent infertility. There wasn''t anything physically wrong with her, but most of the eggs in her womb were damaged. They were still technically alive, but only a handful of them would ever stand a chance at becoming a baby. Emily could repair them with her divine essence with very little difficulty. I could, technically, do the same thing, but it takes a lot more out of me to do it. Not to mention, I would be swarmed by young men and women that want me to ''heal'' them. I guess I could use a potion to do it, but that would push my skills to the limit. And it would require herbs that I don''t have. Just another thing I need to do in secret or make up some bullshit along the lines of I can only do it once.


    After five minutes of flight, Cassandra touched down near a hospital of some kind and carried Maxine inside. "Decaan, I have her," Cassandra announced as a team of doctors with a hospital bed rushed at them.


    Maxine decided now was a good time to awaken and opened her eyes halfway as she was placed on the hospital bed. "Hungry," was the only word she said as she looked at Decaan. A few of the doctors snorted.


    "That''s a good sign," an older doctor said in amusement, "Still, it might be a good idea to give her a full work up anyways."


    "Good and please send the results to my office as well as any extra blood samples you collect," Decaan said and he handed the older doctor a data pad, "Just watch the video if you need to understand why."


    Within moments, the doctor''s hand was trembling. "This.. This is incredible! She''s a hybrid," the old doctor said gleefully, "The things we could learn from studying her."


    "Just to be clear, her health is a priority, not your curiosity. We can''t study a corpse," Decaan said coldly, "And I''m going to observe to ensure she doesn''t become one."I don''t like what Decaan just hinted at. In any case, I should be set for the next few days of being poked and prodded, but at least, this will give me some time to effectively reset the aggitation caused by staying in my battle form for too long.


    At that moment, Maxine''s stomach growled loudly to emphasize her hunger. She hadn''t been lying when she said she was hungry earlier. While nutritional potions could sustain her for long periods of time, they did little to actually fill her stomach. Hence why she was currently feeling hungry, even though she didn''t need the food.


    Unfortunately her growling stomach was ignored. She stopped paying attention to Decaan and the old doctor discuss how she should be treated. Instead she searched the area around the city for any fruit that she had eaten before. She found a few of them beyond the city walls and opened a portal in her shadow to pick something that looked like a pink pear.


    As soon as she brought it to her mouth and took a bite, she started paying attention to them once more, but the audible crunch she made from biting into the fruit got their attention. They both looked at her as she chewed the fruit. Decaan was the first one to react when Maxine took another bite out of the fruit.


    "Who gave her that?" Decaan asked.


    "No one did," Cassandra said, "I was watching everyone else. Maxine must have found it on her own."


    "How did she get it then?" Decaan asked in confusion. Maxine reached into her shadow after she finished eating her fruit and picked another one before she began eating again.


    "Amazing, she has somehow created a spatial pocket in her shadow," Decaan said. However Maxine decided now was a good time to make it appear that she just realized that her hands were different by giving both of them a good long look of confusion.


    "Oh! So that''s where she keeps those blades of hers," Cassandra commented, "I honestly thought she walked around with them shoved up her shirt and I was wondering how she managed it without cutting herself."


    "That thought crossed my mind as well," Decaan agreed.


    Maxine finished the fruit off and asked, "Decaan, why do I look normal now? I don''t remember changing back."


    "So she can speak," Cassandra said with a smirk, "I told you I wasn''t hearing things."


    "I didn''t doubt you," Decaan said and he directed his gaze at Maxine as he knelt down beside her, "I didn''t do anything. You lost consciousness for awhile just outside your den. Cassandra went over to pick you up and brought you here. Do you remember what happened at the battle earlier?"


    "I ... I don''t want to talk about it," Maxine said in discomfort.


    "And we won''t force you," Cassandra said gently and she gave Decaan the evil eye as her tone grew harsh, "Right?"


    "Yes," Decaan said meekly while suffering under Cassandra''s glare, "Yes, of course not. Talk to someone when you''re ready."


    "Thank you," Maxine said gratefully and a moment later the nurses were carting her off to another place inside the hospital.


    "You''re welcome," Cassandra said gently and she pulled Decaan away. Unfortunately for them, Maxine could still hear them with her spiritual sense.


    "Why did you keep me from finding out?" Decaan asked.


    "I saw the same look in her eyes as some of my warriors after a particularly nasty battle. If you press them to talk about something before they''re ready, it can break them," Cassandra said angrily, "If what she knew had some vital importance to our survival, I would push the questioning myself, but she doesn''t. For now, we should just give her some time and a lot of care."


    "That''s oddly caring of you," Decaan commented.


    "What was that?!" Cassandra growled.


    "Nothing," Decaan said meekly and a man wearing a lab coat rushed at them from outside.


    "Finally! I found you," the man wearing a lab coat said anxiously, "I just finished analyzing that organic poison you gave me. I don''t know where you got it from, but it''s the most toxic thing I''ve ever seen! And that''s not even including the strange energy within it that seems to augment it''s lethality. Even if only a microliter gets on your skin, you''re dead and anyone below the gold core warriors would die horribly if it gets into theri blood stream. And I''m almost certain that gold core warriors would suffer permnament damage even if they were to survive." Both Cassandr and Decaan paled before their gazes looked in Maxine''s direction.


    "Mike, who have you told about this?" Decaan asked weakly.


    "Just the two of you and General Detar," Mike answered, "Why?"


    "Don''t tell anyone else. I don''t want there to be a panic," Decaan said as calmly as he could, but he was clearly sweating nervously.


    "Wait, are you telling me that you didn''t find it on an enemy? Then where did this stuff come from?" Mike asked with a hint of fear.


    "It''s from the claws of that hybrid over there when she''s in her fighting form," Decaan said almost reflexively and he quickly glared at Mike, "I trust I don''t need to tell you that you shouldn''t share this information with anyone else. I will contact my uncle to keep him from killing her."


    "I''m not going to kill her before we figure out how to make our own hybrids," General Detar said in a cold logical tone, "Not a moment before." Dick. Not that it matters though. It will take them months, if not years to figure that detail out and that''s assuming that I let their medical scanning equipment penetrate any further than my skin.


    "If you have her killed, I will end you," Cassandra said threateningly, "She saved that little boy. You know the one I''m trying to adopt? I owe her for that and I will be damned if I let you harm a single hair on Maxine''s head."


    "Come now, can''t you see the big picture? Can''t you see how big of a threat she is?" General Detar asked disarmingly.


    "You are so terrified of what she might do that you can''t see what she''s already done," Cassandra said angrily, "For fuck''s sake, she saved many of my warrior''s lives by taunting a large chunk of the invaders into fighting her. And to top it off, she saved that little boy without any kind of prompting! If anything, we should be showering her with praise and rewards, not discussing on how to fucking kill her!" Uhh, what? I didn''t expect that much from her. Well, I mean I was expecting her to be on my side, but not to that extent. I guess I made quite the impression.


    "You need to calm down, Commander," General Detar ordered.


    "Even though Cassandra''s emotional right now that doesn''t mean she''s wrong," Decaan agreed with Cassandra.


    "Fine, we will do it your way, but if that creature harms a single civilian, I will have her destroyed," General Detar growled before he stormed off. Yeah, right. Like I would believe that for more than a second. He''s probably going to try and poison me now. Joke''s on him though. I''m practically immune to any kind of poison. Hell, even if they use cynide on me, I wouldn''t even feel that much.


    Maxine retracted her spiritual sense as the nurse got her into a room with some kind of medical scanner. However before putting Maxine into it, the nurse pulled out a needle to draw some blood.That''s a big nope, especially after General Dumbass threatened to kill me, twice.


    With a thought, Maxine covered herself in essence armor. The nurse jumped in fright and tried to soothe Maxine, "Easy now. All I''m going to do is take a little bit of blood. There''s no need to get worried, miss."


    After it was clear that Maxine wasn''t going to attack, the nurse approached Maxine slowly with the blood drawing needle in hand, but when she tried to penetrate Maxine''s defenses, the needle broke.Good luck with that. Cassandra would have to enhance that thing with her energies to penetrate my essence armor.


    After breaking another needle, the nurse gave up and pushed the hospital bed that Maxine was in under the huge medical scanner. Maxine smirked to herself. She knew for a fact that her essence armor blocked all kinds of energy, including radiation. They wouldn''t be able to scan her body at all.


    The nurse tried several times as far as Maxine could tell to get a scan, but all of the machine''s attempts were futile. The only image that showed up was Maxine''s solid sillouette.


    After a few minutes, the old doctor came in and asked angrily, "Why havn''t I gotten those scans and blood samples yet?!"


    "Doctor, I would''ve already sent them to you, but your patient has a strange carapace form on her," the nurse said as she gestured to Maxine.


    "What are you...?" the doctor asked and his jaw dropped when he saw Maxine in her essence armor, "I wasn''t told about this! Get Decaan in here at once!"


    "What are you yelling about?" Cassandra asked as she walked into the room with Decaan.


    "That," the doctor said as he pointed at Maxine.


    "I''ve never seen her do that before," Decaan admitted and he walked up beside Maxine before asking her, "Can you remove this scale armor?"


    "Can''t," Maxine answered with a lie, "It''s an automatic defense that triggers when I''m in a weakened state and when I percieve something threatening."


    "Did you threaten her in any way?" Decaan asked.


    "No, I didn''t. All I did was prepare a needle for a blood draw," the nurse said defensively and Cassandra snorted in amusement.


    "That''s rich. The big badass hybrid is afraid of needles," Cassandra chuckled.


    "It looks like you will have to wait for her to recover and convince her you mean no harm before you can do any tests," Decaan stated and he looked back at Maxine, "Are you still hungry?"


    "Yes. Can I have some snake fruit?" Maxine asked.Yep, I think I''m getting addicted to that stuff. I hope I don''t go into withdrawal once I leave this planet.


    "Of course," Decaan said softly, "You heard her. Go fetch her some snake fruit once you get her to a room."


    "Yes, sir," the nurse said and she quickly pushed Maxine''s bed to a free room.Decaan and Cassandra followed behind just outside of normal earshot, but Maxine still listened to the via spiritual sense.


    "Do you believe her?" Cassandra asked, "It''s a bit convenient for her to have an ability like that."


    "Possibly, but she should trust us after we brough her here," Decaan said.


    "But she has no reason to trust anyone else," Cassandra corrected him. He didn''t appear to have an answer to that. I just have to keep up the weak act for a few days until my hydra bloodline calms down. On the down side, I will have to put up with these guys trying to get a blood sample and/or medical scan of my body while I rest. Ugh, the next few days are going to suck. Might as well get comfortable while I can.

 Chapter 129

    Maxine look out of the hospital window to appreciate the scenery and felt grumpy that she had put up with the doctors and nurses trying to get a blood sample and scanning her body with their equipment for that last two days. But her time in this place wasn''t completely unproductive.


    She learned that they had a ward in this hospital for sick children and while visiting those children, she found out about their religion. They prayed to faefolk that had ascended to the heavens. For some reason, they included elves amongst the faefolk and cosidered them to be the warriors amongst them.


    Some of the faefolk were rather gifted at healing and the children prayed to them in hopes that one would descend to heal their ailments. It was a strange religion, but she wasn''t one to judge. Earth has it''s own bizzare religions.


    Additionally, she had learned why those young women wore the false pointed ears and danced around the soldiers the other day. They were enacting an elven victory dance around their valorous soldiers to honor them. The dance had been technically correct, but there were a dozen small nuances to it that were way off. The only reason she knew this is because she had seen what it was supposed to look like from the forest elves. Although she had to wonder how these people even knew of it to perform it.


    "Miss Maxine, are you going to sing for us today?" a little wheelchair bound boy named Sora asked hopefully from the hallway. They had already heard her sing most, if not all, the songs that were available in their play room. I guess it couldn''t hurt to sing one from the Forest Elves. But which one would be appropriate? Most of the ones I know are ballads and festival songs. OH! I know. I could sing one of their healing songs. I still don''t know how their songs actually heal people, but it should have some effect as long as I perform it.


    "Of course, I will," Maxine said happily. Aside from Decaan and Cassandra, Maxine only spoke to the children at this hospital. Everyone else had thoroughly pissed her off and weren''t worth the energy it took to say ''fuck off'' to them.


    She walked a short distance to the play room meant for the children in this hospital. No matter how many times she saw them, she felt heartbroken at seeing so many children unable to walk due to their ailments, but she noticed that the nurses present were giving her looks of gratitude.


    "What song are you singing today, Miss Maxine?" Sora asked curiously.


    "It''s called the Healing Hymm," Maxine answered, "Now settle down while I try to remember how it goes." She closed her eyes for just a moment before she opened them again and started singing in forest elven as she chanelled a small threat of her energies into her voice box.


    She barely understood what the words meant herself, but she knew their effect. Each note of the song was meant for a different form of healing. One note could stimulate cellular regeneration and another could just as easily destroy cancer cells. But that didn''t matter to the listeners. All they heard was the beautiful song and it was just as well since her attempt at it did nothing at all. She had tried it a handful of times in the past with the same result. She simply didn''t possess the gift for it.


    Several parents arrived in the middle of the song and quickly took a seat beside their children. Just before Maxine finished the song, Decaan and a young draconic warrior that she didn''t recognize arrived. As soon as her song finished, the children applauded her performance. Maxine smiled at them as she walked past them torwards Decaan.


    "That was beautiful," Decaan said admiringly, "But I don''t recognize the language you were singing in. It wasn''t that one you spoke before, but for some reason, that language sounds oddly familiar."


    "It was a song a dear friend of mine taught me," Maxine answered.


    "Oh, I see," Decaan said, "Where is this friend now?"


    "Sorry, but I can''t talk about that," Maxine answered, "She made me promise not to reveal where her people are."


    "That''s alright," Decaan said and his tone became concerned, "How are you feeling?"


    "My recovery is coming along nicely," Maxine replied calmly, "I should be back to full strength in a few more days possibly more, but no more than a week." Or rather, my unreasonable appetite will finish easing back after that period of time. I won''t risk transforming to my battle form before then.


    "That''s good to hear, but not what I wanted to know," Decaan said sadly, "I wanted to know how you are emotionally. You don''t talk about that battle much."


    "And I prefer not to relive what I did while I was a hydra," Maxine answered truthfully with a shiver. She had used the english word for hydra.


    "So that''s what that creature is called," Decaan said, "I''m sorry, but could you tell me more about that beast? Like what it''s abilities are aside from rapid regeneration."


    "Well telling a few additional details can''t hurt," Maxine commented to herself before she continued, "As you probably guessed, hydra''s have venom for both their bite and claw attacks, but that''s not the only place where they have poison. It''s also in their blood and the variety in the blood is a contact poison."


    "By the heavens, please tell me you are joking," Decaan said disbelievingly.


    "No such luck," Maxine said apologetically, "But you don''t need to worry right now. My blood isn''t toxic until I transform into my battle form."


    "Oh, good," Decaan said in relief, but his expression changed quickly, "That reminds me. Why did you act so .. dumb when we met and why did you maintain that battle form of yours for the entire time?"


    "Both good questions, but I don''t want to answer them," Maxine answered.


    "Very well," Decaan said.


    "Women and their secrets," the draconic warrior complained under his breath, "At least, she''s beautiful enough that she can get away with that kind of answer." She checked his cultivation to see if he had a reason for his behavior and found he was just barely gold stage.


    "Decaan, who is this man and why is he here?" Maxine asked.


    "This is Clark Grisweld," Decaan said, "He''s here to replace Cassandra temporarily. She was transfered to where the fighting is the worst."As long as a group of gold stage four-horned kanzils don''t attack her together, she should be fine.


    "Is that why I havn''t seen Cassandra?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, I''m afraid so," Decaan said sadly, "The invaders are avoiding this city for the time being. I think you had something to do with that." Clark Grisweld seemed to take a hint that they wanted to be left alone and started to walk a short distance away.


    "I can see why, but I''m not going to transform into that thing again," Maxine said firmly, "I can barely stomach eating meat as it is."


    "I understand entirely," Decaan said, "But why do you eat meat at all if it upsets you?"Well, I guess now''s a good time to drop a bomb on Decaan to see how he reacts.


    "I need to in order to maintain my health," Maxine replied, "It''s part of being a ''hybrid'' of human, elf and hydra."


    "Oh, alright," Decaan said reflexively and alarm showed on his face in the next moment, "Wait, did you just say elf?!"


    "Yes, why do you think my battle form had those pointy ears and is that particular shade of silver?" Maxine asked, "That color is terrible for camoflage."


    Decaan was stunned to silence for a few moments before he asked rapidly, "Where are the elves? Which of your parents did your elven blood come from?"


    "It was my mother and I can''t answer your other question," Maxine answered and quickly added to clear up confusion, "I made a rather powerful oath to not reveal where they are." I''m not technically lying. Aenwynn insisted that I use that damn oathstone as soon as I found out where their city was at.


    "Can you be our go between?" Decaan asked quickly, "Would that break your oath?"


    "I''m very sorry. I can''t do that," Maxine answered apologetically, "I can''t take the risk you would follow me there."


    "We won''t!" Decaan nearly shouted.


    "No, but you could put tracking beacons on my clothes," Maxine countered, "I''ve found one on each peice of my clothing and those were just the ones I found. There are probably others." Now I sort of wish I was bullshiting, but I''m not. There are at least three on each of my pants, shoes and shirt. But I don''t want them to realize I found them all.


    "That''s ridiculous. Why would we have a reason to do that?" Decaan asked.


    "I don''t know. But does your uncle have a reason to keep track of me?" Maxine asked and she saw Decaan slump his shoulders in defeat.


    "I didn''t know his paranoia went to that extent," Decaan said to himself.


    "What about those offworlders that said they are on their way to help?" Maxine asked, "Can''t you send a message to them to hurry up?"


    "We don''t have enough vocabulary built up to do that," Decaan answered reflexively.


    "Can I hear the message?" Maxine asked, "I might know their language. My mother taught me several different ones."


    "It wouldn''t hurt," Decaan said almost lifelessly as he reached into his pants pocket.


    As soon as he got it out of his pocket, he played the message. She understood it easily since it was spoken in Alliance common, "We are from the Seton Academy and are coming to aid you in the defense of your world against your invaders to train our gold and silver stage students. We only ask that you provide food and a place to rest for them. This message will repeat as we slowly approach your world. Arrival time: ten days, three hours, thirteen minutes and fifty two seconds from the end of this message." The message repeated in three different common languages before it ended.


    "Did you understand them?" Decaan asked with only a trace of hope.


    "When was this message recorded?" Maxine asked.


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "Yesterday around noon," Decaan answered as life began to return to his eyes.


    "Your reinforcements should arrive in roughly nine days give or take a few hours. They didn''t specify on how strong each of their members were, but they mentioned that there are warriors amongst them that should be at Clark''s strength or higher," Maxine said, "Do you want me to ask them to speed up?" Life returned to Decaan''s eyes.


    "Yes, by the heavens, yes," Decaan said.


    "Alright, just tell me what you want to say and when to start talking," Maxine said.


    "Good, just say what I say into this ...," Decaan stopped mid-sentence and changed his mind, "No, I need to get you to workstation to translate on the spot to save time when we recieve their reply."


    "Lead the way," Maxine said.


    "I can''t take you there right away. I need to get authorization for this and hopefully my uncle won''t be his usual self about it," Decaan said apologetically, "I''ll be back in an hour or two." Decaan quickly turned around to leave.


    "Bye," Maxine said to Decaan''s back and glanced to the children. She noticed no one was watching them that closely. Finally, I can heal some of them without being seen. It''s such a pain when they interrupt me in the middle of healing someone. Still, I can''t believe with their technological level they can''t heal a damaged spinal nerve, or remove cancer. They should have figured out how to correct those things by now. Thankfully, the kids here have nothing I can''t fix. Birth defects and genetic disorders are beyond my abilities, but none of these kids seem to be suffering from those.


    Maxine walked over to one child at a time and healed them in such a way that it looked like their bodies resolved their problems on their own. They already knew she could heal others and that she healed that little boy on the spot. Maybe they realized I like children and will heal them without thinking about the consequences. She kept going until she noticed something else. There are a lot of children with different problems in here. You would think that they would have specialize care for these kids. Unless, they are testing the limits of my healing capabilities. Damn, it''s too late to stop now. I''ve almost healed all the kids here. Might as well as well show them my shadow queen form while I''m at it. I''ve already told Decaan that I''m at least part elf and it will lower the chances significantly that General Dumbass will try to have me killed behind Decaan''s back.


    She had saved Sora for last and walked towards him. She noticed he was reading a picture book and most of the pictures were of faires flying over an injured boy. She was fascinated by this book and she waited for him to turn the page.


    Once he did, she saw a story play out with the pictures. One of the fairies flew off and returned with an elf. The elf healed the boy using magic and taught him how to defend himself. The boy returned to his village and saved them from a group of bandits with the skills he learned.


    "What an interesting story," Maxine commented.


    "I thought so too," Sora said cheerfully, "I hope an elf comes and does the same for me!"


    "Well, healing you wouldn''t be any issue for any elven healer. But teaching you the sword on top of that? It would take years to develop that level of mastery as depicted in your book," Maxine said calmly, "But, I''m sure I can heal your injured spine without much trouble."


    Sora simply chuckled as if Maxine told a joke. "I''m serious. I can heal your spinal injury," Maxine said firmly.


    "No, only elves can," Sora said sadly, "Dr. Tanack said so."


    "But I am an elf," Maxine said boldy and when she saw the look of disbelief on Sora''s face, she added, "What? Can''t an elven maiden, like myself, be good at illusion magic?"


    "Did you hit your head?" Sora asked innocently.


    "No, I didn''t, but perhaps this will convince you," Maxine said with a smirk as she stood up. She quickly spinned around and at the same time, summoned up a silvery mist to obscur her body while she transformed into her shadow queen form. Once her transformation completed, she allowed the mist to vanish and brushed her hair behind her ears to show her pointed ears.


    Sora''s expression slackened in disbelief. She even caught the attention of the other children and several nurses. She didn''t care about that as she knelt infront of Sora and had her hands glow with a golden light as she tenderly touched his stomach. She extended her energies through his body to his severed spinal nerve and grabbed both ends before slowly reattaching them. It was challenging to attach individual nerves to their proper place, but thankfully each of his nerve strands had a particular feel. It was simply a matching game to her. Within five minutes, she had completely reattached his nerves and retracted her energies. As a final touch, she pinched one of his toes just hard enough for him to feel pain.


    "Ow!" Sora said reflexively and his eyes widened instantly in surprise. He cautiously pinched his legs in different spot and all the while, his surprise was quickly being replaced with joy. By the time he finished, he was practically in tears due to the intensity of his emotions. He swiftly lunged forward and hugged Maxine tightly.


    She wasn''t surprised by his response and hugged him back with a big smile plastered on her face. Nothing is more innocent and pure than the gratitude of a child. It''s nothing like an adult''s reaction at all. They could be grateful one second and a backstabbing asshole in the next.


    Once she parted from Sora''s embrace, she noticed the other children looking at her hopefully. "Nurse, I suggest you tell the doctor to take a look at those children," Maxine told the closest nurse, "None of them belong here." It''s not like they wouldn''t do that anyways. This just speeds it along.


    "Uhh, okay," the nurse closest to the hallway said before leaving swiftly. Clark Grisweld returned and he stared right at her as soon as he came in. Hope burned in his eyes as he approached her and bowed before her.


    "Please, make it so I can have children," Clark Grisweld begged.Oh, my. I didn''t expect him to ask me this quickly. Might as well take a look. Carefully, Maxine extended out her spiritual sense as she grabbed his shoulder and closed her eyes. She checked his testicles, but her heart dropped. His sperm count was dismal and she couldn''t fix this issue either.


    "I''m sorry. I can''t. The damage is too great," Maxine apologized and was struck with a sudden impulse to ask, "Was dragon that you gained your draconic powers from red by any chance?"


    "Yes, why?" Clark Grisweld asked in return, but the hope in his eyes had all but vanished. IDIOTS! Complete fucking idiots! Don''t they know the hazards of giving bloodlines endowments to their opposite genders?! Infusing a man with a female dragon''s bloodline will work, but it will assuredly destroy their reproductinve ability! I didn''t think they would do something that fucking retarded. Still it doesn''t destroy the reproductive ability all the way.


    "That''s the reason I can''t heal you. The genders of the source beast and the one being infused with it''s bloodline must be the same," Maxine explained, "Otherwise, the bloodline will heavily damage the reproductive ability of whomever receives it. Thankfully, the damage wasn''t so great as to completely eliminate the possibility for you to have children. It just requires a special procedure and the use of a surrogate mother."


    "I''ve never heard of anything even remotely like that before," Clark Grisweld said.


    "That''s odd. It should be well within your technological limits," Maxine commented, "I don''t know the exact method, but I could describe the whole process to a doctor or medical researcher."


    "Please, do that," Clark Grisweld practically begged Maxine.


    "Alright, I will," Maxine said and she glanced up to see Decaan with a very shocked expression on his face, "I need to go now. I will talk to one of the doctors later."


    "Thank you," Clark Grisweld said with a bow of his head as Maxine walked up to Decaan, but he still seemed to be too surprised for words.Or he''s in shock from seeing an elf. I''m not sure which is it right now.


    "What''s that look for? I told you I had elven blood," Maxine said defensively, "I believe you need to take me somewhere?"


    "Yes, of course," Decaan said as he regained his senses, "Follow me. I have a transport waiting on the roof."


    Maxine followed him to the roof and got into a small bullet shaped aircraft with tiny wings. It concerned her that it didn''t have any windows, but she still boarded it all the same. After the ship took off with her in it, Maxine asked, "How did your uncle handle finding out that I''ve got elven blood?"


    "I didn''t tell him. I only mentioned that you understood the language in the transmission," Decaan answered, "It doesn''t matter now though. After your little display at the hosptial, he should find out in the next hour or so."


    "This shape improves my healing efficiency and I can only take it on when I''m at at least half strength," Maxine lied.


    "Who were you healing?" Decaan asked.


    "You know full well that I can''t stand to see sick or injured children and I spent a half a day''s worth of my recovery healing them," Maxine said with a hint of anger, "Why else would you have children with so many different problems near me, if not to guage my healing abilities?"


    "I didn''t notice anything like that with those children. Although to be fair, I was mostly keeping my eye on you," Decaan said defensively and he appeared to be telling the truth. Maxine touched his mind ever so slightly with her spiritual sense to be doubly sure of his truthfulness and it only confirmed his words. If it wasn''t him, it has to be General Detar''s doing. I guess I should change my insult from dumbass to asshole, or better yet dumb asshole. Yeah, that sounds much better.


    "What kind of reply do you want to send those people?" Maxine asked to change the subject.


    "Something along the lines of: We recieved your transmission and we need you to arrive at the quickest time possible," Decaan said, "Think you can manage that?"


    "Easily," Maxine replied confidently, "You''re just lucky my mother taught me their language. It''s much harder to learn than yours."


    "Oh? And where is your mother?" Decaan asked, "Can I meet her?"


    "She died protecting me when I was still very young," Maxine answered sadly.And then, dad came along and resurrected her using some bullshit level alchemy. I still havn''t figured out how he pulled that off, even after he explained it to me.


    "I''m sorry to hear that," Decaan apologized.


    "Don''t worry about it. She died more than twenty years ago," Maxine said.


    "Hmm, that''s odd. It shouldn''t have taken us this long to get to the relay station," Decaan said to change the subject, "I wonder what the problem is." Maxine instantly expanded her spiritual sense. They were flying in a long underground tunnel with at least one hundred feet of rock above them and they were less than five minutes away from a very heavily fortified bunker. What''s worse, she couldn''t sense the interior of it.


    "Is this relay station underground?" Maxine asked.


    "Of course not. Don''t be ridiculous," Decaan replied, "We would never be able to get a signal if it was underground." Shit.


    "I thought your uncle would wait a few more days before he made a move," Maxine said to herself as she retrieved a pendant from her dimensional ring and she put a spiritual mark on it before handing it to Decaan, "Can you give this to Cassandra for me?"


    "Yes, but why not give it to her yourself?" Decaan asked.


    "Because your uncle has lied to you and is sending me to some underground facility. I''m guessing it''s to study me without my consent," Maxine answered calmly, "And in doing so, has made an enemy of me."


    "He wouldn''t!" Decaan affirmed.


    "He has. Just look out of the cockpit of this ship. We are deep underground," Maxine answered. Decaan knocked on the pilot''s door and said a few words before returning.


    "You''re right," Decaan said sadly, "What now? You can''t exactly escape, not from this place."


    "I can escape at any time I choose," Maxine said confidently, "But I wanted to give you something before I do."


    "And what could be so important that you would risk your freedom to give me?" Decaan asked.


    "This," Maxine said as she swiftly tapped his forehead and gently sent a cultivation manual as well as the rough idea of how to perform artifical insemination. At the same time, she fried all of the tracking devices hidden in her clothes.


    Decaan recoiled as his mind was overwhelmed with the information she sent him, but even as he held his head with his hands, his eyes widened in disbelief. "How did you do that? And why did you decide only now to give it this knowledge to me?" Decaan asked rapidly.


    "I can''t answer that right now. Just take your time and develop your own cultivation technique using the one I gave you as reference," Maxine replied, "Now I need to leave. Please let them know never to approach me again. It will be the very last thing they will ever do. You and Cassandra are exceptions though. Goodbye." After saying that, Maxine waved her hand as she created a portal in the side of the ship and gave Decaan one last look before walking through it.


    After reaching her destination, Maxine closed the portal behind her. She looked around carefully the room she was in very slowly. She was on the basement level of the hospital and to her relief, there was still a thick layer of dust over everything to show just how infrequently this room was visited. It only confirmed what she had seen with her spiritual sense over the past two days. Perfect. I can easily hide here for a few days to ease my hunger down. After that, I''m going back to my life and death training. But first, I need to ensure that I won''t be detected by accident. I''m honestly surprised that their hospitals are not regularly scanned. I can''t believe they have such an oversight. Although to be fair, they havn''t encountered any enemies that could shapeshift and/or the few that sneaked past their defenses didn''t bother to attack their hospitals. So of course, their detection grid would be lax in that regard.


    With a thought, she created a construct and imbued it with enough of her energies to cloak her position for the next five days. She checked on how well it worked before reverting back to her normal state and quickly got into position to meditate. I really want to kill that piece of shit general, but I won''t do it. Decaan would become my enemy if I did and I need all the friends I can get on this planet. But that doesn''t mean I won''t do anything in retaliation. She discreetly sent a few of her ravens out to sneak into General Detar''s shadow and ordered them to prod him with their sharp beaks whenever he tried to lay down to sleep. And they would continue to harrass him for however long she was on this world.

 Chapter 130

    It had been three days and the hunger from her hydra bloodline had all but vanished. Another spot of good news was that no one had bothered coming down to her hiding spot during that whole time. She thought at least someone would have thought to check the basement. She had been ready to fly up and laying flat against the ceiling while using her stealth techniques to avoid detection.


    She was very bored and decided to see if Decaan had given Cassandra that pendant she asked him to. Oddly enough he still had it on him and when she focused on him, she saw his immediate surroundings. Both he and his uncle, whom looked like he hadn''t slept very well for days, were facing forward as a group of holograms appeared infront of them a semi-circle. These holograms were of various high ranking military officers. Looks like the good general''s in deep shit and here I am without any popcorn. Oh well, I can still watch the show regardless.


    "I read the report and I''m very disappointed. How could you fail so completely, Detar?" someone Maxine didn''t recognize asked, "You''ve always produced such amazing results in the past."


    "You planned this operation in the city under my juristiction without even notifying me, Supreme Commander. So how in all of creation could it possibly be any fault of mine that your secret mission failed?" General Detar asked angrily, "Had you at least notified me, Decaan might have been able to convince her to go there willingly, and we could have gotten her to translate for us with the approaching friendlies!" Okay, new developements are always fun, but it''s starting to look like General Detar wasn''t the main culprit behind the change of route earlier. But, he isn''t against me being caged either. So, my raven harrassment plan remains in place.


    "Irrelevant," the ''supreme commander'' said, "She is too valueable as a research specimen. Not to mention the damage she has already caused due to your lax measures. She needed to be contained."


    "Your statement proves just how little you actually read my report," General Detar growled, "If you had, you would''ve realized she''s done nothing, but help bus. And you wouldn''t have taken the risk of angering a highly intelligent being that can literately transform into a monster capable of crushing one of our cities by herself!"


    "Calm down, Detar," the supreme commander said.


    "Calm down? You want me to fucking calm down?!" General Detar roared, "You effectively betrayed her trust mere minutes after she healed over a dozen children that would''ve died horribly otherwise and pointed us in the right direction to create our own hybrids. We''ll be lucky if she doesn''t join the invaders in attacking us!" Huh? He made no mention of the cultivation technique that I gave to Decaan. Did Decaan withhold it? That was a smart move considering what I''ve seen thus far.


    "You''re missing the point," the supreme commander said calmly.


    "What fucking point?" General Detar asked angrily.


    "That creature told Clark Grisweld that there was a means for our draconic warriors to reproduce and he told several others about this as well. Now we will have to dedicate research into that very topic to keep our draconic warriors happy. Many of them have family members that will be on almost all of those research teams, so we can''t give false results to them," the supreme commander said, "And because of this, we will loose a large deal of our control over their numbers now. Why else do you think our draconic warriors are nearly infertile?"


    "You''re implying that their infertility is intentional. Why would you do such a thing?!" Decaan asked in disbelief.


    "Do you honestly believe that any hybrids born would remain loyal to our people as their parents are? With their strength, they could easily usurp our world''s government. That''s why we had to ensure that their ability to reproduce was next to non-existent and they would need to rely on us to produce more of their kind. And to minimize dissension, our draconic warriors are carefully selected based purely on their bodies and their loyalty to us," the man said as Decaan kept getting angrier with every word, "We can''t take the risk of a rebellion that could unseat us from power." That shit was intentional!? Now I feel a lot less sympathetic to these pricks and I''m definitely going to tell Clark Grisweld and Cassandra about this bullshit. But it''s odd that General Detar didn''t seem to be aware of this. I wonder why that is. Perhaps he is a lower ranked general and didn''t have a high enough rank to be made aware of it. I remember hearing that generals on Earth were ranked by the number of stars they had. Maybe they have something similar on this world.


    "So you mean that I can''t have children with the woman I love because you''re afraid of a possible future?" Decaan growled in barely restrained anger and all of the uniformed holograms, aside from this supreme commander, glared at him. Oh, shit. That''s my cue to prepare an escape route for Decaan. Before they could say anything, Maxine created a portal in Decaan''s shadow. She readied herself to get him out of there at a moment''s notice should things take a turn for the worst.


    "That''s right, Decaan," the supreme commander said cruelly, "So I suggest that you find another woman because she will never give you a child."


    Decaan only glared at them before he ripped his military ID card out of his pocket and tossed it at their feet. "So be it then," he growled as he walked way.


    "Where do you think you are you going?" the supreme commander asked.


    "To find a job in the agricultural sector. My skills and knowledge will be better suited to feeding our people rather than stabbing them in the back," Decaan snapped just before he left the room.


    "He can''t be serious," the supreme commander said, "He will never enjoy that kind of work."


    "I don''t think he cares and you''re wrong. He never enjoyed his work. He only did what he thought our people needed most," General Detar said sadly, "And congratulations, you''ve just done is driven off one of our best minds to do something that is beneith him. No doubt word will get out about this meeting."


    "If your nephew is that stupid, he will be killed as a result. You know that," the supreme commander said warningly.


    "Oh, it''s not my nephew that will talk. It''s Maxine," General Detar said with cruel smile of his own, "She sent her pets to harrass me whenever I try to lay my head down to sleep. Probably because she believes that I''m the one that betrayed her. I can live with it if that''s the limit of her wrath against me, but I imagine she''s letting me off easy since I''m Decaan''s uncle. What''s more important though is that those pets dwell within my shadow and if it isn''t obvious to you, you can just assume that whatever her pets hear, she will too." I guess he isn''t a total idiot since he guessed that much.


    "And you only now tell us this?!" the supreme commander roared.


    "You got a problem with that?" General Detar said smugly, "Good, because I have a problem of my own I want to get out in the open. My problem is that I''m tired of seeing my nephew unhappy. That Maxine was a puzzle to him and it perked him up more than anything has in years. He even started smiling again when he spent time with Commander Cassandra and after I got the report that this Maxine could heal, I was hoping, praying even, that she would heal Cassandra. That way my nephew could be with her and return to being the smiling boy that he was before his parents died. But now I know that you wouldn''t allow it even if Cassandra were healed. No wonder the fairies left us. We''ve become rotten." Wow, I knew he cared for Decaan. But did he have to add that bit on the end? Even I can feel the provocation in his tone.


    "You''re clearly too emotional at the moment to continue with your duties," the surpreme commander said with terrifying calm, "General Kazan will relieve you shortly."


    "Fine, but you best not harm myself or my nephew," General Detar said warningly as he started walking away, "I''ve got a trove of secrets that would be released the moment of either of our deaths that would most certainly cause every last general to get lynched. I can only imagine what would happen to you, Supreme Commander Callent."


    After General Detar left, the supreme commander Callent said, "Ensure that both Detar and his nephew are given unrestricted access to the front line. They will no doubt have an urge to go to Commander Cassandra''s side and while your at it, find out who has those secrets Detar mentioned before that city falls. We can''t risk loosing our power due to our secrets getting out." Ahh, now I get it. These fuckers somehow came to power during one of the previous invasions. People, who gain power using underhanded methods, are always worried that they will loose their power. Idiots. If they didn''t want that to happen, they should avoid pissing off their own people.


    "Understood, sir," the assembled generals said before the supreme commander''s hologram winked out.


    Maxine returned her focus to Decaan. He was heading back to his apartment. She knew they were going to make him head to the frontline but she didn''t know how they were going to do it. Thus she continued to watch him to make sure he wasn''t ambushed.


    Nothing happened before he got home or while he was packing his clothes into a large duffel. She found it odd that they hadn''t jumped him yet. He took over a few hours to pack his clothes and other various items and after he left home he seemed to be heading to a transport hub. Mere moments before Decaan reached it, the soldiers guarding it seemed to be expecting him.


    "Sir, what is your planned destination?" the soldier asked Decaan as soon as he approached.


    "City 37," Decaan answered.There naming sense is just awesome and screams ''I''m an uninventive and lazy jackass.''


    "Very good, sir," the soldier said as he approached Decaan and whispered into his ear, "I don''t know how you got clearance to go to there, but we were told to let you through. I hope you''re aware of just how dangerous it is in that city at the moment."


    "Thank you, soldier," Decaan said with a straight face, "But I''m well aware of the risks on heading to the front line."


    "Understood," the soldier said and gestured towards one of the landing pads, "Please head to landing pad seven. The transport ship will be taking off in the next half hour to head to city 37." Okay, that''s probably the city closest to the fighting and if I''m not wrong, that''s also where Cassandra is. Well that will make it easier to find her and heal her.


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    Decaan quickly boarded the ship as directed and five minutes before the ship took off, General Detar got onto it with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. They stared at each other for a moment before General Detar took a seat, but neither of them said a word.


    It wasn''t until after the ship took off that General Detar spoke, "What are you planning, Decaan?"


    "I''m going to find Cassandra. After that, I don''t know," Decaan said softly. Maxine swiftly scanned the ship for listening devices and prevented Decaan and General Detar''s voices from reaching them.


    "Are you going to tell her the truth?" General Detar asked.


    "I... I don''t know," Decaan said, "The logical part of me says no, but my emotions say otherwise. I want them to pay for what they have done."


    "Bury those emotions, right now," General Detar told Decaan, "We are in the middle of a war and we can''t afford to have our forces split over this."


    "I know," Decaan said in defeat.


    "Good," General Detar said sadly, "We can revisit this discussion, but only after the war is over."


    "You''re assuming they will let us live that long," Decaan said grimly, "It won''t take them that long to find whomever is holding those secrets for you."


    "I doubt that very much," General Detar said with a vicious grin.


    "You seem confident about that," Decaan said, "Why is that?"


    "I can''t say," General Detar said, "There are listening devices on this ship."He''s sharp or he was the one that suggested they put them on the ships in the first place.


    "Fine, but you''re telling me later," Decaan said grumpily.


    "I will. Just be patient," General Detar said. Decaan nodded and both of them went silent.


    Maxine was about to retract her spiritual sense, but stopped when she noticed Decaan was trying to cultivate.Oh? That was fast. I wonder what changes he made to it.She took a quick look and nodded her head in understanding. He had modified the technique only minimally, but it had been adjusted to work perfectly with his physiology. But what shocked her was the fact he was cultivating three energies at once. However, the rate at which he gathered essence and ki was only a fourth of the rate that his mana gathered. Oh, my fucking god. He''s not just a intelectual genius, but a monsterous cultivation genius as well. I wish we had someone like him on Earth when we were developing our own cultivation technique. It wouldn''t have taken us nearly as long to make it. She wanted to congratulate him, but didn''t dare do it. She didn''t want to distract him and damage his future accomplishments.


    Maxine retracted her spiritual sense and tried to meditate. But she couldn''t get in the right frame of mind. She felt like someone was watching her, but she knew full well that no one was in the room. However after her fifth attempt to settle her mind, she felt the faintest of breezes on her face.Wind? Down here? The air conditioning probably just turned on.


    Maxine waited to see if this breeze would get weaker, but instead it got stronger as time went one. And the moment that she heard a faint high frequency sound, her hand lashed out and grabbed onto something. It was a small woman roughly the same size as a barbie doll.


    She quickly opened her eyes and confirmed that she was holding a tiny woman slowly that was becoming slowly fading into existence within her grasp. The tiny woman looked terrified, but what really drew Maxine''s attention were four narrow insect-like wings coming out of the tiny woman''s back. Holy shit, it''s a fairy.


    "Please, don''t don''t crush me," the fairy pleaded in forest elf, "I promise I''ll leave you alone."


    "Why would I crush you?" Maxine asked in forest elf as she released the fairy and watched her begin to hover by nearly soundlessly flapping her wings.


    "Because that''s what humans did to us in the past after they nearly wiped out our elven protectors," the fairy said fearfully, but her expression turned to one of shock, "Huh? How do you understand me? Humans don''t speak this language."


    "I''m not exactly human," Maxine retorted as she transformed into her shadow lord form, "And your people should have no fear of humans. They worship fairies. If you appeared infront of them, they would probably hold a massive feast in your honor."


    "Really?" the fairy asked disbelievingly, "But why didn''t the Petal and the others return to let us know that?"


    "I havn''t heard anything about fairies appearing in any city," Maxine said, "When did Petal go with the others? And who did they approach first?"


    "They approached the human leaders two winters ago," the little fairy said, "I really, really need to go now."Hmm, that''s suspicious as fuck.


    "Bye then," Maxine said and the fairy flew with surprising speed at one of the walls. She moved to stop the fairy from commiting suicide, but was dumbstruck when a glowing blue portal appeared on the wall the moment before the fairy hit it.What the fuck?! Why didn''t I detect that before? It should glow to my spiritual sense like the sun.


    Maxine carefully scanned the wall with her spiritual sense, but didn''t find anything besides concrete and steel. It was just a wall. It had no special markings and didn''t emit any kind of energy. I know it''s there, but I can''t find it. It has to be a concealment array, but why won''t it activate when I touch it? Is it race sensitive? If that''s the case, it''s way higher level than anything I''ve seen or heard about and that fairy was far too weak to be able to place it herself. So that means they must have a few gold stage cultivators amongst their number. But I can still see why they hide. Their diminitive size makes it really hard to injure someone a full rank below them that''s normal sized.


    She had a sudden thought and looked at the door. But something was making it very hard for her to focus her eyes on it and a feeling of dread formed in her thoughts when she was able to focus on it. Another array? And it''s a clever one too. It keeps keeps anyone from seeing it clearly and to top it off, they make whomever sees the door feel like approaching it will mean their death. It''s a non-lethal way of keeping people out.


    She spent a few hours examining each surface of the room to see if she could find even a single portal in this room, but her efforts were wasted. She released a sigh and checked on Decaan. He had arrived at his destination, but he looked very distraught as he ran into a specialized hospital that was constantly bringing draconic warriors into it. Oh, no.


    Maxine quickly threw her spiritual sense into the hospital and found Cassandra close to the top floor. She was in bad shape. The doctors did their best to patch her up, but her body''s sheer durability made it very difficult. She had three stab wounds on her stomach and another on her left arm. The wounds on her stomach were deep enough to be life-threatening if she weren''t gold stage, but Maxine detected poison in her wounds. She would die without help in the next few hours.


    Within minutes, Decaan burst into the room and his eyes landed on Cassandra''s bandaged form. He quickly went to her side and grabbed her hand gently. "How is she?" Decaan asked the nurse in the room.


    "She''s badly injured and is suffering from a poison we can''t identify," the nurse replied.


    "I see. Thank you for your service. I will take over from here," Decaan said and once the nurse left the room, he placed the pendant she gave him around Cassandra''s neck, "Where are you Maxine? She needs you."


    [I can be there at a moment''s notice, but first lock that door. I don''t want to be interrupted while I diagnose and heal her,] Maxine said via spiritual sense and Decaan looked around wildly, [Don''t bother looking for me. I''m not actually there. I''m speaking to you telepathically. Now, do as I said and lock that door.] Decaan moved to the hospital room door before closing and locking it. Next he moved to close all of the curtains in the room to avoid any passerbys from seeing Maxine.


    With a thought, Maxine created a portal in the shadow of the bed and went through it. She appeared to rise up out of the floor to Decaan''s eyes. "You really are a telepath," Decaan said to himself as if he just realized it, "I had my suspicions, but you just confirmed it."


    "I thought you would''ve known that after the last time we talked," Maxine said, "Now, let me see about that poison coursing through Cassandra''s body." She gently drew a small amount of Cassandra''s poison laced blood and tasted it. She immediately grimaced with disgust as she felt heat in her loins, but her biology quickly neutralized the poison. It was an aphrodisiac so strong that it was toxic. It would kill anyone silver stage or weaker if they didn''t have sex. Normally, Cassandra would be able to ignore it, but with her injuries, she was very vunerable to it.


    "What''s wrong?" Decaan asked.


    "The invaders have a really sick mentality that''s what''s wrong," Maxine answered, "The poison in her veins is an aphrodisiac, a really potent one too." On a side note, using a super potent aphrodisiac as a poison is kind of brilliant. Who would think to have sex while this badly injured?


    "How do we treat her without doing any damage?" Decaan asked worriedly.


    Maxine just gave him a wierd look before she answered, "I can heal her wounds and the aphrodisiac should work itself out of her system."


    "Then please do that," Decaan practically begged Maxine.I was already planning on that.She quickly scanned the room for any listening devices and found three.Figures. Well, time to test my acting skills.


    "Alright. I will even fix her reproductive issues as well, but I can only do it for her. It takes something from me to repair something so delicate and it''s not something that I can recover easily," Maxine lied for whomever was listening in.


    "I ... I understand. Just save her, please," Decaan openly begged.


    "Just sit over there and be quiet. I need to concentrate," Maxine said truthfully. Decaan nodded and quickly sat down on a chair, but he pulled out a strange device.I bet that''s going to take a full spectral analysis of what I''m about to do. Perhaps he''ll figure out how to simulate my healing energies. Although it will be a long time before anyone figures out how to focus it properly.


    Maxine touched Cassandra''s shoulder and scanned her body thoroughly to make sure she didn''t miss anything. Her wounds weren''t any nastier than before and just like she suspected, the aphrodisiac diverting her body''s resources away from healing.


    With that in mind, Maxine used her energies to heal the stab wounds. It was extremely slow going and far more draining than she expected. Afterall, Cassandra was the strongest person that she had ever needed to heal. She needed to use twice as much of her energy as she expected.I should still be able to fully heal her, but I''ll have less than ten percent of my strength left after this.


    She nearly finished healing the stab wounds when she heard someone knocking on the door. "Um, sir. We need to change her bandages," a nurse said. Shit, that''s bad timing. I still havn''t restored her reproductive ability.


    "I need another four minutes," Maxine said as she continued healing Cassandra.


    Decaan opened the door gently and said, "She''s sleeping. Just hand me the bandages and I will change them once she wakes up."


    "Her wounds are in sensitive areas," the nurse explained with a slight blush to her cheeks.


    "I''ve already seen her naked, and I''ve had training as a medic. So this shouldn''t be an issue," Decaan retorted with a straight face as he snatch the fresh bandages out of the nurse''s hands before shutting the door. That should buy us enough time.


    "What''s going on? Is Decaan here?" Cassandra said in confusion as she awoke, "I need him."


    Decaan rushed to her side. "I''m here," Decaan said.Well, this is going to be interesting.


    "Make love to me," Cassandra said boldly as she grabbed him and pulled him into a deep kiss. Wow, I thought she would resist the aphrodisiac a little bit. She just kicked my expectations to the curb.


    Decaan was able to disengage from the kiss after nearly thirty seconds and said firmly, "No, you''re not in your right mind. I won''t take advantage of you while you''re under the effects of a drug."


    "Please, Decaan," Cassandra begged.


    "That''s enough out of you," Maxine complained and directed a quick burst of her spriitual sense into Cassandra''s head to knock her out. If she had been fully cognizant, a move like that wouldn''t have worked.


    "What did you do to her?!" Decaan demanded.


    "I knocked her out. Now I just need to do the finishing touches on her healing," Maxine said with a lack of energy and began to heal Cassandra''s ovaries. Rejuvenating each of her eggs was exhausting. She finished up with just enough energy to send herself back to where she was before.


    "All done," Maxine announced with barely any strength in her voice, "I need to go now. If you guys need anything, just do what you did before. I should hear it." She didn''t even wait for a reply before she jumped into the portal back to her hiding spot.


    Once she was through her portal, she closed it off and promptly collapsed onto the ground panting.Never again will I use up that much of my strength. There is a fucking war going on and I''m going to use as much of my strength as I can to train myself thoroughly. Still, the four-horned kanzils must be including gold stagers in their assault if Cassandra got injured like that. I guess it''s time for me to rejoin the fighting to even things out and if the opportunity presents itself, I will kill their leader. He already saw how dangerous I can be, and he still tried to capture me. He had his chance and I''m tired of playing nice with people who don''t return the curtesy. That also makes me curious as to what is in that facility that they were going to put me into. If I''m lucky, the fairies that disappeared could be inside of it. I will send a raven to do a little recon to find out.

 Chapter 131

    It took Maxine''s raven a few hours to reach the underground installation via shadow jumping. She was just waiting for one of the exterior guards to go inside and she would have her raven attach to their shadow as she created a portal in it. She had tested it before and found that if one of her constructs was in a shielded room then she would loose contact with it entirely. It was a different matter when it invovled one of her clones. She could connect to them regardless of barriers. Although extreme distances did weaken her connection to them, but didn''t exstinguish her awareness of them.


    When one of the guards moved towards the main entrance to the facility, she attached her raven to the man''s shadow and created a needle-sized portal in his shadow. Once inside, she searched for another shadow to place her raven in and didn''t find any in the immediate area. In fact, she was looking at a massive hangar without so much as a hand rail in sight. It was completely barren and extremely well lit. On the far side of the hangar, there were a couple dozen gun nests armed with fully-automated dual rapid fire plasma turrets. Talk about overkill defenses. Thank god, I didn''t try a frontal assault and went with a stealthy approach. I would be lucky to walk away without loosing a limb.


    The guard walked down the hangar and into a hallway with a security camera at each end of the hallway to decorate it. At this point, Maxine gave up on trying to find another shadow and attempted to scan the entire facility. However she was dumbfounded when she couldn''t go beyond the walls in the hallway. Holy fuck! Is this whole facility shielded?! How did they manage to find the materials for all of this?! Or did they figure out a feasible alloy that can block spiritual sense? If that''s the case, they could literately corner the market with it.


    Eventually, the guard reached a restroom and was walking towards a urinal. I do not want to watch this guy take a piss. Time to find another person to latch my raven onto.She quickly found a scientist wearing a lab coat exiting one of the stalls and quickly moved her raven and portal to his shadow.


    Unfortunately, this scientist was working on some kind of energy shield generator and Maxine was somewhat frustrated until the man started talking with his colleague.


    "I still can''t believe it," the scientist said, "I don''t know what the supreme commander was thinking when he did that. What about you, James? Do you know what he was thinking?"


    "Not a clue," James said, "But if you know what''s good for you, you will stop talking about it. Jasmine made a fuss about it and she died in an ''accident'' the next day."


    "I guess you''re right," the scientist said, "Still, I feel sorry for Petal and her kin."Petal?! That''s the name that fairy mentioned. I wonder if they will give me any more information.


    "So do I, but there is nothing we can do about it," James said.


    "I can always sneak some candies to her through Luke," the scientist said, "She seems to like those alot."


    "Well, the fairies have been proven to need a lot of calories to maintain their ability to fly," James agreed and handed the scientist a handful of hard candy, "Hand these to Luke for me during your evening meal. I want to stay a little longer trying to tweek this thing before I eat." Bingo. Now I just need to wait for James to go eat. She quickly transfered her raven and portal to James'' shadow.


    "Not a problem," James said, "Now let''s work out how to make this shield more stable."


    It was a few more hours before James left to go get dinner. Maxine watch him carefully and when he met up with ''Luke,'' she transfered her raven and portal to his shadow. Half an hour later, he walked into a observation room overlooking an enclosure with a large tree within it. She saw a dozen fairies lounging on the tree. She ran her spiritual sense over the fairies, whom started breathing excitedly, to see if any of them were injured. A two foot tall fairy with spiky pink hair immediately sent out her own spiritual sense to connect to Maxine''s.


    [How soon will you be able to rescue us?] the spiky pink haired fairy said excitedly, [Are you going to rescue the elves here as well?]


    [I wasn''t aware of the elves, but yes, I will rescue all of you as soon as I confirm the locations of everyone,] Maxine replied, [Do you know where the elves are?]


    [In the room adjacent to this one. The door leading to it from this room isn''t shielded,] the spiky pink haired fairy said, [My name is Petal by the way.]


    [Mine''s Maxine and when an grey arch appears on the wall, fly through it. It''s a portal that leads directly to the place I''m at. It''s part of my abilities. Spread the word while I locate the elves,] Maxine explained.


    [I will and thank you,] Petal said gratefully.


    [Don''t mention it,] Maxine replied as she extended her spiritual sense to the room beside this one.


    She found the elves in an enclosure similar to the one the fairies were held in and raised her eyebrow at the two varieties of elves there. The six of them looked identical to the forest elves she saw on the hero world, but the other ten were mostly purple with various shades of blue hair. Night elves? Wow, I was under the impression they were extinct. The Alliance''s records stated they''ve been extinct for nearly twelve thousand years. Perhaps I should let them know to revise that detail. On second thought, I better not. If I recall correctly, they were chased to extinction for their ability to grow and care for world trees and world tree sap is a priceless ingredient for a life extending potion that grants an additional thousand years of life. It''s safer for them if I don''t say a fucking word. Still, I''m surprised the locals havn''t located them yet. Their world tree must be rather young for it to remain undetected for so long. Normally those things are a few miles tall at the minimum.


    She reached out with her spiritual sense to the eldest looking elf, which happened to be a night elf, and said, [When an arch appears on the wall, walk through it. That will be your ticket to freedom. Tell the others. It will be opening after a count of thirty.] Instead of jumping in surprise, the elderly elf simply nodded his head.He must have sense my spiritual sense.


    After counting to thirty, Maxine transformed into her shadow queen form for better control as opened a portal with an arch in each of the two enclosures and had them lead to the very room she was sititng in. Thankfully, the room was rather spacious and the elves and fairies were able to quickly ran through the arches. After all of them were through it, she closed the arches immediately and when she opened her eyes to greet them, the elves were giving her hostile glares.


    "What do you want, dark elf witch?" a young male forest elf growled.


    "Dark elf? Me?" Maxine asked in return while feeling confused, "Do you really think I''m a dark elf?" How the hell do I look like a dark? They just have a heavy tan and none of them have grey skin of any kind and while they have a bad reputation, they are actually rather nice. So how did this idiot mistake me for one?


    "Who else could I be talking to?" the young male forest elf asked.


    "I''m not a dark elf," Maxine replied calmly, "I''m a shadow elf."


    "Shadow elf, you say?" the elder night elf asked as he took a closer look at Maxine and promptly nodded to himself, "You are a rare breed indeed. Most shadow elves have thrown off the name and became those ''Shadow Lords'' long ago."


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    "Not as rare as night elves, elder," Maxine replied respectfully, "Many worlds believe your kind to be extinct."


    "I see," the elder night elf said sadly, "It was a necessary thing. My race cannot live long without a world tree and the greed of humans nearly killed us all." And that would explain why they are so protective of their world trees.


    "I understand, but there is a route to survival if you are discovered," Maxine offered, "My father is someone that even the strongest members of the Alliance do not dare offend and he''s a well known alchemist. If he were your patron, no one would dare harm either your people or the world tree for fear of him."


    "Hmm, a good suggestion, but would he demand that we bleed the world tree dry to satisfy the demands of others?" the elder night elf asked cautiously.


    "No, he is well aware how easy it is to kill world trees by over drawing it''s sap," Maxine replied, "And if anyone pushed the matter, he would kill them and whomever sent them."


    "Elder, can you explain what''s going on?" the young male forest elf asked respectfully.


    "I''m trying to seek out a protector for my race," the elder night elf responded over his shoulder before setting his gaze back on Maxine, "How do you know your father will even consider being our patron?"


    "I could ask him right now, if you want?" Maxine replied calmly as she retrieved a communication disk from her dimensional ring, "Even if he says no, I will patron you once I reach gold stage. I will be nearly unmatch against anyone below immortal stage."


    "Interesting," the elder night elf said with a small grin, "But for now, we need to leave. Petal, can you open one of those portals? The closer to our home the better."


    "Of course, Elder Evensong," Petal said respectfully as a swirling blue portal opened to the left of the door.


    "Alright everyone, head out," Elder Evensong said and he looked to Maxine, "I will talk to the other elders and see if they agree to your idea. Will you remain here for the time being?"


    "Originally, I came to this world to train by fighting against the invading four-horned kanzils. So if there is a battle or skirmish, I will be there," Maxine answered, "Otherwise, I will be here." Elder Evensong nodded his head and directed the elves and fairies through the portal before leaving himself. That went well and since my raven is already in that facility, I might as well look around some more. A facility like that is extremely expensive. I doubt they have many of them. Maybe they have a red fire drake in that one as well.


    She refocused on her raven and found the scientists were panicking as they examined various instrument panels. This continued for another three minutes before some very angry officers entered the room. She didn''t even bother listening in. However one of them got pale and turned around to leave in a rush.


    Maxine attached her raven and portal to his shadow before he could run out of the room. Within minutes, she was staring at a massive red fire drake covered in heavy chains and restraints. It was at least three hundred feet long from the tip of it''s snout to the end of it''s tail. Those restraints were made of a very tough metal that exceeded even lead in weight. The dragon itself was gold stage, and yet was unable to break free. It was then that she noticed that it was on the verge of unconsciousness due to bloodloss. That''s one way to do it, but seriously, do they have to drain the big lady that much. It seems like they are feeding her just enough to keep her alive and continue replenishing her blood. Now should I really wake her up? She''s liable to just start tearing everything and everyone apart that she can get her claws onto. Fuck it, I can give her just enough of my energy to wake her up without giving her the strength to break free.


    With that in mind, Maxine transfers a small chunk of her energies into the red fire drake. It worked just as she planned. Before the red fire drake could waste the energies, Maxine quickly contacted her with spiritual sense, [Do you need help, elder?]


    Instead of answering, the red fire drake blasted her with it''s spiritual sense. Maxine screamed in pain since it felt like her mind was about to be torn asunder and immediately severed their connection. FUCK! That hurts!


    Maxine quickly recovered and was instantly enraged. She was just trying to help and was attacked for it. She reinitiated her contact with the red fire drake and roared, [You fucking bitch! I just wanted to help you out and you attack me! You can rot in that pit for all I care!]


    [Hmph, I do not need your aid, whelp,] the red fire drake growled, [I can free myself. I''ve just now regained a small measure of my strength.]


    [Then you are dumber than I thought. That strength you''ve regained is what I gave to you,] Maxine retorted.


    [It''s mine now,] the red fire drake sneered.


    [You ungrateful, bitch! I should come there in person and DEVOUR YOU ALIVE!] Maxine roared angrily. Oops, it seems my hyra bloodline isn''t competely placated. Well, it should work in my favor now.


    [You wouldn''t dare,] the red fire drake warned, but Maxine could detect the slightest sliver of fear.


    [I''m a fucking hydra. What wouldn''t I dare?!] Maxine snapped and something was radiating out of her. She guessed it was her version of Dragon Fear.


    [Please, calm yourself, little one,] the red fire drake said as her attitude completely shifted, [What is it that you wanted to talk with me about?]I just said that I was a hydra out of anger. It seems other dragons are afraid of them.


    [I wanted to talk about helping you free yourself, but now it comes with strings attached,] Maxine growled.


    [What sort of ''strings'' are we talking about?] the red fire drake asked cautiously, [I don''t have to feed my young to you, do i?]


    [Nothing like that,] Maxine responded, [I want your restraint in seeking vengeance You will only take it out on the five individuals in charge of these foolish humans. Torture, kill or eat them alive. I don''t care. Just limit your wrath to them alone. Deal?]


    [Your terms are agreeable,] the red fire drake said calmly and Maxine transfered the holographic images of the supreme leader along with his four cronies directly into the red fire drake''s head. Next she transfered her portal into the red fire drake''s mouth before pouring vial after vial of her nutritional potion into her end of the portal. She ended up using three dozen of her nutritional potions to feed the red fire drake. I better stop there. I only have one hundred of them left. You would think two hundred, along with whatever I could hunt or gather, would be sufficient for my needs, but clearly it''s not.


    [Those potions should help you regain enough strength to allow you to gain your freedom,] Maxine said, [I will find the location of the human leaders and let you know where they dwell as soon as I can. Oh, and one last thing, be careful on the surface. There is a hostile race invading this world called four-horned kanzils. They may try to subdue you.]


    [Let them try. I will feast on any creature foolish enough to try once I''m free,] the red fire drake said with vicious confidence.


    [I won''t come to your aid again if you get yourself captured,] Maxine warned the red fire drake, [You should start feeling stronger any moment now. I trust you will honor our agreement.]


    [Once a dragon gives their word, they keep it, unlike humans,] the red fire drake said proudly, [Now leave me be. I need to conserve my strength until I can free myself.]


    [As you wish,] Maxine replied before severing their spiritual sense connection.


    She had to wait for nearly half an hour before the red fire drake began to fight against her restraints. The scientists and guards were simply nervous at first, but quickly began panicking once the first massive restraint tore free of the floor. They scattered like leaves in the wind as more chains and heavy restraints were literately torn apart by the very angry red fire drake. Thankfully, the red fire drake stayed true to her word and didn''t kill anyone directly.


    The red fire drake began using her claws to tear into the northern wall in a bid for freedom. She had already gotten through the metallic walls and had a tunnel deep enough for half of her body to fit through when soldiers stormed in with rifles. They fired plasma bolts at the red fire drake, but the plasma bolts only barely singed her scales. Dumbasses. Fire drakes of any kind are extremely resistant to fire. They bathe in lava for fucks sake.


    A gold stage rank 1 draconic warrior burst into the room and charged at the red fire drake. The poor idiot didn''t even see the tail before it slapped him into a mass of bloody pulp.I''m not going to hold it against her for defending herself and that idiot should''ve known better. I sure as hell wouldn''t have done something that stupid. I would be lucky just to survive a hit from any beast that large. Afterall, most dragons exceed the beast grading system that the Alliance uses. I would literately have to transform into a hydra to be able to kill a dragon that''s just a rank above me.


    Within minutes, the red fire drake had already filled up the tunnel behind her and was making excellent time digging her way to the surface. Maxine guessed that she would need another fifteen minutes to reach the surface and hoped that the military couldn''t scamble a force to subdue the red fire drake in that time. Maxine had no idea where the red fire drake would surface at, but the red fire drake was on her own from that point on.


    Maxine got comfortable and began to wait for one of two things to happen. First was for the the night elves to return to let he know their decision and the second event, was for Cassandra to return to the battlefield. It would take mere minutes to deal with the night elves, but If Cassandra returned to the battlefield, Maxine intended to lend her a hand. She wasn''t going to let the effort of healing her go to waste. I wonder which one will happen first.

 Chapter 132

    Maxine woke up in the hospital basement and stretched the morning after she freed the elves. While stretching, she got a whiff of herself and recoiled. Oh, god. When was the last time I bathed? She realized she hadn''t bathed for a few days. Thankfully, she didn''t stink that strongly, but it was enough to make her feel dirty. I want to take a long hot bath, but this hospital doesn''t have a bathtub. Nor did I think to pack one. I figured I would be bathing in rivers, small lakes, or the occassional natural hot spring.


    She quickly sweeped the hospital with her spiritual sense to look for an unoccupied room with a shower. She found several, but only one was in a place that was connected to a lightly traversed hallway. Unfortunately, it was traversed enough that she would be lucky if she wasn''t discovered before finishing her shower. Damn it. I really want to have a hot shower. I will just have to risk it. They know I''m in the area anyways after I freed the fairies and elves. What''s the harm in them spotting me taking a shower? Well, aside from being seen naked, that is.


    She shadow stepped into the bathroom attached to the hospital room. She didn''t bother turning on the lights since she could use her spiritual sense to see and it allowed her to shadow step away should anyone come to investigate the running shower.


    She disrobed and got into the shower. She created dozens of tendrils with body scrubbers on the ends to aid her in cleaning every inch of her body. Unfortunately the shower wasn''t as hot as she would have liked it. Instead it was only slightly above luke warm. Still, it was far better than bathing in a cold river.


    Maxine had just finished bathing when she sensed someone entering into the adjacent hospital room. It was a male nurse and he was reaching for the bathroom door knob. She had forgotten to lock it. She quickly snatched up her clothes and turned off the shower in the same motion. She had finished her maneuver just in time to shadow step away before the man could get an eyeful.


    She promptly got put her dirty clothes away and started getting dressed in clean clothing just incase the night elves decided to come see her at that moment. Regardless of the close call, she still felt happier now that she was clean. She was able to enjoy this clean sensation for all of ten seconds before she sense the red fire drake''s spiritual sense connect to her mind.


    [So that''s where you''ve been hiding, little hyra halfling,] the red fire drake said mockingly, [It must be humiliating being forced to hide like this.]


    [Remind me again, how were you caught?] Maxine returned the mocking with a cruel question, [Let me guess, they found you while you slept.]


    [FUCK YOU!] the red fire drake roared.Wow, I was right!? I only said that because dragons tend to hybernate for decades at a time after being active for a century or two.


    [You have only yourself to blame for not picking a better hiding spot during your long nap,] Maxine retored with a guess, [Now why have you sought me out?]


    [I''m honoring my agreement with you,] the red fire drake growled, [Now tell me where those vermin are so we can be done with this arrangement.]


    [I already told you I don''t know where they are. If I did, you would be the first to know,] Maxine answered calmly, [Regardless of how weak those idiots are, they are very cautious. It will take some time to locate all of them.]


    She felt the red fire drake rage through the connection for a moment before she got a response, [Fine, but do not make me wait long.]


    [You could always take your rage out on those four armed creeps,] Maxine offered.


    [I have been. It''s not enough to sate my fury on insects that can''t even fight back,] the red fire drake answered.


    [I understand. I will sent more of my pets to seek them out,] Maxine said calmly and smiled when she checked on Cassandra. She was looking straight at one of the supreme commander''s lackeys. [I think I''ve found one of them. Head to the the coordinates I''m sending you. He will appear there soon,] Maxine notified the red fire drake. It''s not like it will fuck up their defense too much. Any decent military leader always has a few subordinates that can take over should he fall sick or die unexpectedly.


    [Excellent,] the red fire drake said with sadistic glee as the spiritual sense connection was severed.


    Maxine took another look at Cassandra''s surroundings through the pendant she wore and was surprised that she was still in the general''s tent. And Cassandra looked like she bit into something she really didn''t like as she stared at the general. The general on the other hand was smiling with a twinkle in his eyes that Maxine didn''t like.


    "General Bertram, what you just suggested violates several military laws," Cassandra said with a cold look on her face. I definitely missed something.


    "You are correct of course," General Bertram said in amusement, "But I can always assign your unit to the very front of the defensive line before I leave."


    "So, you''re threatening me now?" Cassandra asked angrily, "Say you did that, It would be a waste of resources and the supreme commander hates wasting resources. I wonder what he will do to you once he finds out why one of the top five draconic warriors died in battle. Not to mention, what Maxine will do to you once she finds out all of her hard work was wasted."


    "You''re assuming she will find out," General Bertram said with amusement, "And even if she does, I very much doubt that she is so stupid as to appear in the middle of a military camp filled with draconic warriors. We''d capture her in seconds."


    "I can''t even begin to point out how wrong that statement is," Cassandra said and Maxine swiftly created an arch behind General Bertram, "And by the way, you shouldn''t insult Maxine so carelessly. You never know when she might be listening in through one of her pets." Cassandra was smiling as she said those words.


    Before General Bertram could respond, Maxine walked through the portal and with a cruel tone, said, "Yes, you never know when I might be listening."


    "How... how did you get in here?" General Bertram asked fearfully, "You''ve never been here before nor could you see inside of this tent from a distance."


    "But my pets can hide in shadows if you''ve forgotten," Maxine pointed out, "And I see what they see, most of the time. I''m glad that you''re smart enough not to call for help."


    "What are you going to do to me?" General Bertram asked fearfully.


    "Me? Nothing," Maxine said honestly, and as General Bertram relaxed, she added, "But a certain large reptile wants to thank you for all the care you and the rest of your leadership gave her."


    "I don''t know what you''re talking about," General Bertram said firmly, but she saw the fear in his eyes.


    "It doesn''t matter to her if you know or not. She wants vengeance and since you are one of the people in charge, you are at fault," Maxine said and she started dragging him to the arch as she switched the destination to the spot she told the red fire drake about, "Now, I can imagine she is getting impatient."


    "Wait, you can''t take him," Cassandra said, "I will get in trouble if you take him without a fight."


    "You do have a point, but I have a solution. It''s just one you won''t like, so sorry in advance," Maxine said apologetically and she blasted Cassandra with an energy wave to knock her out of the command tent. Maxine quickly jumped through the portal arch before closing it behind her. I hope Cassandra isn''t too pissed about that.


    It was at that moment that she felt the breath of the red fire drake against her back. [Is that one of the worms that is responsible for me being caged in that hole?] the red fire drake asked angrily.


    [I believe so,] Maxine replied as she smelled a strong scent of urine. General Bertram had pissed his pants.


    [He smells of fear,] the red fire drake said.


    [That''s urine you''re smelling,] Maxine corrected.


    [Don''t correct me,] the red fire drake said, [Now go. You don''t want to see what I do to this worm.]


    [As you wish,] Maxine said as she walked under the shade of a tree and created a portal back to the hospital''s basement. She heard bloodcurdling screams just before she managed to close the portal behind her. I almost feel about about that that bastard''s fate.


    Maxine quickly checked on Cassandra to see what happened and true to her expectations, Cassandra was yelling orders at the surrounding soldiers. Her clothes were heavily damaged, but were still able to cover her feminine traits.I didn''t think there was enough force behind that attack to ruin her clothes. On second thought, they might not have easy access to high durability clothing on this world. They are rather isolated.


    However when Maxine expanded her spiritual sense further around Cassandra, she noticed the entire base camp was filled with activity, and a few of the officers were looking off into the distance. She quickly directed her spiritual sense in that direction and found a massive army of four-horned kanzils. She couldn''t even begin to guess their numbers.I''m going to go on a limb here and say they brought at least a fifth of their forces.


    Maxine quickly focused on Cassandra when a scout approached her. "Report," Cassandra ordered.


    "Ma''am, a force of roughly five million invaders is approaching our location. If we take into account their normal warrior ratios, that will mean we will face at a minimum fifty gold core warriors and five thousand silver core ones.]


    "And how many do we have?" Cassandra asked an officer that just arrived to her left.


    "We have ten thousand silver core warriors, but only ten gold core warriors, including yourself," an officer answered, "But need I remind you that their gold core warriors rarely partake in the battle." I''ve seen their weaponry. Their soldiers and weaker warriors can deal with the ground troops and their stilver stage warriors outnumber the four horned kanzils enough that it shouldn''t be an issue beating them. It''s the gold stagers that are the problem. If they join in the battle, all of those men and women will die.


    "That doesn''t mean they won''t, Lieutenant General Burns," Cassandra retorted.


    "Noted, commander," Lieutenant General Burns said, "But it''s now my job to form our strategy. However it doesn''t mean I''m like General Bertram. I''m willing to hear any advice a skill warrior, like yourself, has to offer."


    "I''d keep our gold core warriors on standby. As far as I''ve seen, they only send their gold core warriors in when we do it first. This way we don''t give them an excuse to join in the attack," Cassandra recommended.


    "I''ll take your recommendation," Lieutentan General Burns said in a calm tone, "Now go inform our warriors."


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    "Yes, sir!" Cassandra said before she took flight towards the other draconic warriors.


    Maxine focused on the city that they were protect. The civilians that were left in the city were rushing towards the transport craft. Sadly she didn''t think even half of them would fit.Shit, that''s bad. If I were to help the locals in the battle, they are just as likely to attack me as the four-horned kanzils, but if I don''t, their odds of survival doesn''t look too good. I just have to avoid being seen by them. Hmm, I havn''t brought out my constructs in a while. I could bring another 44 of my shadow wolves to this planet and have my 99 Shadow Wolves fuse into 33 Shadow Wolf Kings. That would definitely even out the odds, but not enough. Even if I include my dragon, it wouldn''t be enough. I guess I will have an opportunity to use that bow Aenwynn gave me. She mentioned that elves have a natural affinity for using them and I would pick up the skill fairly quick. If nothing else, I can practice on the weaker ones to get a feel for archery.


    She quickly refocused her mind on the city Cassandra and Decaan were in and looked around it for a thickly forested area. She found one, but it was a few miles away from the four-horned kanzils.That will have to do.She created a portal to the forest and ran through it.


    Once at the forest, she summoned the fifty Shadow Wolves that she left at her old lair to her current location and summoned another 44 to her side from the shadow world. While she waited for them to combine into Shadow Wolf Kings, she retrieved a silver elven bow from her dimensional ring. Even now, she had no idea what metal it was made of, but she knew it was meant to grow with her. Aenwynn told her as much.


    She wanted to test it and created a basic arrow out of her energies. She took careful aim at a tree a few hundred feet away, and hit the tree. However it was ten feet higher on the tree than she intended. She quickly corrected her aim and tried again. She missed her mark again, but this time it was only off by a few inches. Hmm, I need to have a near perfect aim if I want to snipe with this bow. Still, I''m surprised that I''m improving this quickly.


    After a few dozen more shots, she was hitting her mark almost dead on. She wanted to practice more, but she felt the ground shaking weakly from the march of a millions four-horned kanzils. My aim will have to do for now. I don''t have any time left to practice.


    Maxine quickly moved to the edge of the forest with her shadow wolf kings in tow. She only glanced at the moving four-horned kanzil army and she didn''t dare to fully come out of the forest since she didn''t want to be spotted. But it was clear that they would start fighting very soon since they had just gotten into formation. I will wait for them to engage before I try sniping a few silver stage enemies. I doubt I can kill the gold stage ones from this range. They''re almost guaranteed to be able to dodge it at this range. As for my Shadow Wolf Kings, I should keep them in reserve for now. If things look bad for me or the locals, they will serve as backup.


    Maxine didn''t have to wait long for the charge and as soon as the defenders started using their particle weapons, she readied her bow. She pumped energy into a scattershot exploding energy arrow and drew back her bow aiming for a dozen silver stage four-horned kanzils at once. She released the arrow and watched as it split into twelve shards just before slamming into eleven of the twelve targets. A second later the shards exploded inside of the four-horned kanzils killing them as they burst into a clouds of gore.


    Maxine felt some frustration for missing so many of her marks. She had intended to hit all of them in the chest, but most of them had hit the four-horned kanzils in the shoulder or stomach. Still her attacks still packed enough punch to kill them even if they didn''t hit where she wanted them to.


    Without wasting any more time, she began to fire more scattershot exploding energy arrows in rapid succession at the flying four-horned kanzils. After her second volley, some of them were dodging her attacks, but she was still hitting half of them with her attacks.


    She unleashed twelve volleys before a gold stage rank one four-horned kanzil had enough and charged at her. Maxine quickly charged up a powerful exploding energy arrow, but she held off sending her Shadow Wolf Kings to deal with him just yet. She had been waiting for a gold stage four-horned kanzils to attack her.


    The gold stage four-horned kanzil looked nervous, but continued his charge. However Maxine realized why he didn''t flee. He was holding a kite shield in each of his left hands and both of his right hands were grasped onto a great sword.That''s an interesting, not to mention scary, combination.


    She modified her exploding energy arrow to have high penetration ability and to only explode once it pierces into flesh before she unleashed it. The gold stage four-horned kanzil tried to block it with his kite shields, but was only partially successful. Maxine''s arrow punched through one sheild, but deflected off of the second before it slammed into his upper right shoulder. Horror passed over his face a moment before his upper right shoulder exploded into a cloud of gore. Hmm, that was unexpected. I thought my attack would go through both shields. Still, I''ve effectively crippled his upper right arm, but I can''t fire off too many more of those arrows. It''s more energy efficient to just duel them in close combat. I''ve already used twenty percent of my reserves.


    With that in mind, Maxine returned her bow to her dimensional ring and retrieved her Twighlight Iron Swords as she activated her Shadow''s Embrace armor. Before the wounded warrior traversed the remainder of the distance, she used her energies to braid her hair to keep it out of her eyes and charged when her opponent was less than five hundred feet away.


    She lashed out at him with her blades and he managed to block both of her attacks with his shields. He immediately counter attacked with his great sword, but his attack was slow allowing Maxine to dodge under it to face his unprotected right side. She stabbed both of her blades viciously into the side of his chest and one of her weapons found his heart. He unleashed a backhanded slash, which Maxine dodged by ducking underneath it, in a futile attempt to take her with him in death. She promptly jumped back and watched him die from blood loss as he tried to chase her down. I can still handle a few opponents of that caliber at the same time if I use my new technique. I wonder what I should call it? I will think about it later. It seems I have more opponents coming.


    Maxine felt a dozen gazes on her, but the one that caught her attention the most was a female four-horned kanzil that was at the very peak of gold stage. She was nine feet tall and had bigger muscles than most of her male counterparts. Maxine raised her eyebrow at that. Most races have males as the bigger and stronger of the two genders. You normally only see that kind of thing in certain insects.


    The female four-horned kanzil motioned her lower left hand at Maxine and a dozen gold stage four-horned kanzils charged at Maxine. Their strengths ranged from gold stage rank two to rank seven. She smiled to herself as she spotted a familiar face and picked him to be her opponent as she retreated towards the forest. It was Sitan


    Just before they reached the forest, she ordered her Shadow Wolf Kings to fight the attacking four-horned kanzils three on one. At the same time, she turned around and attacked Sitan with a vicious flurry. Only now did she notice that he was using four short swords. He expertly parried most of her attacks and dodged the rest.


    Maxine only smiled as she fully unleashed her new technique and created the illusion that she had a dozen arms as she unleashed her assault. Surprisingly, Sitan was able to parry and dodge her attacks with frustrating ease.


    "Is that the best you can do?" Sitan said mockingly, "I guess I will have to pay Earth a visit after my people have finished their assault on this world. I heard your beloved and daughter are quite beautiful." As he spoke, Maxine felt her anger well up at his threat, but she forced herself to remain calm. She couldn''t loose herself to wrath. Instead she concentrated her attacks at his face and disengaged from him. She didn''t want to just kill him. She wanted to thoroughly crush him.


    With a thought, she transformed into her battleform and noticed that her hair was shortening as she transformed. Her hair came out of it''s braid as it gathered together and turned into a collection of super sharp spines with signs of deadly poison at the tips. What? I thought my battleform was done changing! Damn it. I dont have time to figure out how to use these spines in the middle of a fight.


    While she was concerned about the changes to her battleform, Sitan gave her hair a cautious glance, and began attacking her while acitively avoiding getting behind her. She parried all of his blows and returned her own attacks. Hydras are never on the defensive.She had no idea where that thought came from, but she knew it was the truth. Hydras were relentless attackers. Their extreme aggression was a form of defense all in of itself.


    In a moment of enlightenment, Maxine only bothered dodging attacks aimed at her head or heart just enough to avoid a killing blow and unleashed a vicious relentless assault. She suffered a five stab wounds and a slash to her left shoulder before Sitan shifted to the defensive. Oddly enough, despite her injuries her attacks had nearly doubled in frequency and hitting power.


    Sitan looked terrified as he desperately parried, blocked and dodged to avoid being killed. He seemed to be aware that if he became injured and became distracted for even an instant, Maxine would tear him to pieces. Finally, he managed to knock both of Maxine''s blades to the side and had a triumphant smile. It lasted only an instant before Maxine unleashed her acid breath attack at point blank range.


    Sitan swiftly moved to shield himself with his arms and as her acid breath attack splashed over his arms and stomach, she lashed her tail inbetween her legs to hit him in the groin. The burning sensation of acid and the pain from his groin caused him to pause for half a second, and that was all Maxine needed. She swiftly hacked his arms and legs off before grabbing him by the throat.


    "You threatened those most important to me with a fate worst than death," Maxine said angrily as she liftted up her right foot and placed her toe claws directly above Sitan''s groin, "Allow me to return the favor." She mercilessly brought her right foot down and shredded Sitan''s genitals in the process. While he screamed in agony, she looked around at the rest of the four-horned kanzils sent against her as she tossed Sitan to the ground to die of blood loss or her venom. She didn''t care which.


    Her Shadow Wolf Kings had delt with most of them, but in doing so, more than half of them were too badly damaged to fight for awhile. Wow, I didn''t expect them to put up that much of a fight. I guess they were tougher than I thought.


    Maxine coughed up blood and realized one of her lungs had been punctured. If it wasn''t for both her cultivation and her hydra bloodline, she would be on the ground dying. Well, that''s all the fighting I''m going to get in today. It will take me at least until tomorrow, even with eating a lot, to heal up from this.However she was worried when she felt her unreasonable hunger rearing it''s head and she looked thoughtfully at all the blood on the ground.Well, I''m definitely against eating the flesh of sentient beings, and it''s only the scent of blood that triggers my hunger. Perhaps I could draw all of that blood in and drink it. I still don''t like that idea, but I''m way more comfortable with that than actually eating them.


    She infused the blood on the forest floor with her energies and brought it all into her mouth. She was disgusted at herself for doing this, but the blood tasted amazingly good. She did her best to imagine that she was drinking anything else other than blood while she swallowed down three gallons before she got full. It surprised her for a moment that she could consume that much before she got full, but like her full hydra form, her battle form was capable of rapid digestion. Her wounds were visibly regenerating due to the influx of protein. Still, she had to swallow down her own gag reflex.I don''t think I will do that again unless I have to. God, I think I''m gonna puke. I need to think of something else.


    Maxine wondered why she wasn''t being attack and looked towards the gold stage four-horned kanzils. They were still floating in the air in the same spot as before and the female Four-Horned Kanzil looked at Maxine with a raise eyebrow.


    [Don''t interfer any further, or I will come down there personally to deal with you,] the female four-horned kanzil said with indifference via spiritual sense, [I do not wish to waste any more of my elites to deal with you.]


    [And if you and your ''elites'' join the battle, I will continue to interfer,] Maxine countered.


    [So, you will stay out of this fight so long as the strongest do?] the femal four-horned kanzil asked, [I find those terms acceptable.] Maxine was taken aback by this woman. She seemed almost normal in comparison to the males of her race. Still she didn''t fully trust her and kept an eye on this strange four-armed kanzil.


    To conserve energy while she watched them, she reverted back to her base form. However no matter how much she watched the battle, none of the gold stage four-horned kanzils moved. The four-horned kanzils were even starting to loose. Maxine couldn''t understand why they weren''t attacking, but she got her answer a few minutes later as she felt a ship''s scanners run over her flesh. The ship from Seton Academy! Are the four-horned kanzils are waiting for them to arrive!? But why? Wouldn''t it be easier to wipe out the locals before they arrive? Or they are using the locals as practice for a different engagement and if they win by chance, they get access to a dragon bloodline as a bonus. It would definitely make sense why they just don''t just swarm the cites in one massive group.


    She didn''t have much time to think about that because she felt the ship''s scanner focus on her face. In fact, they must''ve scanned her face five times before she could react.Well, if they didn''t know I was here before, they do now. That gives me one, maybe two, months before it gets wide spread enough for it to be a problem.


    However in the next moment, an immensely powerful spiritual sense landed on her in a wave. [You look just like many of the other Maxines. Still, you resemble her more than most. Just know that some of my students are eager to meet you and we will be arriving tomorrow due to this,] an aged woman said via spiritual sense, [And I suggest you tell them who you really are when you meet them. They were inspired by the dead young woman you are taking the visage of and may react poorly to you if claim to be her when you clearly are not. Although, you are the first one that has queen status and can create constructs. Still, it''s in your best interest to do as I say. Do we understand each other?]


    [Yes, we do, but my first name really is Maxine,] Maxine answered honestly, but before she could say anything else, the spiritual sense connection was severed. Other Maxines?! What the hell is going on?!

 Chapter 133

    Maxine thought over why there would be other Maxines, but couldn''t come up with anything that made sense. She sighed as she realized that there wouldn''t be any answers until the people from Seton Academy arrived and she looked over to the two battling armies.


    The locals were winning so far and the four-horned kanzil elites hadn''t moved. However she wasn''t going to let down her guard and kept her Shadow Wolf Kings on guard duty. She needed them to protect her since she was still wounded and in a great deal of pain. She doubted she could fight at half strength in her current condition.


    She looked at the blood still scattered on the ground and felt her nausea rising when she remembered that she drank some of it. Ugh, I don''t think I will be able to do that again, but I can''t throw away a means to sate my hydra bloodline''s hunger. Hmm, if I were to refine it all into pill form, I think I could stomach it a bit better. Guan''s notes describe the method of making pills, but they are usually reserved for gold stage and up. I don''t have that level of skill just yet, but I could try my hand at it. With a wave of Maxine''s hand, most of the blood on the ground was sucked into her dimensional ring.


    She didn''t dare do anything that would require too much of her focus when she is so close to a battlefield. However it quickly became apparent that they paid little attention to her after she stopped attacking.So, miss big, red and badass has kept her word. I wonder what kind of weapons she uses. Hell, I don''t even see a storage ring or braclet. Unless, she''s using her storage device as a piercing.Maxine''s eye''s gravitated to the female four-horned kanzils ears, but didn''t see any earings.Strange, I''m almost positive someone of her status would have a dimensional storage device. Maybe the dimensional storage item is hidden beneith her clothes.


    Meanwhile the battle raged on. Countless people on both sides were dying in droves. Regardless of their superior numbers in the air, the locals'' silver stage cultivators were taking heavy casualties, but thus far they were still better off than the four-horned kanzils, whom lost fifty percent of their numbers. The situation on the ground was far better for the locals favor as their weaponry blasted the iron stage four-horned kanzils into a bloody mist.


    She checked on Cassandra to divert her mind away from the nightmare she was watching. Cassandra had changed into some battle gear and looked like she wanted to charge into the fight. The other gold stage draconic warriors seemed to have the same mindset.I don''t blame them for wanting to join in. They are watching friends get torn apart when they could stop it.


    Her awareness jerked back to her body when she sensed movement nearby. She turned her head and saw a huge serpent. It''s body was as thick as her waist and it had to be at least thirty feet long. It was looking at the corpses littered on the ground and looked at her before repeating the process. She wasn''t sure what to make of this behavior until she noticed a dozen other snakes just as big as the first one appear just inside the forest.Oh, they smelled the blood. I guess their hungry and are asking me for permission to eat my ''kills.''


    Maxine shrugged and said, "Go right ahead and eat them. I don''t think they care anymore. Just don''t eat them infront of me. I''m feeling nauseous enough as it is." Surprisingly, the snakes nodded their heads before each one latched onto a corpse before dragging it into the forest. Uh, that was a little creepy. Snakes have never shown that they understood me to that degree whenever I spoke in the past. Oh, well. It''s not like it''s that handy of an ability anyways. Most of those snakes are not even iron stage and the ones that could be of use probably wouldn''t listen to me.


    [You can command snakes?] the female four-horned kanzil asked via spiritual sense without any warning.


    [Technically, no. They only listen to me due to my bloodline. Didn''t Sitan tell you which one I have?] Maxine asked in return.


    [He did mention you possess a hydra bloodline, but never specified which variant of the species,] the female four-horned kanzil answered, [But being able to talk to serpents can be a useful gift.]


    [If you say so,] Maxine replied, [But what''s up with females being so scarce in your forces? You are the only female of your race that I''ve seen.]


    [Oh, there''s no mystery there. Females are outnumbered by males by fifty to one and my race breeds at a stupidly fast rate compared to these humans,] the female four-horned kanzil replied, [The males incapable of keeping a mate are forced to vent their violent and lustful nature urges during wars against other races. It''s the only reason we havn''t wiped ourselves out due to infighting.]


    [Damn,] Maxine said reflexively, [I''m surprised they''re are not trying to rape you.]


    [I wish they would,] the female four-horned kanzil said almost longingly, [It''s actually rather fun to have attention from so many males at once. There was even this one time when seven males--]


    [I have to stop you right there,] Maxine interupted, [I do not need that mental image in my head.] God, damn it. Their entire race is fucked up.


    [This coming from the being that not only ate my warriors alive, but also just drank a great deal of their blood,] the female four-horned kanzil said mockingly.


    [First off, I don''t have control of myself in full hydra form and the drinking blood bit was to keep that part of me from coming out again,] Maxine snapped.


    [Interesting,] the female four-horned kanzil said.Shit, I probably should''ve kept that part to myself. The pain from my wounds are making me act stupid.


    [What you find interesting has made me feel nauseous at the mere sight of meat and now I''m leaving. I''ve just stayed here to make sure you kept your word and since you have, I see no reason to stay here physically. But I will keep an eye on the battle. Bye,] Maxine said before forcibly severing thier spiritual sense connection.


    She created an arch and returned to the hospital basement. However she left her Shadow Wolf Kings behind hidden in the shadows of the trees just in case the four-horned kanzils broke their word.


    Maxine disengaged her Shadow''s Embrace armor and sighed at her damaged and bloody clothes. With a thought she removed all of the blood in her clothes and began to cultivate to speed up the recovery of her wounds.


    When she felt the return of the powerful spiritual sense, a day had already past since she began to heal her wounds. She checked the battlefield and saw that everyone had stopped fighting. They were staring at a large space craft heading towards the city. It looked like it was going to crash into some buildings, but it stopped a few hundred feet above the tallest building.


    To her surprise, dozens of hatches opened and hundreds of silver and a dozen gold stage cultivators flew out of it. A lone woman whose cultivation Maxine couldn''t see through was clearly the immortal ranked cultivator that she talked to earlier. She looked to be in her early sixties, but Maxine knew the woman could easily be over a thousand years old.


    [Why are you hiding in that dusty basement?] the older woman from before asked.


    [Myself and the locals don''t get along. They tried to turn me into a research subject,] Maxine replied, [So I''m on a bit of a vendetta against their leadership.]


    [That''s very unfortunate. I was hoping you would serve as our translator until we learned their language for ourselves,] the older woman said regretfully.


    [I can still serve as your translator, but I need to be careful,] Maxine said as she transformed into her shadow queen form, [There that should do the trick.]


    [You can transform? That''s a rare trait,] the older woman said.


    [Thank you. I shall arrive there shortly,] Maxine said.


    [Very well,] the older woman said and disconnected her spiritual sense.


    Maxine brought out her bow and slung it over her shoulder like a proper elf. However, she didn''t want to put up with the horny young men from Seton Academy and activated her Shadow''s Embrace armor once more. However she kept it''s original face mask in place, but not it''s hood. She wanted them to see her ears.


    Afterwards, she created a portal in a forested area nearly fifty miles to the south of the city under siege and started flying towards it just above the tree line. She arrived after a mere five minutes and waited just outside of the particle cannons on the city''s walls.


    Within moments a group of draconic warriors were approaching her. She quickly adopted her ice queen facade. "I can''t believe it. It''s the elf that helped us earlier," one of them said.


    However their leader was more disciplined as he spoke, "I''m sorry, miss. While I appreciate the aide you rendered earlier, I still can''t allow you to enter the city at this time."


    "I''m fully aware of that," Maxine answered coldly, "And I''m not here on a social visit. I''m here to translate for you, savages."


    "We are not savages. Just look at how advanced our technology is," a younger draconic warrior said flippantly.


    "But from my point of view, you are. Your leaders have caged my cousins and a group of harmless fairies for research," Maxine said with a tone colder than a blizzard, "I can only imagine what you foul creatures have done to themin the name of sciencebefore they were freed, but their emotional wounds were plain as day to me. Is that the work of a civilized race to torment the beings they revere or that of savages?"


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    "I.. uh..," the young draconic warrior stuttered.


    "Now if you are done, bring me to the offworlders before someone does something stupid," Maxine said without paying the young draconic warrior any more mind.


    "Fine," the leader of the group said, "But I have to escort you there the whole way."


    "Very well," Maxine said and motioned for them to lead the way.


    It took them mere moments to arrive to where the people from Seton Academy had congregated. They had chosen a large park and were taking a non-aggressive stance. Maxine broke away from her escorts and landed infront of the immortal stage aged woman and bowed as she greeted her in Alliance common, "Greetings, elder. What do you wish to tell them?"


    "I believe it would be wiser for you to give me the linguistic skills through a knowledge stone to avoid mistranslations. Are you able to do this?" the older woman asked as she handed Maxine a knowledge stone.I guess she doesn''t trust me not to antagonize the locals.Maxine nodded her in acknowledgement and did as she was bid before handing the knowledge stone back to the immortal stage cultivator.


    "Is there anything else that you need, elder?" Maxine asked.


    "You could entertain some of my students while I have a chat with the local officials," the immortal cultivator said as she gestured towards a group of young women that were staring at Maxine.


    "As you wish, elder," Maxine replied and approached the young women. As she got closer, she noticed that most of those young women''s gazes were focused on the opaline gem on her forehead.


    Unfortunately, before she could reach those young women, a young man stood in her way with a cultivation of gold stage rank one before he said, "I''m Aziel, young master of the Kelborn Clan." He was smiling in a charming way, but Maxine wasn''t impressed.


    "And?" Maxine asked coldly.


    "I find you to be the most beautiful creature I''ve ever seen," Aziel said flatteringly.He hasn''t even seen my whole face and he says that. For all he knows, I''m heavily scarred beneith this mask. Time to mess with him.


    "Creature? Do you take me for some kind of beast?" Maxine asked in a cold tone, but she was smiling on the inside.This idiot walked right into that.


    "What?! No, I would never!" Aziel said defensively and retreated a step.


    Maxine walked past him and snorted before laughing to let him know she was just teasing him. Some of the young women even started to laugh with her. She didn''t have to look at him to know that he figured out she has just been messing with him and to know that he was angry.


    "So, which one of you wanted to talk with me?" Maxine asked the assembled young women in front of her. Before they answered, Maxine noticed that each of them were wearing a small badge on their waists. One half of the badge, showed a mother holding an infant and the other half showed a warrior woman with a spear protecting children.


    "We all do, but I have some questions first," a young woman with golden blonde hair said, "I''m Sandra Sylvan by the way and I''m a member of the Guardian Mothers."Guardian mothers? That''s an interesting name for a group.


    "Pleased to meet you, Sandra. I''m Maxine," Maxine replied politely, "And yes, that is my real name." The assembled young women seemed excited, but at the same time, restrained.


    "Could you please take off your mask?" Sandra asked and Maxine raised her eyebrow in response, "It''s just that there have been many ''Maxines,'' but none of them looked exactly like her. There were always small imperfections with their appearance."


    "Sorry, but no, I will not," Maxine said apologetically, "Or rather, I prefer not to infront of your male classmates. I''ve had enough bad experiences dealing with young masters due to my beauty. You''d be surprised how insistent they can get."


    "Oh," Sandra said, "That makes sense, but we can''t get any accomodations until Elder Miyan finishes negotiating with the local officials."So that was her name.


    "Good and until then, how about we do some trading? I''ve got a few healing potions," Maxine offered.


    "Yes! We could definitely use a few of those. How many can you spare?" Sandra asked.


    "I have twelve on me, but they are not very effective for anyone stronger than silver stage. I''ve yet to figure out the recipe for the gold-tiered potions," Maxine explained.I don''t see any harm in admitting I''m an alchemist. It''s not like I''m trying to hide it anymore.


    "You''re an alchemist?!" Sandra asked excitedly and Maxine felt an angry glare aimed at her back turn into a greedy one.It looks like Aziel is a glutton for punishment. Oh, well. It just means I can mess with him some more at a later date.


    "Yes, I am. It''s one of the reasons I''m on this world. I found a particular fruit that is a wonderous healing agent for those with a serpentine bloodline and I was trying to figure out it''s growing conditions," Maxine answered, "If I could get my hands on enough of them, I might be able to figure out how to make a better healing potion that works for everyone."


    "That''s amazing! So, what''s stopping you?" Sandra asked.


    "The locals havn''t been very cooperative," Maxine said, "In fact, their leaders tried to turn me into a research subject."


    "What?!" everyone in earshot said as one and Sandra said, "Those idiots! Don''t they know they are fucking themselves over?! They are just lucky that they didn''t try pulling that shit with Guan or his surviving daughter. They would''ve slaughtered them."


    "I really want to kill them myself, but there is someone, or rather something, that deserves vengeance more than I," Maxine said calmly, "A she-drake that was caged for who knows how long and having her blood drained to make draconic warriors."


    "These people are suicidal!" Sandra exclaimed, "They don''t deserve our help."


    "I couldn''t agree with you more, but the children on this world are still innocent," Maxine pointed out, "Thus I will only go after their leaders, no one else."


    "Yes, you''re right." Sandra agreed and she looked over Maxine''s shoulder, "Hmm? It seems they have normal cultivators, but they must be rare. That''s the first one I''ve seen in this whole city."


    Maxine turned her head and saw Decaan approaching her while Cassandra talked with Elder Miyan. "Oh, him? I gave him a cultivation manual and he extrapolated his own," Maxine said, "He''s a monstrous genius if I''ve ever seen one."


    "Maxine! What are you doing out here?!" Decaan asked in the local language as he looked around fearfully, "The gold core draconic warriors will capture you if you stay here!"


    "I don''t think they canl," Maxine answered, "By the way, did you ever find out what kind of conditions purple snake fruit grows in?"


    "Yes, it grows in tropical climates primarily, but it can grow in temperate conditions just not as quickly. It''s a rather hardy tree," Decaan answered, but he got back on his rant in the next moment, "But nevermind that, what do you mean that they can''t catch you?"


    "I can create portals. You saw me do it," Maxine answered flatly and she noticed Sandra wanted to be part of the conversation, "Oh, one moment. I need to do something real quick." Maxine extended her finger towards Sandra''s forehead and touched her mind for a moment.


    [Just relax. I''m going to transmit the local language to you,] Maxine said via spiritual sense to Sandra. She only nodded briefly before Maxine streamed the knowledge into her head. It only took a handful of moments for her to finish and Maxine returned to her conversation with Decaan once she was done.It will take Sandra a few minutes to absorb that. So might as well continue my conversation with Decaan.


    "Now, where were we?" Maxine asked.


    "You were about to tell me what an alchemist does," Decaan said flatly, "And you might want to hurry. I think the draconic warriros are on their way."


    "Alchemists refine the medicinal elements in various herbs to create potions that have a variety of effects. Some aid in breakthroughs, trigger rapid healing, restore energy reserves or even awaken sleeping bloodlines. There is even a formula to revive the dead as long as you have their soul on hand," Maxine explained, "Although the ingredients for that particular concoction are supremely rare. It''s only been used successfully once."


    "You can''t be serious," Decaan said in disbelief, "I can believe that the other potions exist, but I just don''t see how you can revive someone that''s dead using a potion."


    "I wouldn''t believe it either if I hadn''t seen it for myself," Maxine retorted, "And before you ask, it''s a hard profession to take and I absolutely refuse to teach someone it without consulting my teacher first."


    "I understand," Decaan said, "But shouldn''t you be getting out of here now?" Maxine noticed several gold stage draconic warriors flying straight at her, but at a slow enough speed that they wouldn''t harm civilians by accident.


    "No need. Even if they surround me, I could still get away easily," Maxine said confidently, "By the way, something''s been bothering me. Why do you guys insist on fighting the invaders like that? Sun Tzu would be having fits of rage if he saw how idiotic you guys are handling this."


    "Sun Tsu?" Decaan asked in confusion.


    "An ancient master of war from my homeworld. Now answer my question," Maxine demanded.


    "The invaders have an uncanny ability to see through any kind of misdirection and ambush us whenever we try to ambush them," Decaan complained, "We lost hundreds of thousands of our people before we figured out that only simple tactics and strategy works against them."


    "Well, your leaders need to take into consideration your opponent can use spiritual sense and research on how to counter it," Maxine answered, "Also they could use a favorite tactic of mine. Infuriate a lot of beasts in the area and lure them into an enemy force. It''s a simble and brutally effective tactic so long as you can find someone brave enough to pull it off."


    "Hmm, I can see how it would be effective," Decaan commented, "But researching materials that counteract spiritual sense will take time that we don''t have."


    "Well, your military already made a facility that can''t be penetrated by my spiritual sense, so they are clearly aware of such materials," Maxine said and just as she finished speaking the gold stage draconic warriors had surrounded her.


    "You are wanted for the disappearance of General Bertram. If you know what''s good for you, you will not resist," one of them said.


    "Him and the rest of your leadership acted against me first after I showed only peaceful intent," Maxine declared angrily, "And now you act innocent and blameless when i retaliate? You''re all nothing but hypocrits. I should''ve never helped you worthless maggots if this is how you treat those that come to your aid." Her rant got the attention of elder Miyan and she didn''t look the least bit pleased.


    "Is this true?" Elder Miyan asked coldly.


    "I don''t know the exact details, but former General Detar should," Cassandra replied.


    "For your sakes, it better not be true," Elder Miyan said with a hint of anger in her tone. However the gold stage draconic warriors were rapidly shrinking their encirclement.


    Maxine looked at them carefully before she removed her face mask. The young women part of the ''Guardian Mothers'' group froze as they saw her face. Aziel took this moment to stand between her and the draconic warriors.


    "You will not lay a hand on her," Aziel announced heroically in alliance common, but none of the draconic warriors understood a word.He can''t be serious. Does he really think I will fall for him just because he came to my defense?


    "I do not need someone to defend me," Maxine stated and Sandra chose that moment to finish absorbing the local language.


    "What an interesting-," Sandra stopped herself as she saw Maxine''s uncovered face and her eyes widened, "You look exactly like Maxine Levings in her battle form!" However the gold stage draconic warriors were still closing in and Aziel was preparing to fight them.


    "Thanks, but really, I must be going now," Maxine said before she created a bubble of shadow essence around her and shadow stepped out of the city. She glanced back with her spiritual sense for a moment to see Sandra and the other ''Guardian Mothers'' freaking out.Well, that was fun. Now, I better go back to the hospital basement to cultivate. I used up a sizeable chunk of my energies.

 Chapter 134

    While Maxine waited to fully recover, she sent out a few ravens to scout out for smaller groups amongst the four-horned kanzil forces, but even after she recovered the next day, her ravens hadn''t found any group smaller than ten thousand. She saw no other choice than to cooperate with the students of Seton Academy during their training sessions, but they seemed to be on standby for some reason.


    On the plus side, her cultivation had increased to silver stage rank 7 for each of her cores. Life or death battles really are the best way to speed up cultivation. Still, I don''t like getting wounded, but at least, I''ve gotten a step closer to completing my technique. So, what should I name it? Relentless Blades of the Hydra? No, that won''t do at all. It''s too literal. I will come up with something later. I''m not the best at naming.


    Maxine diverted her thoughts and sent out her spiritual sense out through the spiritual mark on Cassandra''s pendant. She looked around and quickly realized Cassandra was standing infront of a four holographic projections. Supreme Commander Callent and his surviving minions did not look pleased as Cassandra was giving a report.


    "... and that''s the last I saw of her, sir," Cassandra said. Wow I can''t believe my timing. I wonder how many times my luck will hold up.


    "I''m just curious on one matter, commander," Supreme Commander Callent said, "Why did you not attempt to capture her when you had the chance?"


    "She''s proven herself to be stronger than I am on multiple occasions, sir. It would''ve been suicide," Cassandra said.


    "Not everyone agrees with your assessment, commander, but for now, that reasoning will suffice," Supreme Commander Callent said, "However, next time, I insist that you gather the other gold core warriors in the area to capture this threat."


    "I''m afraid that''s no longer a possibility, sir," Cassandra replied.


    "Explain," Supreme Commander Callent demanded.


    "The offworlders seem to believe that there''s a strong possibility that she''s the daughter of someone called Poison Emperor Guan and they are very fearful of this man," Cassandra said calmly, "To top it off, she''s supposedly something called an alchemist. So unless both of her identies are proven false, they will be actively hindering any attempts at her capture."


    "That is a problem," Supreme Commander Callent admitted, "And you say this ''Elder Miyan'' is stronger than anyone else on our world?"


    "Yes, sir. Elder Miyan''s at least one hundred times more powerful than that four-armed bitch leading the invaders," Cassandra said calmly, "She wipe us and the invaders out by herself with minimal effort." One hundred times?! Now I wish Guan had included cultivation levels for the immortal stage and up. For all I know, there is a huge gap in power between gold stage and immortal stage. Although, I think it''s a bit odd that he left that out when his notes mention that no one can have more than seven cores and the one person that managed to form that many was unbeatable.


    "Then what would you suggest we do?" Supreme Commander Callent asked, "Should we leave this Maxine alone and have her kill us one by one? Is it possible to assasinate her without them discovering it?"


    "I wouldn''t recommend that. If by some chance their elder discovered our actions, she would wipe us out to avoid dealing with possible reprocussions from this Guan character. However there is a simpler solution. All you have to do is avoid the front lines. Maxine only went after General Bertram due to the fact he came to a place where the fighting was the heaviest. Afterall, she did mention she was here to train and close combat seems to be her prefered form of training," Cassandra explained. Well, Cassandra''s not actively coming after me, but she''s not helping me either. She''s only pushing for this supreme commander to avoid coming after me. And this is after I gifted her the ability to have kids again. You''d think she would consider me to be her best friend at the very least and not be willing to give up information on me. Then again, she was selected to be draconic warrior for her loyalty to their government, so I shouldn''t be surprised. Still, it''s not a good feeling to know how little my efforts to help her go to waste.


    "Sound judgement, if she couldn''t hunt us down with her ''pets,''" Supreme Commander Callent said.


    "She doesn''t appear to have many of them capable of infiltration, sir," Cassandra answered, "Thus, so long as you avoid her known active areas and the front lines, you shouldn''t have any issues of her discovering your location. She just doesn''t have the resources to track you or the others down in the short term."


    "Excellent analysis," Supreme Commander Callent praised, "Return to your unit and continue defending that city. Reinforcements will be sent to you as soon as possible. May the fairies watch over you." After finishing speaking, the holograms shut down. Meanwhile Cassandra looked disappointed. He knows full well that his people were running experiments on fairies and yet he still says that statement. This just gives me another reason to hate his guts.


    Maxine quickly spread out her spiritual sense and looked for Sandra. She found her on top of the city''s walls watching the four-horned kanzils in the distance for any activity. Sandra twitched as soon as Maxine''s spiritual sense touched her. [Hello?] Sandra said cautiously.


    [Hey, Sandra,] Maxine said in greeting, [Sorry about disappearing like that. I just didn''t want to deal with the locals.]


    [Maxine!] Sandra said with a hint of excitement in her tone, [I was wondering when you would contact me.]


    [Yeah, sorry about not getting in touch with you sooner. I''ve been a bit busy,] Maxine answered, [Anyways, I wanted to see if you still wanted those healing potions. As I said before, I''m willing to trade for them. Still interested?]


    [Yes, of course, I am,] Sandra answered, [But I want to ask you something. Who are your parents?] A test? Really?


    [Depends. If you are talking about the two that raised me, they are Johnathan and Claudia Levings. If not, you are talking about my biological parents: Poison Emperor Guan and Hellen Kavros,] Maxine answered, [Did that satisfy your curiosity?]


    [Were the Levings good parents?] Sandra asked curiously.


    [That''s none of your business,] Maxine growled angrily.


    [You even react like the real Maxine would, but still it''s nearly impossible to know for sure if you are really her or not without a DNA test,] Sandra said regretfully, [If we hadn''t encountered other Maxines as close as you are to the real thing, we would''ve been completely fooled by your display earlier. In fact, we were fooled for a short time until one of our members pointed out that the real Maxine never demonstrated the ability to transform into a Shadow Lord. It was always believed she only had her battleform. Still, I''m actually rather impressed you went to such an effort to pretend that your her. So, how many benefits did Guan give you to do this? Is that where your alchemy knowledge came from?] At least that mystery has been solved. It''s nice to know daddy was the one that organized the other Maxine''s to run around. It gave me some extra time to hide. Still, it''s amazing how much effort he put into this to buy me that time. Still, I have no more intentions of hiding who I am. It''s only a matter of months before I reach gold stage and no one aside from immortals will be able to restrain me.


    [I don''t know what you''re talking about,] Maxine replied.


    [Fine, play it that way,] Sandra said in an amused tone, [Still, I think you should know the Shadow Lords will find out about you soon and will send one of their weaker warriors to confirm your identity. What they will do after that, I don''t know.]


    [Thank your for the heads up,] Maxine replied, [Any idea when they will get here?]


    [Due to the distance, it should take them three to four months once they have someone free to check you out. They''ve been overloaded with all of the other Maxines,] Sandra asked.


    [Just curious,] Maxine replied. Well, time to speed up my training schedule. I need to be at least at the peak silver stage before they arrive. So, I need to gain one rank every fourty days if they send someone in the next few days. It will be hard, but I should be able to do it. Although, I could probably do it by tomorrow if I''m willing to go hydra in the middle of the four-horned kanzil forces, but that will be a last resort. I should be able to handle a gold rank two, three at most, shadow lord. If nothing else, I can go full hydra to chase them off and hopefully, I''ll have enough control to avoid eating them. Watching myself do it once was enough of a psychological trauma..


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    [Oh, that''s good. For a second there, I thought you were afraid,] Sandra said, [It''s not like the Shadow Lord leadership intends to capture you, even if you were the real Maxine. They learned a very harsh lesson when Poison Emperor Guan annihilated half of their leadership practically overnight after Maxine''s death. Now if they found her, they would at most try to send one of their warriors around her age to court her, rather than take her by force. They learned the hard way no one messes with Poison Emperor Guan or his family. I guess there might still be a few shadow lords that feel like it''s worth the risk, but I don''t think they have many people above gold stage.] How informative. Still, that doesn''t eliminate the danger to me.


    [Umm, thanks for clearing that up,] Maxine replied, [So, how many healing potions do you guys need?]


    [As many as you can spare,] Sandra said, [Are beast cores okay for payment?]


    [Yes,] Maxine answered.If I recall correctly, five silver beast cores for one silver-tier healing potion is the correct exchange rate.


    [Alright, when should we expect you?] Sandra asked.


    [Sometime later today,] Maxine answered, [I will contact you again once I''m just about ready.]


    [Alright, bye,] Sandra said before cutting off their spiritual sense connection.Well, that gives me some time to make the potions. I don''t exactly have any herbs on me.


    Maxine contacted her Shadow Wolf Kings and ordered them to find any and all herbs related to healing. They are far more efficient at it than she is due to their keener sense of smell. All she had to do was send the proper scent for the herbs she was looking for to them via spiritual sense.


    While she waited, she retrieved a gallon of four-horned kanzil blood and used her energies to force it to levitate infront of her in the shape of a ball. Now, how should I go about refining this into a pill. First off, I need to remove all of the unnecessary fluid.With a motion of her energies, she created a small flame and encased the bloody orb in her essence to avoid any odor from escaping.


    She slowly grilled the blood while mixing it to keep the heat evenly distributed and watched as it gradually shrank and changed colors. It shrank until it was just about the size of a cough drop and it developed a smooth surface. However it was sticky to the touch and felt slightly squishy like cooked meat. Not sure if this is a success or not. Well, one way to find out.


    Maxine tossed the cough drop sized pill into her mouth and swallowed without tasting it. She felt her stomach clench and her eyes widened in panic. She instantly shadow stepped to the nearest restroom and spent the next half hour violently voiding her bowels. Oh, god. I''m such a fucking idiot. I could''ve just used the black energies to annihilate everything I didn''t want and solidified it. Why did I think that I could make it like everyone else does when I have my own alchemical method? Still, why didn''t my biology protect me from the effects of that pill? Maybe my body didn''t register it as a poison. It technically didn''t do anything negative to me.


    After Maxine cleaned herself up and rehydrating, she went back to trying to make the pill. This time however, she used her black half of her energies to annihilate the fluids and any dirt in the blood. Next, she looked for anything she didn''t want in it using her spiritual sense, but didn''t find anything. She next fored what was left of the blood into a small space compressing the blood cells and applied some heat in the form of a small flame to help bind them together.


    She was left with a blood red crystaline pill the size of a cough drop. She transformed into her battle form and swallowed the pill. She waited while feeling for anything off and felt like her stomach was full a few seconds later. She smiled to herself as she also sense the pill was producing energies that she could cultivate.Awesome, it seems I got it right this time.


    Unfortunately her joy quickly vanished as she felt another urge to use the restroom come over her. She quickly reverted back to her base form and shadow stepped back to the toilet she recently used. I missed something and I don''t know what. I may need gold stage spiritual sense to figure it out. Either that or my approach to this is completely wrong. Hmm, now that I think about it, there are no nutritional pills, only potions. Perhaps if I treat this like making a specialized nutritional potion, it might come out with a different result, but that''s for later. It seems my wolves are letting me know they found the ingredients for silver-tier healing potions.


    Maxine retrieved a collection of medicinal herbs from her Shadow Wolves. However, the herbs were damaged by her wolves, but could still be used for alchemy. She estimated that there was enough from this batch to make ten healing potions.


    She quickly got to work on them and had them finisher in less than an hour. She had plenty of experience making potions of this level and had figured out how to mass produce them. However pill making was a time consuming process.


    Once she was done, she checked on Sandra, but they hadn''t gotten living quarters just yet. So, she used this time to look around for anything else to occupy herself.Well, I could always send my raven back into that shielded facility. I bet there are a few things that might be useful to me if I do a thorough look aorund.


    It took one of her ravens a couple hours to infiltrate that facility again. The security measures in the facility had been increased, but the increased personel had just made it easier for her to explore the facility. She found dozens projects revolving around weaponry, but most of it was not that concerning. However one project made her somewhat nervous.


    A strange sensor went off when her raven entered the room. The scientists looked at an instrument panel and their faces paled. "She''s sent one of her minions here!" one of them shouted and pointed at the guard, "Stay here! The beast is no doubt hiding in your shadow." Oh? They''ve found a way to track my constructs? That could be problematic. Although, I''m kind of impressed they''ve developed it so fast. Then again, I''ve provne to be very dangerous and made my intentions quite clear. That probably gave them plenty of incentive to develope that machine.


    Maxine pulled her raven back to her own shadow through a small portal and checked on Sandra again. This time, the girl was resting in a lightly funished room and was looking at a datapad of some kind. Maxine couldn''t tell what Sandra was looking at, but it didn''t really matter to her. It was only a datapad and not a weapon..


    Maxine reached out and contacted Sandra via spiritual sense, [Hey, Sandra. I''ve got ten healing potions. What did you want to trade for them?] Sandra jumped, but otherwise showed no reaction.


    [You really need to work on not surprising people like that,] Sandra complained, [Anyways, I''ve got the beast cores ready. You can come whenever.] It''s a good thing she has those beast cores to trade instead of Alliance currency. I can absorb the energies from them while in my battle form to accelerate the progress of my cultivation.


    [I''ll take you up on that. Incoming,] Maxine said before creating bubbles of her energies both around herself and in the room that Sandra is in. She used shadow step to Sandra''s room using this trick and dispelled the bubble of her energies.


    "That''s really a useful ability," Sandra commented.


    "It can be," Maxine agreed and retrieved the tend healing potions from her dimensional ring before laying them on a nearby table, "There, ten silter-tier healing potions as promised."


    "And here are your beast cores," Sandra said as she touched a dimensional pouch at her waist and a little more than fifty silver beast cores appeared on the bed, "I hope you don''t mind if I give a few to the other members of the Guardian Mothers. They helped pay for these potions."


    "Not at all," Maxine said, "It''s not like I''m selling you poison."


    "That''s true," Sandra agreed, "Do you want some tea?"


    "No matter how much I would like to, I can''t stay any longer. The locals have these rooms monitored," Maxine said apologetically as she turned, but immediately noticed that Sandra was looking at her ear. Huh? Why is she staring so intently at my ear? Is it full of ear wax or something?


    "You really are her!" Sandra exclaimed.What now?!


    "What are you talking about?" Maxine asked in a reserved tone.


    "Your ears are exactly like Maxine''s, so you must be her! I don''t care how you deny it. No one can ever change their ears without it looking wrong and each person''s ear has a unique shape. It''s better than a finger print," Sandra explained excitedly and held up the datapad from before that showed a side view in her battleform with Maxine''s ear in full view. Well, that''s new. I never knew you could identify someone by their ears. Thanks alot for leaving that detail out, daddy.


    "I would prefer if you kept this to yourself," Maxine said firmly.


    "I .. I don''t think I will be able to keep this from the others," Sandra said apologetically.


    "Can you keep quiet at least until that Shadow Lord shows up?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, I can do that," Sandra said.


    "Good," Maxine said, "Now I need to head out."


    "Um, before you go, can you sign this?" Sandra asked like a nervous fan girl while holding out a picture of Maxine in a battle stance with a blade in each hand. Maxine sighed and quickly signed the corner of the picture and left the same way she came.


    She originally didn''t care if anyone found out that she was the real deal at this point. She would soon be strong enough to deal with nearly anyone below immortal stage, but at the time, she hadn''t known what it felt like to have fan girls. It made her feel quite a bit more uncomfortable than horny teenage boys staring at her ass and breasts. Well, hindsight is twenty twenty. Now I have to deal with my fuck up. I could really use a bit of good news right now.


    The good news arrived half an hour after Maxine managed to calm down enough to meditate. One of her wolves stumbled upon a rather large pack of two legged six foot tall reptiles, most of which were silver stage. If they didn''t have quills sticking out of their backs, she would''ve thought they were a larger versions of velociraptors.Oh, thank you god. Those will do nicely to train my control over my full hydra form. Although, I''m not sure how much control I will be able to wrestle over it during this session, but this exercise should improve my cultivation to some extent regardless of how well I do.


    Maxine stripped off all of her clothes and brought out her Shadow''s Embrace armor. She created a portal a little more than a mile away from these strange quilled velociraptors. She ran towards the spot and while she prepared her mind to control her full hydra transformation, she stared at the beasts. It didn''t take them long to scent her and start charging straight at her.It''s now or never. She grit her teeth and transformed.

 Chapter 135

    Primal fury and hunger tried to overwhelm Maxine''s will as her body rapidly increased in size. However even after fully transforming, she was still in control, but she knew that she needed to eat in order to maintain it. Her gaze landed on the quilled velociraptors that were stumbling over themselves as they turned around and fled in the direction they just came from.


    Maxine chased after them and picked up the closes beast before tearing it apart with eleven of her heads. Her remaining head was keeping an eye on the fleeing quill velociraptors. They literately launched their quills out of their backs as if they were attached to crossbows and they hit her like a shotgun blast.


    Dozens of barbed quills lodge themselves into her flesh and caused her immense pain. It made it very difficult to maintain control as she quickly gained on the beasts. She was continuously bombarded with those quills and lost multiple eyes. Once she was in bite range, she picked up the poor beast and brought it to her other heads. It cried out in pain for only a moment before her heads tore it apart and swallowed down the chunks of flesh. She felt disgusted at this, but it was still far better than eating a sapient being.


    As the beast''s flesh reached her stomach, she felt like she gained more control over her hydra form. This needs to be done if I''m to figure out how to gain mastery over this form.


    She continued to chased down the other quilled velociraptors as her rapid regeneration dislodged the numberous quills sticking out of her flesh. She devoured the quilled velociraptors at a greater and greater pace, but her control was beginning to slip out of her fingers for some reason. She realized too late that she had over indulged her instinctive need to feed.


    She fought against it desperately by trying to stand still, but her hydra instincts forced her to chase after the fleeing beasts. She could only watch as she devoured all of the quilled velociraptors in the area, before she was able to gain control long enough to revert back to her shadow lord form.


    She stood in place reviewing in her mind what she had done wrong.Over indulging in my instincts while fully transformed can cause me to loose control, but not indulging them can also make me loose control. The trick is to find the right balance of the two. Once I find that balance, i can start trying to master my hydra form. I don''t want to end up just being a mindless beast that only knows how to eat. I really do not look forward to this.


    Maxine quickly checked her cultivation and it had risen again to silver rank eight. However when she tried to cultivate, none of her cores would accept any more energy.It figures there is a limitation to my full hydra form''s version of cultivation. Perhaps I need a rest period to ''digest'' the energies I absorbed. As long as it doesn''t take more than a month, I''m fine with a bit of waiting. I can always train my combative skills in the mean time.


    Maxine made sure her Shadow''s Embrace armor was covering her before she sent out her spiritual sense out to find more beasts or four-horned kanzils to fight. However most of the beasts had fled the area, except for a strange silver stage wolf radiating mana that had tribal tatoo-like patterns on it''s fur. Huh? Most mana using beasts use long range breath attacks, but this guy just oozes the feel of an up close fighter. That''s almost unheard of. They are extremely rare according to daddy''s notes. Their hide can be used to make powerful armor and their blood and bones can be used in alchemical recipes. I wonder how it makes itself so strong when it can only use mana.


    Maxine''s curiosity was piqued and she shadow stepped beside the beast. As expected, it reacted by trying to bite her head off, but she immobilized it using shadow tendrils. Her suspicions were instantly confirmed as it struggled to free itself. It was just as strong as a beast that uses ki.


    "Don''t worry big fella," Maxine said soothingly as the wolf growled threateningly at her approach, "I''m not going to hurt you. I''m just curious as to why you are so strong." Her words had zero effect on soothing the wolf, but she really didn''t expect them to.


    She carefully probed the beasts fur and hide with her spiritual sense to look for the reason this beasts was so physically powerful. She found the trick due to the tribalistic tatoo-like patterns on it''s fur and hide. They were drawing in mana and constantly refining and strengthening the fleshy body of the wolf somehow. It was brilliant. If I could do the same for my own flesh, I would be a lot stronger physically without doing anything, but I don''t exactly like the idea of tatooing my whole body. Some of those markings would overlap on some very sensitive areas and I doubt it would work for me anyways. It''s probably a species specific trait. Hmm, I could try experimenting with it on coreless constructs just to see the effect.


    Maxine retracted her spiritual sense and left a large pile of meat with a few silver stage cores on top of the pile as a form of thanks to the beast. "Take that as my apology for giving you such a scare," Maxine said before shadow stepping away from the wolf and releasing it.


    She didn''t pay anymore attention to the wolf and returned back to her hiding spot in the hospital basement. However she quickly discovered that she had guests. Specifically, the night elf elder, Evensong, had returned and he looked very anxious.


    "Ahh, there you are," elder Evensong said in a relieved tone, "My people have accepted your proposition."


    "That''s great," Maxine said cheerfully, "Allow me to notify my father."


    "Of course," elder Evensong said politely.


    Maxine closed her eyes and reached out with her mind to her clones. She checked with their hearing to see if Guan was nearby and luckily, he was brushing her clone''s hair.


    She formed a thread of her spiritual sense and ran it along one of her hairs to touch his skin. He immediately connected his spiritual sense with hers, [I thought it was made clear that you weren''t supposed to contact me through your clones.]


    [This is a special exception, daddy. I found a world tree being guarded by night elves. You''re practically the only person that can guarantee their safety,] Maxine explained and she sent him this worlds coordinates, [And you are practically the only person that won''t get too greedy and kill the world tree by accident.]


    Guan was silent for a few moments before he replied, [Thank you for letting me know about this, Maxine. I will let all know that these elves and their world tree are under my protection.]


    [Thanks, daddy,] Maxine said gratefully, [How are Silky and Emily doing?]


    [They''re doing fine. Silky made a fine choice for a husband in Lanitherin. He rarely leaves her side and treats her like the treasure she is,] Guan said praisingly, [Now go. You''ve taken a big enough risk by contacting me.]


    [Alright. Thank you, daddy. Bye,] Maxine said before pulling herself back to her main body and she looked directly at Elder Evensong before saying, "He will let it be known that your world tree and people are under his protection."


    "Thank you," elder Evensong said gratefully as he bowed his head, "My people were greatly concerned when the world tree was discovered by a group of young humans lead by a young male named Aziel Kelborn. He kidnapped two of our young women before fleeing. I fear he will notify his elders and that is why we sought out a patron."


    "Thank you for being honest," Maxine said calmly, but inside she was furious, "When did this happen?"


    "A few hours ago," elder Evensong replied.


    "I will rescue those two girls and punish that idiot for his stupidity," Maxine said firmly.


    "Are you sure that''s necessary to punish him?" elder Evensong asked fearfully, "Won''t they just release them after it''s revealed that your father is our patron?"


    "No, I don''t think that arrogant asshole will release them. That''s why it''s necessary for me to punsih him," Maxine said with a terrifying calm, "That and my father will do far worse to that idiot than I will in an attempt to rescue them."


    Maxine didn''t give elder Evensong another moment to argue as she instantly locked onto Aziel Kelborn. He was showing off his new ''slaves'' to his male friends, whom gave him disgusted looks. The two poor night elf girls were terrified.


    She created a bubble of her energies around herself and another one just behind Aziel Kelborn to teleport to his location. Both the hood and mask of her Shadow''s Embrace armor were on as she stalked right up to him. His friends rapidly retreated when they saw the look in Maxine''s eyes.


    "Maxine?" Aziel Kelborn said in confusion when he turned around just before Maxine punched him as hard as she could and snatched the dimensional pouch off of his waist with her other hand. He was sent flying and was caught by elder Miyan whom appeared out of nowhere.


    "Why did you attack my student?" Elder Miyan demanded. Maxine ignored her as she grabbed the slave collars on the necks of the night elf girls and removed them by teleporting them off using her energies.


    "It''s alright. I''m going to send you to elder Evensong. He will take you home safely," Maxine said reassuringly to the elven girls in forest elf as she wrapped them both in a bubble of her energies and sent them to the basement of the hospital.


    "Answer me," Elder Miyan said in a harsh tone as she tried to pressure Maxine with her superior strength.


    "First off, I detest slavers and if you havn''t noticed, I''m a half-elf. He should be grateful that I didn''t kill him for enslaving my distant kin that have treated me so well," Maxine said coldly without seeming to be bother by elder Miyan''s display of power, "And second, I just saved him and his entire clan by freeing those two from your depraved clutches."


    "What do you mean by that?" Aziel Kelborn demanded as he regained his senses, "No one has ever been able to stop me from doing what I want."


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    "Do you want to know why real women won''t give you the attention you crave?" Maxine asked him rhetorically without bothering to answer his question, "It''s because you''re an immature spoiled brat. No woman wants to be attached to an overgrown child. The only reason they show you any attention to you at all is because of your apparent wealth. Beyond that, you are not worth their time."


    "You!" Aziel Kelborn roared angrily as he freed himself from elder Miyan and glared at Maxine murderously.


    "The truth hurts doesn''t it?" Maxine asked mockingly. Aziel Kelborn charged at her, but Elder Miyan knocked him out with a simple motion of energy before he even crossed more than a handfull of feet. She quickly caught him in mid-air.


    "While I agree that young Aziel shouldn''t have enslaved those girls, you also shouldn''t have attacked him," elder Miyan reprimanded Maxine.


    "Those girls that he enslaved were night elves. Do you have any idea how rare they are?" Maxine asked angrily, "Those two girls could''ve been the last two female night elves for all you know and he could''ve damn them to extinction because he was thinking with his dick!"


    "What?" elder Miyan asked softly in disbelief, "Night elves have been extinct for ages."


    "You are mistaken. They''ve been hiding on this world for some time," Maxine explained, "Now before any more of your students do something stupid, I suggest you tell them not to bother the night elves and to notify the Alliance of their existence before the end of the day. As you know, Alliance laws strictly prohibit the enslavement or harm of endangered races." But those laws don''t stop greedy assholes from doing it anyways. Still, it will buy some time for daddy to spread the word that the night elves are under his protection, but knowing him, he will have told the Alliance before elder Miyan can do anything. I doubt anyone would be so overwhelmed with greed that they would risk angering him.


    "Very well," elder Miyan said calmly, "A piece of advice for you: you should treat those stronger than yourself with more respect. Eventually, someone will teach you a very painful lesson."


    "Understood," Maxine said and turned around to see the Guardian Mothers had just arrived. Meanwhile, elder Miyan had already left with Aziel Kelborn.


    "You already saved them?" Sandra asked in surprise.


    "Yes," Maxine answered, "I detest slavers with a passion."


    "So do we," Sandra agreed, "But those girls weren''t any kind of elf I''ve ever seen."


    "They are a very rare type," Maxine explained, "It''s best I don''t tell you for now. It''s to avoid any unnecessary trouble."


    "I understand, but where is Aziel? Did you kill him?" Sandra asked almost hopefully.


    "I punched him. After that, I sent those two elven girls to safety just before Aziel had a fit of rage. Elder Miyan knocked him out before he did something stupid," Maxine said, "I think she took him to your ship, but I''m not sure. Why do you ask?"


    "He''s my fiance," Sandra said sadly.


    "Political marriage?" Maxine asked while wincing slightly.


    "Yes," Sandra replied in a depressed tone, "His clan insisted on the marriage in exchange for numberous resources."Damn, I would rather runaway and never look back rather than marry that piece of shit.


    "And what''s stopping you from running away?" Maxine asked.


    "Because I can''t. His father planted a spiritual mark on my core to prevent that," Sandra said dispairingly.


    "Wow," Maxine said in surprise, "I didn''t expect them to be that cautious."Well, on second thought, I can definitely see them doing that. They clearly know that that Aziel is a very undesireable man. They had to essentially throw money away just to find him a bride.


    "That''s not all, either," Sandra said sadly, but her mood quickly improved, "At least, I made contact with you. Maybe if you come back with me to my clan, they might cancel the marriage with him. My clan is in desperate need of an alchemist."


    "I''ll think about it," Maxine replied, "But I won''t guarantee anything."I don''t want to be an alchemist for her clan, but I can at least humor her since she''s keeping my identity secret from the other Guardian Mothers.


    "Perhaps we could talk it over some tea?" Sandra asked hopefully.


    "I don''t see why not," Maxine answered.


    "Thank you!" Sandra said happily.


    "Don''t mention it. Now are you guys going to mobilize against the four-horned kanzils any time soon?" Maxine asked.


    "Not yet," Sandra said, "We are only here to help in the defense of this particular city. There are five other ships that are helping the other battlefronts."


    "Oh, I didn''t know that," Maxine said, "But it''s good that you are not actively attacking them. It would mean a higher chance of capture and you DO NOT want that. Those creeps have a tendancy to rape women to death and eat them afterwards." All of the Guardian Mothers paled as soone as Maxine finished speaking.


    "Please, tell me you are joking," Sandra said fearfully.Do these people seriously not do any kind of research?


    "Afraid not," Maxine replied, "It''s one of the reasons why I''ve chosen them to train my combat skills against. They''re monsters in humaniod form that need to be eliminated."


    "I agree," Sandra said and she turned to the other Guardian Mothers, "You guys go back to the wall. I''ll join up with you after I have some tea with Maxine." They nodded their heads and flew off. However two young women remained and they didn''t have any badges at ther waist. They must be Sandra''s bodyguards. Or they are making sure she keeps her chastity.


    "Just lead the way," Maxine said and noticed several gold stage draconic warriors were watching her. But they weren''t moving to capture her.It seems that they were already told just to watch me for now. I''m actually surprised that Cassandra isn''t doing it herself.


    "Of course," Sandra said as she took flight and Maxine followed behind her.


    Sandra lead her into a large skyscraper and somewhere on the fiftith floor was her room. It was the same one Maxine was in before when she delivered the healing potions. However for some reason, it felt like there was a different feel to the room than before. Thankfully, her bodyguards stayed outside of the room.


    "It looks like your bodyguards don''t mind us being in the same room," Maxine commented once the door closed.


    "They''re not exactly my bodyguards," Sandra corrected, "They''re here to make sure I don''t get too close to any men. That asshole Aziel wants a virgin bride."


    "I''m glad I don''t have to put up with that kind of irratation," Maxine commented.


    "I know and I''m jealous of that fact," Sandra complained, "You have a super powerful father that makes sure you are happy. He would never forced any kind of marriage on you. My father couldn''t care less about my happiness. He sees me only as a tool to use, and my brothers are treated as valueable jewels. It''s unfair."


    "Nothing in life is," Maxine said sadly.


    "Yeah," Sandra agreed sadly, but perked herself up as she moved towards a tiny kitchen attached to the room, "Now I promised you some tea."


    "That you did," Maxine said as she took a seat at the only table in the room, "So, how do you intend to get out of that marriage?"


    "There are only three ways to do it: I reach the peak of gold stage, find someone powerful to back me or get pregnant with someone else''s child. Since I can''t interact with any men, the last choice is nearly impossible," Sandra explained as she worked in the kitchen, "And reaching the peak of gold stage before the wedding next year is not possible for someone like me. I only have the other option available to me." She was looking hopefully at Maxine as she set a tea cup infront of her.


    "Sorry, but no. I don''t know you well enough to ask daddy to do that," Maxine said firmly as she sipped the tea.


    "I know, but that''s something we can work on," Sandra said happily and Maxine saw a strange look flash over Sandra''s face for a brief moment.


    "I can''t promise anything," Maxine replied.


    "I know, but just know that I''m willing to do anything to avoid being with that bastard," Sandra said as she sat down and stroked the top of Maxine''s hand.Oh, so that''s why she wanted to be alone with me.


    "I''m sorry, but my heart belongs to Emily," Maxine said gently.


    "That doesn''t mean you can''t have another lover," Sandra said eagerly, "In fact, a good number of the Guardian Mothers are lesbians. A few of them want to be part of your harem." Okay, the fangirls have officially gone from an irratation to down right creepy territory. I''m definitely going to keep my distance from them once the shadow lord shows up.


    "I don''t want a harem," Maxine asserted, "The only one I want is Emily."


    "But are you not at least curious how it would be like?" Sandra asked hopefully.


    "Let me put this in a way you understand. I suffer from sexual indifference. Meaning I don''t find men or women attractive and I select my partner based on my emotions alone. I can''t just have sex with someone I don''t care about. I would find the whole experience disgusting," Maxine explained.


    "But, but, I thought you were bisexual," Sandra said weakly, "You looked so intimate with Patrick Mason while he carried you and you seemed to be a little too close to Alice Adams."


    "You mistook my intentions. At the time, Patrick was one of the few men I felt safe around and Alice is just a very close friend, almost like a sister," Maxine explained, "I had no sexual feelings for either of them." Definitely not going to tell her that I wanted to fuck Patrick at one time. Just the thought of it now makes my skin crawl.


    "I see," Sandra said reflexively.


    "I can understand the confusion, though," Maxine said, "Earthlings do behave strangely at times."


    "It isn''t only earthlings, but you''re right," Sandra agreed.


    "Anyways, you''re a lot different than I expected out of a fan," Maxine commented to change the subject, "I was expecting you to be giggling out of excitement for half of our talk." Sandra smiled in response.


    "Actually, I''m controlling myself," Sandra admitted, "I want ot leave a good impression."


    "You did fine when we first met," Maxine said.


    "I didn''t know it was you though," Sandra said defensively, "I didn''t treat you the proper way at all."


    "It''s fine," Maxine said in amusement, "I didn''t mind it at all."


    "Still, you''re the young miss of the Kavros clan and Poison Emperor Guan''s daughter. You should get the royal treatment, not just sit in these stiff chairs and drink this lousy tea," Sandra expressed herself.


    "I said it''s fine," Maxine repeated herself, "I never liked living in luxury. I prefer simpler things."


    "I ... didn''t know that," Sandra said softly.


    "Enough of that. Weren''t you going to convince me to be your clan''s alchemist?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, but I don''t think my clan has anything that you couldn''t get yourself," Sandra said honestly, "My clan is nowhere near as powerful or wealthy as the Kavros clan. Why do you think my father wants me to marry Aziel?"


    "I see," Maxine said and finished off her tea to give herself a moment to think.


    "Unless you have a gender inversion potion, I don''t think you can help me at all," Sandra said sadly, "I have things I can trade for it, but there are just never any on the market." Oh? It seems daddy''s latest potion is rather popular.


    "I have one of those," Maxine answered, "Can you show me what you have?"


    "Of course!" Sandra said excitedly and placed several different items on the table. One was a bangle that deplayed a kite shield made of energy. It was in interesting item, but not something Maxine was interested in. There were a few other defensive items. But Maxine was most interested in the herbs and seeds Sandra presented. All of them were extremely rare.I think I will take all of those. There are several that are used in the gender inversion potion. That potion is at the very peak of what a potion can do. It would be good to see where I stand alchemy-wise, but I doubt I can make one without failing a lot. It''s unlike any potion I''ve ever made before.


    "I''ll take the herbs and their seeds," Maxine said as she took the herbs and their seeds before placing the gender inversion potion on the table.


    "Are you sure that''s all you want?" Sandra asked, "Gender inversion potions are extremely expensive and no one knows how to make them."Daddy and I know how.


    "I''m sure," Maxine said confidently.


    "Alright," Sandra said as she picked up the potion and looked at it hopefully.


    "If there''s nothing else, I should really head back and rest up," Maxine said, "I''m expecting there to be fighting soon. I only came out to save those night elves."It''s not a lie. Transforming into a hydra drained me quite a bit. I need to get some rest to recooperate both mentally and physically.


    "Not right now," Sandra said and quickly put the potion away, "And thank you for this."


    "You''re welcome," Maxine said and quickly opened a portal back to the hospital basement, "Bye."


    "Goodbye," Sandra said softly as Maxine walked through the portal and closed it behind her. She quickly placed a soft mattress on the floor and meditated on top of it. It was at that moment Maxine realized something had been off. Why arn''t the four-horned attacking recklessly like they usually do? I don''t think they are afraid of elder Miyan. There are records of them attacking immortals enmasse. Is it possible they are waiting for reinforcements? Or is something else going on?

 Chapter 136

    After a night of rest, Maxine was back at full strength and she warped back to the city that Sandra was at. Unfortunately Sandra wasn''t anywhere she could see, so she made her way to the city wall. Once there, she focused her gaze at the four-horned kanzil camp. As before, they had yet to make any offensive moves, but every instinct she had was screaming at her to run. This can''t be good. My survival instincts are rarely wrong when they go off. But what could it be?


    "Welcome back," Sandra said as she flew down from the air.


    "We need to get out of here," Maxine stated with a slight edge to her voice.


    "Why? What''s wrong?" Sandra asked.


    "It just feels like something very nasty is about to happen around here," Maxine replied as she scanned the four-horned kanzil''s camp for anything out of place, but kept her spiritual sense on the outside of the handful of tents that were present. Where is the female four-horned kanzil? On second thought, I rather not know. She''s probably indulging in some debauchery involving multiple men.


    "I''ll ask Elder Miyan. Maybe she knows what it is," Sandra said as she turned around and look at the Seton Academy''s ship.


    While Maxine waited, she finally realized what had her on edge. The energies in the air were being rapidly drawn towards the four-horned kanzil''s camp.Is someone breaking through? It''s strange though. I don''t know of anyone that needs THAT much energy to breakthrough to the next stage. Unless... they are breaking through from gold to immortal stage. That would be very bad.


    "Elder Miyan said that the four-horned kanzil leader made a formation array," Sandra said, "Although she doesn''t know exactly what kind it is. She thinks it''s a teleporation array."


    "That''s concerning," Maxine said, "They could bring all sorts of trouble through that thing." Sandra didn''t seem too worried.


    "It doesn''t matter. If there is a genuine threat, Elder Miyan will resolve it," Sandra stated, "But if things get too bad, she may just grab all of us and flee. She isn''t exactly under any kind of contract to protect this world afterall."


    "I''m aware of that," Maxine said.And she has no obligation to get me out of here either.


    When she carefully examined the four-horned kanzil camp, Maxine spotted the formation array that Sandra told her about in the center of the four-horned kanzil camp. It was drawing in tremendous amounts of energy as it charged up. It looked like it was about to activate.


    Without warning it activated and blinded her in the process. Once her vision returned, Maxine counted ten gold stage and one thousand silver stage four-horned kanzils that were standing on top of the formation array. However it seemed that the array was slightly damaged from being used.


    "Well, that confirms Elder Miyan''s suspicion," Maxine said, "I wonder how many times they can do that. If it''s too many more times, we will be in some serious trouble of being overwhelmed by their sheer numbers."


    "I welcome the challenge," Aziel said boldly as he flew down from the sky.


    "You say that now, but when you see just how badly they will outnumber you, you will be regretting your previous words," Maxine replied coldly. Aziel ignored her and looked at Sandra.


    "My wife-," Aziel said happily as he tried to hug Sanda, but she cut him off as she slapped his hands away, "I''m not your wife yet, so keep your hands to yourself."


    "Whatever you say, dear," Aziel said with confidence, "But in the end, you will be mine. Just accept it."


    "You''re making it too easy to hate you," Maxine said coldly to Aziel. Aziel gave Maxine a hateful glare, but he quickly hid it.


    "This doesn''t concern you, whore," Aziel said coldly. Maxine felt a very strong impulse to kill Aziel for calling her that, but restrained herself.


    "Call me that again and I will kick your balls so hard that they will be permnamently fixed to your chin," Maxine said with cold fury. Aziel paled slightly as he took a few steps away. He clearly believed that Maxine would do it.


    "You wouldn''t dare," Aziel said defensively.


    "My master has done far worse. I might as well maintain the tradition of ruthless action against fools," Maxine said with a frightening calm. Aziel backed up a few more steps steps before glancing to the left and regained his courage.


    "Hollow words, whore," Aziel said as he was clearly confident that he would avoid any reprocussions. Maxine lunged at Aziel in blind fury. Just as she reached him, she kicked as hard as she could at his groin, but her foot stopped a mere inch from his groin.


    "That''s far enough," Elder Miyan said calmly while grasping Maxine''s ankle. Meanwhile Aziel had fallen on his butt and was pale as a ghost.


    "He goaded me after I warned him to watch how he addressed me," Maxine stated angrily as she retracted her leg, "Don''t tell me your academy protects idiots that insult those that are stronger than themselves?"


    "Let it go," Elder Miyan told Maxine.


    "Fine," Maxine said as she turned around, "But if he tempts fate again, I don''t care what you say or do. I won''t let anything stop me from punishing his stupidity."


    "I warned you about your lack of respect towards me," Elder Miyan said coldly just before Maxine slammed into the ground. A great weight was pushing her down and it only took Maxine a moment to realize Elder Miyan was using her immortal essence to grind Maxine into the ground.


    "Respect is earned and you havn''t earned mine," Maxine retorted as she struggled to get back on her feet. It felt like her joints were grinding together, and just as she got on her hands and knees, several invisible blows that she didn''t even sense coming hit her sides in rapid succession. The pain from the strikes caused her to fall back down due to the pain they caused.


    "Stupid bitch," Aziel mocked Maxine, "That''s what you get for daring to harm me."


    "Last chance to shut your mouth, Aziel," Maxine warned through grit teeth even as she was being beaten by the invisble blows unleashed by Elder Miyan.


    "And what are you going to do about it? Elder Miyan has you pinned and she will only hurt your more for threatening me," Aziel mocked Maxine again, but in the next moment, he was violently slapped by Elder Miyan.


    "I''m punishing her for disrespecting me, not because she tried to harm you," Elder Miyan growled as invisible blows kept raining down on Maxine''s back, "And if you act like a fool again, I won''t stop her from doing whatever she wishes to you. I don''t care how much your family has paid me to look after you. I have a limit to what I will tolerate. Is that understood?"


    "Yes, elder," Aziel said unwillingly.


    "Good. Now leave Maxine alone if you know what''s good for you. I will not warn you again," Elder Miyan said as she finally stopped raining invisible blows onto Maxine and Maxine felt the pressure increase once more before it let up entirely. Maxine''s back felt like it had been beaten bloody when the attacks finally stopped and a memory surfaced in her mind of when she awoke in this body. That bitch. I didn''t want to remember that! She is so much stronger than me that this is practically bullying. Just how much more powerful is she than me?


    Sandra ran to Maxine''s side and Aziel flew to a different section of the defensive wall. "Are you alright?" Sandra asked worriedly while Maxine sat up.


    "Nothing that I can''t heal from," Maxine said confidently as she touched her bruised ribs and checked the damage with her spiritual sense. She was surprised when she didn''t find any broken bones. All she found was a massive amount of bruising. Most of which was focused on her back muscles. I was almost certain I would have at least a broken rib. I guess I''m sturdier than I thought. It still hurts like a bitch. I will be tender for the rest of the day even with eating a few snake fruit.


    "Still, you should take it easy," Sandra said with concern, "Elder Miyan isn''t known for being gentle when disciplining students."


    "No arguement here," Maxine said as she slowly got on her hands and knees.


    "Here, let me help you," Sandra said as she moved to help Maxine onto her feet.


    "Thanks," Maxine said and felt pain lance across her back. Her legs nearly buckled, but she remained standing.


    "I told you she wasn''t gentle. In fact, I''m amazed that you can even stand. Most students that suffer from her rough hand are bedridden for weeks after she''s done with them," Sandra reminded Maxine, "Just let me get you to a bed, so you can rest. You may be hurt far more than you realize."


    "No, need," Maxine said as she grit her teeth and stood on her own, "I just need a few moments to get used to the pain."


    "Don''t be stubborn," Sandra reprimanded Maxine.


    "I''m not being stubborn," Maxine said as she retrieved her last purple snake fruit from her dimensional ring and devoured it, "I''m just very aware of how much punishment I can take. This is not the first time I''ve taken a beating from someone far stronger than me." She felt the pain in her back quickly alleviate some, but it didn''t disappear entirely. However she could now walk on her own.


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    "I know, but still. I don''t like seeing you in pain," Sandra complained as several other Guardian Mothers approached and they looked very curious at the statement Sandra just made as a few of them raised their eyebrows.


    "We have other things to worry about," Maxine said while still feeling unsteady on her feet and she pointed out at the teleportation array in the four-horned kanzil camp, "They''re bringing in reinforcements. This will be a difficult fight at the very least."


    "No, shit," Cassandra said as she walked up to the group, "The same thing is happening at the other warzones. Those four-armed assholes are determined to grind us to dust this time."


    "Maybe," Maxine said while examining the teleporation array, "I think that array can only bring in silver stage and below now that it is damaged. It''s leaking too much energy to bring in anyone with greater strength."


    Cassandra squinted her eyes as she gazed at the teleporation array. "How can you tell?" Cassandra asked without moving her gaze, "I can barely see the damn thing."


    "We are using spiritual sense to look at it and Maxine is right. That teleporation array can at most bring in peak silver stage cultivators two more times before it falls apart," one of the Guaridan Mothers said and when Maxine looked at her in confusion, she added, "I studied formation arrays at the academy. The first thing they taught was how to identify damaged formation arrays and how to fix them."


    "Still, that''s a lot of troops that they are going to bring in," Maxine said grimly, "It will be a hard fight no matter how you look at it."


    "Will your beasts make a difference?" Cassandra asked.


    "They might, but if you havn''t noticed, my constructs are rather stupid. They only know how to do a few things," Maxine replied as another group of several thousand four-horned kanzils arrived in a flash of light within their camp.


    "Can''t you just make more of them to make up the difference?" Cassandra asked.


    "I wish I could, but there are limits to how many I can control at once," Maxine replied.I still have fifty five wolves in the shadow world and another twenty spread out protecting my loved ones from their shadows. Even if I brought them all here, it wouldn''t make that much of a difference anyways.


    "That''s too bad," Cassandra said and Maxine felt something slightly off with her.


    "Is everything alright?" Maxine asked while eyeing Cassandra, "Something feels different about you."


    "I don''t know what you are talking about," Cassandra said as a very faint blush appeared on her cheeks and Maxine finally realized what was different with Cassandra. Oh, it seems she has been taking some time to spend with Decaan. Should''ve realized she had that after sex glow.


    "Alright, alright. I won''t pry," Maxine said happily, "How''s Decaan?"


    "He''s being studied by some eggheads. They can''t figure out how he can develop strength like draconic warriors," Cassandra complained, "He barely has any time to spend with me."


    "It shouldn''t last too much longer," Maxine consoled Cassandra, "There is very little difference between how bloodline holders and other humaniods cultivate."


    "Well, that''s good to hear," Cassandra said and she looked towards the four-horned kanzil camp, "But still, it won''t matter much if those creeps overwhelm us. Do you have any ideas on how to beat that?"There are at least fifty gold stager cultivators over there and twelve thousand silver stage ones as well since the last time that teleporation array activated.


    "Not unless I can conjure up an ... army," Maxine said as she remembered the village in the shadow world and her bees. She quickly sent our her spiritual sense to check on both of them.


    The village didn''t have the forces she needed. The strongest person there was silver stage rank four and wouldn''t make that much of a difference. However her bees were another story. The bee matriarch was silver stage rank three, and she had over one hundred thousand warrior bees that were just slightly weaker than herself. She didn''t bother counting the millions of worker bees since thier strength was only copper stage. Yes, that will do nicely.


    "Maxine? Why did you say it like that?" Sandra asked, but Cassandra remained silent.


    "I think I have a way to help," Maxine said confidently, "I need a large space. A very large space to summon the ''army'' that can even things out." At the same time, Maxine sent a message to the bee matriarch to collect all of her drones and warrriors into the hive.


    "How big of a space are we talking about?" Cassandra asked cautiously.


    "About two hundred yards by one hundred fifty yards," Maxine said without thinking.


    "What kind of measurement is that?" Cassandra asked.Shit, I forgot they don''t have an equivalent to a yard.


    "Nevermind. I''m looking for something roughly one eighth the size of your training yard," Maxine corrected herself.


    "There are a few clearings outside of the city, but only one place within the city that would work. I''m not sure if it''s what you want though. That place is fairly exposed," Cassandra replied. It wouild be better to bring them outside of the city. I''ve got no idea how the locals will treat my bees. Hell, I don''t even know how the people from Seton Academy will treat them either.


    "Just take me to the clearing that best suits my needs that is outside of the city," Maxine replied. Cassandra gestured for Maxine to follow.


    They flew for a twenty minutes before they came to a huge clearing in a forest. It was far enough away from the city that the four-horned kanzils were unlikely to find it anytime soon and the trees were tall enough that it would make spotting the massive bee hive from a distance.


    "Here it is," Cassandra said, "Is this good enough?"


    "Yes, it will do nicely," Maxine said as she landed next to the clearing with only grass growing in it, "No matter what you see, do not attack. Understood?"


    "Alright," Cassandra said uncertainly.


    Maxine focused on the hive. She did a quick measurement and the clearing infront of her. It was actually bigger than what she needed. With that out of the way, Maxine opened up a massive portal benieth the hive to move it to the clearing. Within moments, the massive hive was placed in the clearing. It looked like a small mountian considering it was over sixty feet tall.


    However the bees didn''t fly out enmasse like she had expected. Instead a small group came out. In the lead, was the bee matriarch, but she hardly looked like a bee anymore. She had a rough humanoid apparance with a human face, but was still clearly an insect, albeit a large one, due to her shiny yellow and black exoskeleton as well as the oversized insect wings fluttering on her back. She stood easily at five feet tall, but Maxine could tell that the bee matriarch had upgraded her carapace and muscular strength due to how she moved.


    Her escorts were winged wasp-like creatures that stood three feet tall with eight limbs. They had scorpion tails and claw-like pinchers reaching forward that wouldn''t look out of place on a lobster. Their exoskeletons were thicker than what she would expect and they had four wings similar to dragonflies. I have a feeling those are her most powerful warriors.


    "WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE!?" Cassandra nearly screamed as she retreated a few dozen steps. Seriously? She has an insect phobia? Never would''ve thought that just by looking at her.


    "Those are my pets and I would appreciate it if you didn''t attack them," Maxine replied calmly as she watched the bee matriarch slowly fly towards them.


    "Mother, thank you for summoning me. How may I assist you?" the bee matriarch asked in english when she finally came within ear shot and she kept glancing at Cassandra cautiously. Mother? That''s ... unexpected.


    "Before that, I see you''ve been busy strengthening your hive. It''s very impressive," Maxine praised.


    "Thank you, mother. I''ve been trying my best," the bee matriarch said.


    "I can see that. What would you like as a reward?" Maxine asked bluntly and the bee matriarch became nervous.


    "I... I would like a name," the bee matriarch requested, "You''ve given Silky a name and I''ve been your daughter for nearly as long as she has. I just want my sister to call me by name rather than what I am." She''s talked to Silky? That explains why she called me mother earlier and I agree that she needs a name.


    "I see. You feel neglected," Maxine said and felt more than a little remorse for treating the bee matriarch that way, "Alright, then. Your name is Kerrigan now. Do you like it?"


    "Yes, I love it," the bee matriarch said happily.


    "Good," Maxine said, "Now I''ve called you here to help defend a nearby city with your warriors. How effective are they in battle?"


    "My warriors are able to fight against opponents at the same level as they are without taking injury due to the alterations I have made to their genome. Their outershell comes from a beetle that won''t die even if a human steps on it, their physical strength was derived from a type of dung beetle, and their speed also come from a beetle that''s found in Austrailia to create a very fast, strong and durable warrior bug. And to make them more deadly in close quarters, I''ve given them a modified scorpion venom on the tips of their pinchers," Kerrigan reported. Jesus, no wonder it takes all of the allied races to push back the hive when they try to expand. Each of their basic warriors are lethal.


    "Excellent," Maxine said approvingly, "Oh, before you deploy your warriors let me notify the people here of your presence here. I don''t want cause an incident because someone is afraid of insects."


    "Understood, mother," Kerrigan said, "Is it alright if I expand my genetic database from the local insect population?"


    "Go right ahead," Maxine said, "Just don''t damage their ecosystem."


    "I won''t. I only need a few dozen specimens of each species to fully map their genome," Kerrigan stated confidently.


    "Alright then. Just send a few scouts to keep an eye on the four-horned kanzils in the meantime and flank them if they decide to attack," Maxine said and turned to leave.


    "Mother, wait," Kerrigan said quickly, "I don''t know what these ''four-horned kanzils'' are."


    "Oh, that''s easy enough to solve," Maxine said as she sent a mental image to Kerrigan via spiritual sense, "Is there anything else?"


    "Just one thing. Can I have a hug?" Kerrigan asked hopefully.


    "Of course, you can," Maxine said and gave Kerrigan a hug. It felt strange giving a hug to someone that felt like they were wearing full plate, but Maxine ignored it.


    "Thank you, mother," Kerrigan said and she turned around.


    "You''re welcome," Maxine said and watched Kerrigan fly back to her hive with her warrior bugs. Well, now I have two daughters and I didn''t give birth to either of them.


    Cassandra flew down beside Maxine and asked, "So did it agree?"


    "Yes,sheagreed to help and you better notify your people not to attack any huge insects," Maxine said to Cassandra, "Kerrigan will take mesures to defend herself and that won''t be pretty."


    "I will let my people know," Cassandra said calmly, but immediately after she became visibly uncomfortable, "Before that though, can I ask you something?"What''s this about?


    "Go ahead," Maxine said while keeping her tone neutral, but inside she was very curious.


    "Is there any way you can tell if I''m pregnant before any medical tests could?" Cassandra asked nervously.


    "Yes, I can tell it within a few days of conception," Maxine replied confidently, "But is it really wise for you two to try for that during an invasion?"


    "We only did it one time without protection," Cassandra said defensively, "That''s why I''m asking you to check."


    "Give me a moment," Maxine said with a sigh as she touched Cassandra''s stomach and probed her womb with spiritual sense. She didn''t find any sign of a pregnancy, but decided to be thorough by checking two more times just in case.


    "Well?" Cassandra asked in a reserved tone.


    "You''re not pregnant," Maxine said calmly, "But I''m not that surprised. It''s notoriously difficult for gold stage cultivators to become pregnant without a specilized potion, doubly so for bloodline holders."


    "Thanks," Cassandra said with disappointment, "Well I best get back to my people."


    "And I should talk to the people from Seton Academy," Maxine said, "So might as well fly back together."


    Cassandra simply nodded and the both of them flew back to the city. During their flight, Maxine thought about their chances.Kerrigan and her brood definitely increase our chances of victory here, but doesn''t guarantee it. I just hope I don''t have to go full-hydra again in battle any time soon, especially if I can''t control it. I wonder if there is another way to give myself a boost in power. Maxine remembered about the maximum number of cores any cultivator could have. I could try combining four of my constructs to my essence armor. But I dare not use incompatible ones. It''s best to use four shadow wolves or ravens to test it out and I need to find somewhere secluded to do my experiment. I don''t want to let everyone know my capabilities until I show them off publicly. Although if I''m being honest, I don''t even know how long I would be able to maintain it and that''s exactly why I''m going to try it just after I let Sandra know about my bees.

 Chapter 137

    Maxine made sure she was still in her shadow queen form before she returned to the city, but she didn''t go looking for Sandra. She went looking for Elder Miyan since she was technically in charge of the students from Seton Academy. It didn''t take Maxine long to find her. She was hovering roughly one thousand feet above Aziel Kelborn.


    Maxine flew up to her and said, "Elder Miyan, I''m just letting you know that I''ve brought my own reinforcements." Elder Miyan looked surprised for a split second, but regained her calm.


    "Oh? And pray tell, what kind of reinforcements could you possibly bring?" Elder Miyan asked.


    "A hive that I''ve tamed," Maxine replied and before she realized what was going on, Elder Miyan had her by the throat.


    "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!" Elder Miyan roared, "A hive, even a young one, can never be trusted! I don''t care what kind of measures you''ve taken to ensure it''s obedience. They will always find a way to kill you to be free of your control!"


    "Says you," Maxine growled as she grabbed Elder Miyan''s wrist to prop herself up, "I claimed her as my own before she gained self-awareness and she has already accepted me as her mother. I refuse to allow anyone to hurt her!"


    "I don''t care. Kill it," Elder Miyan ordered Maxine coldly.


    "I''m not your student, so you can''t order me to do shit," Maxine said as she transformed into her battleform and pressed her claws against Elder Miyan''s arm, "Do not threaten her or me again or we will find out just how effective my venom is against an immortal."


    Elder Miyan glared at Maxine. It seemed like this stalemate lasted for hours when in truth it lasted mere seconds. "Fine, but if you can''t control that thing, I will kill it. Then, I will kill you."


    "Fair enough," Maxine responded fearlessly. Elder Miyan released Maxine and Maxine retracted her claws before both of them distanced themselves from each other. Oddly, Elder Miyan immediately checked her arm for any scratches. I don''t think my venom could hurt her anyways, so why the hell is she checking for any wounds? Could my venom have some lasting effects even on powerful cultivators?


    [Mother! Are you alright?!] Kerrigan asked in a panic via spiritual sense, [I will kill that bitch!]


    [NO!] Maxine said swiftly before calming down, [You will just be proving her right that you are the monster she thinks you are.]


    [But she hurt you!] Kerrigan said angrily.


    [No, she didn''t,] Maxine claimed, [She just over reacted to your presence here. She didn''t actually choke me.]


    [Don''t lie to me, mother. There is extensive bruising on your back with lingering traces of immortal level mana, which perfectly matches with Elder Miyan. I discovered this when I hugged you earlier. I just didn''t know who did it until now,] Kerrigan retorted.


    Maxine sighed and answered, [That''s true, but I still don''t want you to attack her. She could grind both of us into dust with minimal effort. Also, she clearly didn''t mean me any real harm. It''s actually harder for her to beat me without causing serious injury than it would be to simply kill me due to the difference in our strength. So, please, keep your anger in check. It''s not only your life in the balance, but mine as well if you act on your anger. Do you understand?]


    [Yes, mother. I understand, but I still don''t like her,] Kerrigan said grumpily.


    [I know, sweetie. I don''t like her either, but we best put up with her,] Maxine said soothingly, [She''s only acting like that due to her desire to protect her students.]


    [Alright, mother,] Kerrigan said.


    [Good. Just be sure not to use too many of your warriors in any attack. It would leave you vunerable to a counter attack and I don''t want you to get hurt because of it,] Maxine advised. I never knew when an idiot like Aziel will lead a sneak attack. Although honestly, it would be the perfect excuse to kill him.


    [I know that much mother. I''ve fought against enough beast hordes to learn proper strategy,] Kerrigan replied, [I lost more than half of my warriors because of a mistake in the past and I''ve learned to properly prepare before any offensive.]


    [Good. By the way, why do you keep calling them your warriors instead of your children?] Maxine asked, [It''s been bothering me this whole time.]


    [Because I don''t consider them as my children. I will only consider them as such if they gain self-awareness,] Kerrigan explained, [None of them have achieved that thus far, but I''m hopeful that one of my bodyguards will gain that soon. One in particular is showing signs of independant thought.] Now, I feel way less guilty about asking her to help defend the city.


    [I see, but still, use tactics that will maximize their survival,] Maxine said.


    [I already intended to,] Kerrigan said proudly.


    [Good. Now I have a few things to take care of and afterwards, I''ll come see you. I have a lot of lost time to make up for.] Maxine said.


    [I await you eagerly, mother,] Kerrigan said happily.


    [I''ll see you soon,] Maxine said lovingly before she felt Kerrigan retract her spiritual sense.


    Maxine smiled for a moment before finding some shadows to warp back to the hospital basement. Next she spread out her spiritual sense to find a very secluded spot in the surrounding forests. It didn''t take her long to find one and created a portal to it. However once she was there, she still felt this wasn''t sufficient and used her energies to dig down.


    A few hundred feet of dirt and rock would act as a perfect means to mask any explosion of essence, mana or ki from her body. Once she was satisfied at the depth, she widened out a spot, so she could fit four of her shadow wolves along with herself.Well, this is about as good of a testing ground as I can make. Now, let''s just add one shadow wolf at a time.


    Maxine activated her essence armor and added a shadow wolf. A wolf ears and tail sprouted out of her essence armor along with a thick layer of fur on her forearms and calves.Well, my wolf essence armor hasn''t changed any. Here goes nothing. After adding another shadow wolf to her essence armor, she didn''t notice any physical changes, but she could feel a surge of strength. Unfortunately, it''s energy drain was noticably larger. She quickly added two shadow wolves one after the other, and she felt overhwelming might flood her viens. She felt like she could fight Elder Miyan by herself and win with this strength. This surge of strength lasted all of ten seconds before her shadow wolves automatically detatched from her essence armor and she collapsed onto her hands and knees panting. Well, that was a waste of time. I didn''t realize it would drain me that quickly. I thought I would have a minute of time to use it at a minimum. Well, that short usage time just means I can only use it for just one massively powerful attack. Otherwise, it can''t be used at all. Now, do I have any other things I want to try out before I leave? Hmm, I might as well train my basic blade skills. Afterall, the basics are the foundations of my techniques and I really, really, really do not want to try mastering my full hydra form right now. I don''t like loosing control like that.


    Maxine withdrew her twighlight iron blades from her dimensional ring and began practicing the twenty eight forms of the Ying Yang Blades technique. As she practiced the forms, she felt like she was doing something wrong, but she couldn''t figure out what. All she could do was continue performing the various forms, but the feeling grew stronger as she continued.


    It took her several repetitions to realize what it was. She was using the motions more for attack than defense and adjusted her movements slightly to correct it. After performing a few more forms, she was hit with a realization.My Hydra''s Assault techinque is based off of the Ying Yang Blades. If I only focus on the attack portion, I''m leaving out the defense portion of the technique. That''s why it doesn''t feel complete when I use it! But how do I fix it? Hydras are purely offensive beings, so I should just launch a flurry of strikes at every attack that my enemy launches at me while simultaneously attacking their body. That would definitely fit the behavior of a hydra.


    Maxine practiced Hydra''s Assault via image training against a skilled opponent. She used a flurry of attacks to defend against whichever side was being attacked and used the other arm to counter-attack. It worked beautifully, but it required more focus than the previous version of her new technique.It will have to do. Now, I better go see Kerrigan as soon as I recover. She''s probably wondering where I am.She meditated to recover her strength and had regained enough of it to travel after an hour.


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    Maxine created a portal to just outside of the city and flew towards Kerrigan''s hive. On the way there, she noticed a few four-horned kanzils in the forests below. What are they doing out here? Don''t tell me they detected it when I brought Kerrigan and her hive through a portal. Well, if they did, they will get a big surprise. I''m willing to bet that Kerrigan already knows that they are there. Still, I think I should bring it up with her just in case.


    She changed direction in a place that the four-horned kanzils could see and flew in that direction for some time before redirecting to Kerrigan''s hive. It took her a few minutes to finally reach Kerrigan''s hive due to her detour.


    When she arrived, Kerrigan flew out of her hive with her bodyguards. "Welcome back, mother," Kerrigan said respectfully, "I didn''t expect you to come back quite so quickly."


    "It just gives us more time to spend with each other," Maxine said.


    "That it does, mother," Kerrigan said happily as she settled on the ground and in moments, her drones assembled a simple table with chairs around it, "Please, sit."


    Maxine sat down at the table before she asked, "Did you know about those four-horned kanzil scouts?"


    "Yes, I noticed thirteen different groups an hour ago. My warriors are setting up ambushes as we speak. None of them will return to report of my existence," Kerrigan said and she perked up, "But it warms my heart knowing that you worry for me, mother."


    "You weren''t sure that I would be, right?" Maxine asked, "I can understand why though. I practically abandoned you on Earth. Something that my own father did to me. It was unfair to you and I''m sorry for that. But I really didn''t have much choice about that. I wanted to stay on Earth, but if I had, everyone I cared about would''ve probably died."


    "I know that, mother. Grandmother and grandfather explained it to me very thoroughly," Kerrigan replied, "If they hadn''t, I would probably hate you."I need to thank those two when I see them next.


    "I still wish I could''ve been there when you became self-aware," Maxine said remorsefully.


    "I know, mother," Kerrigan said.


    "By the way, why didn''t your grandmother name you?" Maxine asked.


    "Because I didn''t want her to. I wanted to be named by you," Kerrigan said, "Any name given by another would have no meaning to me and I know it''s a tradition of earthlings to be named by their parents."


    "I see," Maxine said, "It must''ve been hard on you to wait so long."


    "It was," Kerrigan admitted, "But now I no longer have to."


    Maxine smiled at Kerrigan and felt killing intent for a brief moment coming from just behind her. "It seems we have company. Did you let that one get this close intentionally?" Maxine asked.


    "No, that one managed to slip through," Kerrigan said with a hint of anger in her tone, "I can''t believe my drones were so careless."


    "It really doesn''t matter," Maxine said while keeping her tone calm, "We just need to take care of them personally." Without any kind of external warning, she jumped out of her chair and charged at the spot she felt the killing intent coming from.


    Instantly, she saw a red humaniod turn around and flee quite quickly. Unforutnately for the four-horned kanzil, Maxine was far faster. She caught up with him in a matter of seconds and landed on the ground infront of him. While he was distracted, she created dozens of shadow tendrils to bind him up.


    However, Maxine found out that he was a she and she was dressed like a man. This female was the only one of her species that Maxine found that was actually wearing a full shirt and had something stuffed in her pants to make it seem like she had a masculine bulg. This female four-horned kanzil even bound her breasts to complete the image that she was a male.Interesting. She clearly doesn''t want to be seen as a woman. I can understand that part. She doesn''t want to be raped.. Perhaps, she''s different and if she''s open to it, I can offer her a way out.


    "Do what you will to me. I won''t reveal anything," the female four-horned kanzil spoke in Alliance common using an effeminate male voice. Wow, she clearly has had a lot of practice at this.


    "I could always strip you down and return you to your friends," Maxine bluffed and saw fear cross the young females face, "But that would be against my principles. Anyways, I know why you are here. You''re just scouting out a strange energy spike right?"


    "Go to hell!" the young female four-horned kanzil roared.


    "You''re making this harder than it needs to be," Maxine chided her, "Can you at least tell me your name? I can''t just keep saying ''hey, you'' or prisoner to get your attention."


    "Shemna," the young female four-horned kanzil stated after a few moments of silence.


    "Well, Shemna, I can''t let you return to your people. So what should I do with you?" Maxine asked no one in particular, "I guess I could imprison you, but I''m not sure how well that will work." Maxine checked Shemna''s cultivation and it was at silver rank 1.


    "So, you won''t torture or kill me?" Shemna asked in confusion, "I thought your race was one that loved to finish off their opponents."


    "Humans tend to fight, but we definitely do not enjoy it. But you''re right. They do tend to torture and kill prisoners to avoid the difficulty of keeping them caged when they are too powerful," Maxine said sourly as she revealed her ears, "But as you can see, I''m not a human. I thought my pointy ears and silver grey skin was enough of a hint that I wasn''t. Elves, such as myself, tend to imprison our enemies or kill them on the spot when we can''t imprison them. We generally don''t like to see other beings suffer."


    "You sound like a bunch of cowardly weaklings," Shemna said mockingly.


    "Perhaps, but there is another reason that I''m keeping you alive. And that''s to keep my daughter company when I''m not around," Maxine said and she saw a confident smile on Shenma''s face, "I wouldn''t smile if I were you. She''s adopted and an insectiod"


    "You.. you mean that thing is your daughter?!" Shemna asked in a fearful voice.


    "Indeed and it''s time we returned to her," Maxine said with a cold smile as she started walking back while dragging Shemna behind her using shadow tendrils.


    "No! Don''t let her lay any eggs inside of me! I will tell you anything you want to know! Just keep her away from me!" Shemna screamed in pure panic as her voice became completely feminine. Wow, I wasn''t expecting a reaction that strong. I guess that removes the chance she could keep Kerrigan company. And what is that part about laying eggs in her about? Do they have a insectiod race among the evil races that does that sort of thing? Maxine ignored Shemna''s screams of panic and brought her before Kerrigan.


    "Oh? A four-horned kanzil? That one sounds like it''s a female. What is the purpose of you bringing her here?" Kerrigan asked in english.


    "I wanted you to have someone else to talk to, but I didn''t realize she would be this terrified of you," Maxine replied and saw that Shemna had fainted once she saw Kerrigan.


    "That is a problem, but I can use her for another purpose," Kerrigan said calmly, "I can analyze her blood after drawing it and extrapolate a more human appearance. Although, I may traumatize her in the process."


    "Restrain her and keep her unconscious. I will bring her to the people from Seton Academy afterwards," Maxine advised, "How long would it take you to analyze her blood?"


    "A few days, but I only need to draw her blood once to analyze it completely," Kerrigan replied and asked hopefully, "Are you staying here, tonight?"


    "Yes, I will. I just need to construct a small cottage," Maxine replied with a small smile, "Your hive isn''t the best place for me to sleep. You millions of drones and warriors will make enough noise to make sleeping difficult."


    "Mother, my chambers are very quiet. I sound-proofed them when Silky complained about the noise," Kerrian said with a hint of amusement.


    "Oh, in that case, I wouldn''t mind checking it out," Maxine said.


    "This way, mother," Kerrigan said as she took flight. Maxine grabbed Shemna by the ankle and followed Kerrigan.


    While she followed Kerrigan, Maxine noticed how little noise Kerrigan''s wings made while she flew.That''s an interesting adaptation. I wonder which insect she got that from.


    It only took them a few moments to reach Kerrigan''s hive and Maxine grew increasingly nervous as she saw the countless insects crawling inside so densely she couldn''t see the walls, floor or ceiling. None of them touched her, but it still made her skin crawl. She kept telling herself that they wouldn''t attack her, but it didn''t make any difference. Thankfully they reached an empty chamber in Kerrigan''s hive before Maxine had a panic attack.


    The room was illuminated by a strange orb hanging from the ceiling. The walls had the hexagon shapes of individual honey combs and were a golden yellow. In this chamber, she saw a table, couch, and arranged throughout it. She also saw what she thought was a kitchen just through a opening to her left. However she was surprised and delighted to find that she couldn''t hear the countless insects inside of it.


    "You''re right. I can''t hear your drones at all," Maxine commented and asked, "Is that a kitchen over there? Do you even need that?"


    "Technically, no. I only need honey to sustain myself and my numberous drons and warriors. But I enjoy a homemade meal," Kerrigan replied, "Silky made me a few meals before and they were delicious. But I don''t know how to cook myself. She didn''t have enough time to teach me, but the replicator she purchased recreates the meals she''s made quite nicely."


    "A replicator? I''ve never heard of that thing," Maxine said, "Can it make anything?"


    "Only things it has scanned and recorded before," Kerrigan answered, "It has most of Earth''s vegetables and meats programmed into it, but it can''t seem to replicate chocolate that well for some reason. It doesn''t taste right."


    "That''s strange, but I can work with that," Maxine said, "Would you like me to make you something?"


    "YES!" Kerrigan said excitedly, but she quickly calmed down to say, "I mean. Yes, please."


    Maxine chuckled lightly and asked, "Alright then. How does lo mein sound?"


    "That sounds wonderful," Kerrigan said happily, "Silky made that for me before, but she said yours was better."


    "Alright, I will start working on it then," Maxine said as she walked to the kitchen, "You can join me if you want to learn how to make it yourself and I will make a few other things so you can record them on that machine of yours."


    "Coming, mother," Kerrigan said as she followed Maxine into the kitchen.


    "Good. Now show me how to use this thing," Maxine said as she pointed at what she assumed was the replicator.After this cooking session, I need to get some shut eye in that comfortable looking bed Kerrigan has. It looks way more comfortable than that bed Decaan had me sleep in before. Spending the night here should make Kerrigan happy. As for the four-horned kanzils, they will probably their attack sometime tomorrow morning. That doesn''t leave me any time to experiment with anything.

 Chapter 138

    Maxine woke up on a luxuriously comfortable bed and felt a weight laying down beside her and lazily opened her eyes. She almost recoiled at seeing Kerrigan so close to her and noticed something that was rather alarming. A insect abdomen was sticking out of Kerrigan''s lower back, but quickly calmed down when she noticed several of Kerrigan''s drones were soundlessly collecting orbs the size of chicken eggs off of the floor. There had to be a least a thousand of them on the ground.


    "I''ll be done in a few more moments, mother," Kerrigan said and added in an embarressed tone, "Please stop looking. It''s embarressing for me to have you watch me lay eggs." Maxine got out of the bed and averted her gaze. She saw Shemna sleeping peacefully on the floor beside the bed. Although she did notice a small puncture wound on her thigh.


    "Sorry, I didn''t know that made you uncomfortable," Maxine said apologetically, "Um, how often do you lay eggs?"


    "Once a day," Kerrigan replied, "It''s to replenish any lost drones and to expand my hive. But I don''t expand beyond the limits of the enviroment''s capability to support."


    "Yeah, it wouldn''t be wise to destroy your food source," Maxine said as she nodded her head in agreement, "So, did you finish analyzing Shemna''s blood?"


    "Yes, I have. I think I can take a more human appearance with a little work, but my eyes won''t change," Kerrigan answered.


    "I have the same problem," Maxine responded, "It doesn''t matter what transformation I''ve adopted. My eyes always remain the same."


    "That''s interesting," Kerrigan said and paused for a moment before saying, "Alright, I''m done. You can look now." Maxine turned around and literately saw Kerrigan''s insectiod abdomen shrink back into her body. Now that''s an interesting trick. It''s almost on the level of Silky''s body changing technique.


    "How did you learn that trick?" Maxine asked.


    "Silky helped me develope it. The few humans I interacted with always seemed far more nervous around me before I learned it," Kerrigan explained as she sat up on the bed, "It''s almost like they thought I would sting them. Which is ridiculous. How would I get new insect specimens from around the globe if I harmed them?"


    "I know it seems odd to you, but you need to remember that human writers made quite a few stories about vicious giant insects," Maxine explained, "And humans have an innate disgust and fear of insects."


    "I know, mother," Kerrigan replied, "At least, Jack said I was beautiful." He did what?! Doesn''t that perverted asshole already have the arachne twins?! No, wait. Maybe his intentions are harmless. Yeah, he just said that to make her feel better about herself. That makes way more sense. If that isn''t the case, I need to beat the shit out of him.


    "That''s sweet of him," Maxine said.


    "Yes, he is very kind," Kerrigan agreed, "But he''s far too ugly for my tastes. I''ve seen dung beetles more appealing than he is." Maxine struggled to keep a grin off of her face at that comment.


    "Yeah, I agree, but please don''t tell him that. I think he, more than anyone else, is aware of just how ugly he is," Maxine agreed and sighed as she got a signal from her shadow wolves. The four-horned kanzils were mobilizing their warriors into formations.


    Kerrigan turned her head slightly and Maxine could''ve sworn she looked annoyed. "The four-horned kanzils are moving, mother."


    "I noticed. I''ve got a few constructs keeping an eye on them," Maxine said, "After the battle, I''ll come back and see you again. Is it alright if I come back to this room through a portal?"


    "Yes, feel free," Kerrigan said happily and as Maxine created a portal to the city, Kerrigan added, "Be careful, mother. Both me and Silky would be heartbroken if we became orphans."


    "I know and I don''t intend to die any time soon. I still need to give you two some younger siblings," Maxine said with a wink and placed Shemna over her shoulder before leaping into her portal to the city.


    Once through the portal, Maxine looked around and immediately saw Sandra. Before Maxine could even take three steps towards her, she heard someone yelling just to her right, "You traitor!"


    Maxine turned her head to see Aziel charging at her with a ridiculously long sword and a vicious smile on his face. It had to be at least twelve feet long. However she became quickly alarmed at how quickly he was swinging his weapon.


    She hastily jumped high into the air. She watched as the weight of Aziel''s weapon caused him to loose his balance. He slamed face first into the ground, but he didn''t immediately get back on his feet. He groaned in pain as he craddled his nose while rocking back and forth on his back with his sword beside him. She had never seen someone so poorly suited for the battlefield.


    In that instant, Maxine realized something. He''s probably never killed anyone before, or even been in a real fight. I doubt he''s been in anything more challenging than a sparring match. None of them have. They are going to get slaughtered by the four-horned kanzils simply because they won''t be as vicious as they need to be. What the hell are they teaching them at Seton Academy? This is no different than throwing a child into a deep end of a pool to teach them how to swim.


    "I was never your real ally to begin with," Maxine said to Aziel, "I always do what''s best for me, but regardless, this young woman is my prisoner. I just brought her here for your elder to question out of respect. Not to be called something I''m not."


    "I appreciate the thought, but it''s not necessary. We discovered long ago that four-horned kanzils rarely ever break under any kind of interrogation, even soul searching isn''t effective against them," Elder Miyan said, "These fiends have strange souls that allow them to attack even when they are apparently helpless."Yeah, I found out that the hard way.


    "I''m aware, but this one has a severe phobia of humaniod insects," Maxine said, "She was rendered to a weeping mess as soon as my daughter made an appearance. The poor thing passed out before I could begin to question her."


    "Wait, did you just sayshe?" Elder Miyan asked as she quickly approached Maxine.


    "Yes, I did," Maxine said cautiously, "Why?"


    "Four-horned kanzils don''t bring their females into battle unless they possess immense strength," Elder Miyan said and Maxine sensed her probe Shemna with her spiritual sense, "This one is essentially a weak child by their standards. Will you leave her with me?"


    "I rather leave her with Sandra. This girl has already shown that she doesn''t want to stay with her race indirectly," Maxine stated, "She did several things to make it seem like she was a male, undoubtedly, to avoid getting raped."


    "Are you sure?" Elder Miyan asked excitedly.


    "Yes," Maxine said firmly and saw that Aziel was still craddling his nose. An indescribably fury assaulted her.That''s inexcuseable. Even if he''s unsuited for battle, he should''ve, at least, gotten back on his feet long by now with his sword in hand. He''s asking to die with an attitude like that. Time for some correctional discipline.


    Maxine handed Shemna to Sandra before walking over to Aziel and kicked him in the gut hard. "If you''re going to sneak attack someone, don''t roll around on the ground after taking only a small injury. Either run or fight! There is no middle ground. I only spared you because you''re still an idiotic child," Maxine roared at him as he flew through the air, "Do you honestly think that those bastards beyond the city walls will give you the same curtesy?! Ugh, you''re not even worth the effort."


    When Maxine turned around, she saw Elder Miyan giving her a glare, but otherwise did nothing. "He will have difficulty fighting later because yo wounded him," Elder Miyan remarked without a noticable change in her tone.


    "Perhaps the pain will make him remember to hold onto his weapon and always keep his eyes on his opponent," Maxine said coldly.


    "Perhaps it will, but he is a stubborn one," Elder Miyan said neutrally, "He is very likely to get killed in his first engagement with the enemy. It is why I was hired to watch over him. I''ve regretted it ever since meeting that brat."


    "I could just kill him to get him out of your hair," Maxine said calmly.


    "No matter how much I would like that, I''m afraid that''s not an option. His family contacted me quite recently and found out about his recent actions and mine. They will put a bounty on my head if he dies while in my care," Elder Miyan said bitterly, "And yours."


    "They''re idiots if they think I''m easy to threaten," Maxine said coldly and retrieved a sinister looking purple, green and brown potion from her dimensional ring. The three colors within it were constantly swirling amongst each other, but never truely mixing.


    Elder Miyan quickly retreated several steps. "You .... Is that a poison?" Elder Miyan asked with a hint of fear in her tone.


    "Yes, and a nasty one at that," Maxine lied shamelessly, "It''s quite effective on anyone below immortal stage as far as I''m aware. It''s not like I''ve been able to test it on one. Do you mind?"Yeah, it will give anyone who drinks it violent bouts of diahrea, but she doesn''t need to know that. Heh, the bonus of having a ''master'' of poisons is that you can threaten them with a weak poison like this and they will believe it. I wonder how she would react if she found out this was actually a failed healing potion geared for those with serpentine bloodlines?


    "No, thank you," Elder Miyan said quickly, "Please, put it away." Maxine did as she was asked and she turned towards the four-horned kanzils as they assembled.


    "How much longer do you think we have before they begin their attack?" Maxine asked.


    "No more than ten minutes," Elder Miyan said calmly, "And don''t bother telling the students. They already know."


    Maxine looked back to Sandra and saw that she had laid Shemna down on a formation circle. The formation circle was ten feet across and seemed to form a dome-like barrier around Shemna.Interesting. I wouldn''t mind learning a few things about formation arrays, but I''m already swamped with martial training, cultivation and alchemy practice. There''s just never enough time for everything.


    "I need to be beside my ''future husband''s'' side for this battle," Sandra complained, "My parents suggested I spend as much time with him as possible on the battlefield, so that we could bond."More like ordered you to.However before Sandra turned to fly away, Maxine saw a strange glint in her eye. She''s up to something. I wish I knew what it was. Could she be planning to fake her death? It wouldn''t be that hard on a battlefield.


    Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    Maxine shrugged her shoulders since it wasn''t her problem anymore and looked for Cassandra. She found her on the city walls and quickly flew over to her. As soon as Maxine landed, Cassandra looked over her shoulder at Maxine briefly before returning her gaze back to the four-horned kanzils, but otherwise said nothing.


    Maxine noticed the female leader of the four-horned kanzils looked aggitated and kept glancing in the direction of Kerrigan''s hive. Maxine turned her head to the same direction and smiled. There were thousands of tiny dots in the air. Each one of them was an aerial insectiod warrior and there were thousands more traversing the ground.Yeah, I don''t blame her for being worried about that. Hell, if Kerrigan wasn''t my adopted daughter, I would be terrified of such an army myself.


    "My daughter''s warriors have arrived," Maxine commented.


    "I noticed," Cassandra said plainly, "Their leader looks pissed." Maxine quickly looked at the female leader of the four-horned kanzils to confirm what Cassandra said and she noticed the female leader of the four-horned kanzils was looking directly at her.Why do I feel like she wants to kill me?


    Maxine heard her roar something just before every last four-horned kanzil charged forward. "Oh, shit," Maxine said as she flew up to join the defensive formation and transformed into her battleform while retrieving her blades from her dimensional ring. She saw several gold stage draconic warriors fly up beside her, but none of the gold stage students had moved yet. What is wrong with them?! They had literately only a few seconds to get their asses up here! In any case, the four-horned kanzils were practically within striking distance and she had no time to yell at them to move.


    The first gold stage four-horned kanzil to attack her wore gauntlets and unleashed a barrage of punches even before he got into range. Maxine slashed out with her blade intent on beheading him, but he punched her blade up before it could reach his neck.I don''t have time for this.She immediately turned her head towards him as she opened her mouth and unleashed her acid spray attack at his face.


    He raised his uppermost left arm to block it, but some still got on his face anyways. He screamed in agony as his face started to melt while he desperately tried to claw her acid off of his face. With a swift slash, she cut off his arms and head to put him out of his misery.


    Before she could even take in a breath, another four-horned kanzil wielding four swords came at her from above with both of his right arms slashing down their swords. Maxine couldn''t possibly dodge it so she slashed out her left blade to clash with his swords. The resulting impact caused Maxine to fly backwards a few feet. She fully expected to see some damage to her blade from that clash, but strangely, neither of their weapons was damaged.


    Her opponent attacked again with apparent confidence since his attack seemed to track her no matter how she moved, so Maxine was forced to slash out herself to counter him. This is the dumbest way to fight, but I can''t dodge it. Since that''s the case, I will cut through them! She increased the force of her attack and for a split second before their weapons were about to clash, she saw blade energy coat her weapon. She was surprised, but even more so when her blade cut through his swords before slicing open his neck.


    She wanted to understand how it happened, but she didn''t have the opportunity. Because she saw one of two four-horned kanzils disengage from a draconic warrior to her right and charge straight at her.They are keeping me occupied, so they can finish off the draconic warriors! I need to take them out faster to lighten the load on them.


    She took a moment to check on everyone else and saw that Sandra was feeding a lightly wounded Aziel a potion. I thought she hated him. Wait a second. Is that the gender inversion potion she''s giving him? Oh, god. She wouldn''t!Unfortunately, Maxine couldn''t see what Sandra did since the charging four-horned kanzil arrived to fight her.I will find out if she did it or not later. Still, that''s the kind of thing you reserve for those you absolutely hate.


    Twenty minutes later, Maxine was panting as she killed another gold stage four-horned kanzil. How many does that make? Twelve or thirteen? God, that last one took forever. It was almost as if he could read my mind and avoided almost every attack I made. He had to have been through way more combat than I have. Still, I have about half my strength left. As long as the rest of my opponents are inferior to him, I should be fine.


    She didn''t have time to catch her breath as she suddenly felt a deathly chill run up her spin and immediately flew backwards rapidly just before a huge warhammer passed through the space she was just in. She felt afraid when she saw that the head of the warhammer was easily bigger than a barrel. She looked at her opponent and it took her a moment ot realize it was the female leader of the four-horned kanzils due to her being covered in heavy armor. And she was using all four of her arms to wield the massive warhammer that almost killed her.


    "I will kill you!" the female four-horned kanzil leader roared with fury as she swung her weapon at Maxine violently. Maxine had no choice but to dodge it. She knew she would probably die if she got hit.


    The massive warhammer grazed one of the other four-horned kanzils in the back of the head causing it''s head to explode. Holy shit! That''s some serious destructive force she''s packing and what''s worse is she''s fast. I need to come up with something before I get too tired to dodge it. Unfortunately, each swing of that warhammer prevented Maxine from closing the distance without getting hit by the spike on the back end of the warhammer''s head. My draconic essence armor won''t help. It boosts my strength and flying speed, but not enough to make it so I can hit her before she hits me. Spatial energy might help, but she has clad her whole weapon and body in her energies. She has it thick enough that I don''t think I have enough strength to cut through it. I don''t see her giving me time pull off any of my trump cards. And it doesn''t help that she''s not revealing any blind spots in her defense. I should run from her, but I can''t. There are not any shadows nearby and she doesn''t look like she''s going to let me make one.


    Maxine kept desperately dodging the vicious assault of the female four-horned kanzil and finally noticed the warhammer was completely made of metal. She flew backwards suddenly and extended her right blade forward before unleashing a bolt of lightning through the tip of her blade into the warhammer. By doing this, her attack bypassed the female four-horned kanzil''s defense. Her attack stunned the female four-horned kanzil and Maxine charged in to attack before her opponent could recover. Gotcha!


    However before Maxine could strike, she saw a greyish blurr to her left before something hit her on the left side of her face and was thrown back a short distance before she was able to halt mid-air herself. Maxine looked up and saw the female four-horned kanzil shaking her upper right hand a couple times before grabbing back onto the massive warhammer. Shit, she has me beat in the experience department too. At mid range, she fends me off with the warhammer and if I manage to get close, she uses hand to hand to push me back. I can only hope she isn''t very good at defending against long range attacks. Otherwise I''m completely screwed.


    Maxine retreated as she returned her twighlight iron blades back to her dimensional ring and spread her arms out to either side of her while the female four-horned kanzil was in pursuit. With a thought, Maxine created hundreds of energy darts all around her and unleashed them at the female four-horned kanzil.


    Maxine couldn''t believe her eyes when her energy darts bounced harmlessly off of the female four-horned kanzil''s armor, even when it hit the openings for her eyes, but she still had one more move to play. She redirected them into the joints of the female four-horned kanzil''s amor and detonated them.Please, tell me that worked.


    Unfortunately, the explosion did no damage to the female four-horned kanzil and to make matters worse, Maxine saw too late that the female four-horned kanzil used a burst of speed to close the distance as she swinged her weapon. Maxine couldn''t see her self dodge it in time. Fine! Let''s share the pain!


    Maxine instantly coated herself in electrical arcs thicker than a broom stick and did her best to shield herself just before the warhammer slammed into her left arm. Additionally, she borrowed the force of the strike to hurl herself away from the female four-horned kanzil to both escape and minimize her injuries. She still ended up getting her left arm broken in several spots and her ribs on her left side hurt horribly.


    She noticed within moments that she would impact the ground at her current angle and tried to keep herself aloft. But she was carrying too much momentum and moments later she deflected off of the ground like a skipping stone for several miles before ended up in the forest. Unfortunately, her impact with the ground knocked most of the trees away from her.


    She immediately knew something was terribly wrong with her body once she finally stopped ploughing through the forest. Her ribs on the left side of her chest had caved in and it was getting difficult for her to breathe. Fuck! I''m out of this fight. I just hope that bitch believes that attack killed me. Anyone else would''ve died from that attack. Unfortunately, Maxine''s luck wasn''t that good.


    The female four-horned kanzil was approaching her fast and Maxine wasn''t able to drag herself into a shadow to shadow step away in time. Damn it. I never dreamed she would be this powerful as a gold stage rank 9. It''s almost as if she is somewhere between that and immortal stage. Now, I''ve got no choice, but to play dead. And hope she falls for it.


    Maxine quickly withdrew her energies within herself as if to make it appear as if she were dying. It helped that she didn''t have to fake bloody foam coming out of her mouth with each breath due to a punctured lung. However she had no fear of dying from her wounds. Her hydra bloodline''s regenerative powers would ensure that she lived regardless of her wounds as long as her head and heart were intact.


    The female four-horned kanzil landed heavily a few feet away. "Did you think I wouldn''t know what you did? Or do you think I''m stupid?" the female four horned kanzil asked angrily, but Maxine could only look at her in confusion, "Don''t act dumb. You killed my daughter, or your pet hive did. Either way, it''s your fault that I will never see my baby girl again and now I''m going to enjoy slowly killing you." So, that''s why she''s on the war path. She thinks I killed Shemna. Time to clear up that misunderstanding.


    "Shemna isn''t dead," Maxine said very weakly, "Captured."


    "What?!" the female four-horned kanzil said in disbelief and picked up Maxine with her upper left arm to bring Maxine to her eye level before roaring, "Where is my baby!?" Maxine moved her gaze from the female four-horned kanzil to the city. She could feel the female four-horned kanzil spreading out her spiritual sense towards the city.


    "My baby''s alive," the female four-horned kanzil said in relief, but her stance became one of aggitation, "If this continues, they may kill her out of spite and I need to bargain with them for her safe return before that happens. I will need to exchange prisoners to get her back." Before things could go further, dozens of insects the size of buffalos attacked the female four-horned kanzil. One of them snatch Maxine out of her hand and covered her in a silken cocoon as it raced away. Dozens more appeared in the air around the giant insect that saved her with cocoons of their own as they split off in multiple directions. Oddly just as the cocoon finished forming, she couldn''t see much of anything with her spiritual sense outside of it. However she knew it wouldn''t take the female four-horned kanzil long to find her.


    [Please don''t die,] Kerrigan begged Maxine in near panic via spiritual sense, [Just try to hold on.]


    [I''m not going to die so listen to me very closely. I don''t have the strength to create a portal to your hive. I only have enough to transport myself a mile directly east of your hive. Find me and try to locate some purple fruit that look like this,] Maxine said as she sent a mental image of a purple snake fruit to Kerrigan, [And feed it to me in whatever way you can. It will help me heal faster.] I wish I had thought to grab more of those, but I only have seeds left in my dimensional ring. And it sucks that shadow step has a limited range.


    [I will, mother. I promise,] Kerrigan replied with fear and worry in her tone.


    [Don''t worry. I''ll be fine even if you can''t find them. It''ll just take longer for me to heal,] Maxine soothed her as she reverted to her shadow queen form and shadow stepped to the forest to the east of Kerrigan''s hive. She only waited for a few seconds before she heard the buzzing of wings and for a gentle pair of chitinous hands to pick her up off of the ground. A part of her mind finally relaxed. She had been worried that Kerrigan had been putting up an act to lull her into a false sense of security, but that fear had vanished due to Kerrigan''s gentle care.


    "Drink this, mother," Kerrigan said gently and Maxine detected the familiar scent of a purple snake fruit. She opened her mouth and began drinking it. Maxine''s eyes jerked open at the amazing taste as she drank it greedily and she could feel her ribs slowly shift back into their proper place. And it quickly became easier to breathe. She must''ve mixed essence honey with it. There is no other reason for it to be this effective. Smart. Unfortunately the mixture did little for her left arm other than stop her bleeding. Still, it was better than nothing, but after the short burst of healing, she felt incredibly tired as sleep threatened to claim her. It drained what little strength she had left.


    "I''ll take care of you, mother, and I''m glad that the others were wrong about you," Kerrigan said lovingly as she carried Maxine to her hive, "Now sleep. I will have more of that mixture when you awaken." Others? Who is she talking about? Unfortunately, Maxine couldn''t contemplate on that any further as sleep forcibly claimed her.

 Chapter 139

    Maxine regained consciousness and nearly gasped at the pain coming from her left side with every breath. She also felt like she tried to drink sand and as if she hadn''t eaten in days. She opened her eyes and looked around. She was in Kerrigan''s room within her hive and for some reason, she was naked. Her left arm was bandaged heavily and had been tied against her lower ribs to prevent it from moving. Kerrigan must''ve tried to patch me up. She seems to have done a fairly good job. She even reset the bones in my left arm while I was unconscious. But I don''t see anything to eat or drink nearby and I definitely need to get both.


    Maxine transfered some water from her dimensional ring directly into her mouth and drank several mouthfuls. Unfortunately, she didn''t have any food in small enough portions to fit inside of her mouth. She was about to call out to Kerrigan when she heard voices approaching.


    "By the maker''s breath, how long does it take for us to navigate your hive, you filthy insect?" an angry woman said in the local language.


    "Insult me again and my warriors will dine on human flesh," Kerrigan replied coldly. Huh? When did Kerrigan learn the local language? She must be a faster learner than I am. And why did she just threaten to feed that woman to her warriors? Did I miss something while I was unconscious?


    "You wouldn''t dare! The Alchemists Union would ensure your demise," the angry woman threatened.


    "But you would still die very painfully and they would be none the wiser," Kerrigan retorted, "So mind your tongue. I''ve paid you to heal my mother, not to be insulted." Shit! It sounds like they are just around the corner and I''m still naked! Maxine retrieved a large piece of hide from her dimensional ring and did her best to cover herself up with just her right arm. It was just in time too. Kerrigan, a middle aged woman that she heard earlier and Cassandra of all people walked into view just as she covered herself.


    "Now where''s my patient?!" the alchemist complained, before his gaze landed on Maxine, "A shadow lord? It''s rare to see one of them alone."


    Maxine wanted to retort against that statement, but when she tried, a sharp pain from her jaw assaulted her senses. She groaned in pain and did her best not to move. She didn''t want to aggrivate her other injuries or have the hide covering her knocked off.


    "Mother!" Kerrigan shouted with joy as rushed to Maxine''s side, "You were unconscious for three days. I was worried that you wouldn''t ever wake up."


    [I told you I would be fine,] Maxine reminded Kerrigan, [Did you find more snake fruit?]


    [I only found one and that''s the one I pulverized for you to drink before you passed out,] Kerrigan responded, [So I was forced to seek out a healer and this woman was the only one available. Her demands were ridiculous, but I was so worried about you.]


    [What did she ask for?] Maxine asked.


    [A cup of royal hive jelly,] Kerrigan replied and Maxine became instantly furious. That''s robbery! Royal jelly from a hive is horrifically expensive! She could''ve gotten a dozen healing pills for a single cup of it. It can cure thousands of poisons and has a chance to improve the bloodlines of certain beasts making them stronger. And it only requires a teaspoon worth to do it.


    [She''s conned you. Your royal jelly is extremely valuable. You could''ve given her a teaspoon of it and you would''ve still overpaid her,] Maxine explained to Kerrigan.


    [I know, mother, but it was the only way to ensure that she would come,] Kerrigan said.


    [Did those ''others'' tell you the worth of your royal jelly?] Maxine asked.Yeah, there is almost no doubt in my mind that she talked to other hive matriarchs. That could be both a good and bad thing though.


    [Yes, they did,] Kerrigan answered calmly, but Maxine could tell that this topic was making her uncomfortable. Thankfully, the female alchemist spoke up.


    "Am I going to be treating her wounds or not?" the female alchemist asked impatiently, "Regardless, I''m keeping my payment."


    "I thought alchemists were known for their patience and etiquette," Cassandra said off handedly.


    "I can behave how I see fit," the female alchemist retorted and Maxine finally noticed the badge on her hip. It was an Alchemists Union badge and it denoted her as a iron-tier alchemist. Really? An iron-tier alchemist is this cocky? The Alchemist Union wouldn''t even bother avenging her, even if Kerrigan killed her.


    "Why is an iron-tiered alchemist acting haughty for?" Maxine asked even though it hurt her jaw to speak, "It''s especially odd after my daughter paid you enough to satisfy a gold-tier alchemist. I wonder what would happen to you if I reported this." The female alchemist started to sweat, but didn''t drop the act.


    "Hmph, that doesn''t mean I don''t have silver, or even gold, tier potions on me," the female alchemist said.


    "Mother is a queen-class cultivator. She needs peak silver potions of the highest quality to have a sufficient effect on her," Kerrigan said coldly, "I mentioned this before you came here, but what I didn''t mention is that my mother is an alchemist herself." At this point, the female alchemist''s facade was starting to look fearful.


    "Where''s her badge then?" the female alchemist said angrily, but Maxine could still detect fear in her voice.


    [My master never saw a point to joining the union, so neither did I. Something about them being nothing more than a group of corrupt and greedy fools,] Maxine lied via spiritual sense, [Regardless, get on with it. I don''t have all day.]


    "Fine," the female alchemist said in a huff as she walked around Kerrigan and placed her hand on Maxine''s wrist before spreading her spiritual sense throughout Maxine''s body, "There are multiple fractures throughout your left side and you have some damage to your left lung. What happened to you?"Now she wants to act like a professional? She should just pick an attitude and stick with it.


    "She got hit by a huge warhammer wielded by a the leader of the four-horned kanzils," Cassandra answered, "I thought she was dead when I saw her take that hit."


    "I saw that. I''m surprised she didn''t explode into a bloody mist. That female four-horned kanzil is a half-step immortal," the female alchemist retorted. She obviously didn''t beleive Cassandra.


    "Half-step immortal? What''s that?" Cassandra asked.Thanks, Cassandra. I was wondering that myself.


    "They''re beings that have surpassed mortal cultivators, but are not quite immortals. If you want to know more, ask someone more knowledgeable," the female alchemist answered vaguely and retracted her spiritual sense from Maxine''s body, "I can heal her, but it will take some time for her to heal. I estimate no less than two weeks to make a complete recovery."She knows her stuff, but she''s treating me like a normal human. But she forgot to factor in my bloodlines.


    "Huh? She doesn''t need that long," Cassandra spoke up and Maxine finally noticed that Cassandra had a backpack on, "I''ve seen her regenerative abilities in action. All she needs is to eat some of the local fruits to heal."


    "That''s impossible. She would have to possess a powerful bloodline that highly emphasizes regenerative abilities and even then, it would require a very special medicinal perfectly suited to stimulate it," the female alchemist retorted, "I doubt your local flora could produce such a herb, even if she had such a boodline."


    "I don''t know about any of that, but when she ate purple snake fruit, I literately saw her regenerate a limb," Cassandra replied and pulled off her backpack before pulling out a purple snake fruit, "You can see her regenerative powers in action yourself, if you don''t believe me."


    "Hah! If it works like you say, I will give those two a full refund!" the female alchemist said confidently. However as she finished speaking, Kerrigan snatched the fruit out of Cassandra''s hand before she ran to the kitchen and pureed the purple snake fruit a blender. She quickly added some essence honey to it as she placed it in a large cup and brought it to the bed.


    Kerrigan sat down beside Maxine before propping her up and feeding it to Maxine. As before, the mere scent of it made Maxine forget her sore jaw and she swallowed it down greedily once it was brought to her lips. Maxine''s wounds began to heal rapidly beginning with her bones before extending out to her muscles and organs. Unfortunately, it stopped just before all of her injuries were a third of the way healed. Still, she was grateful that she could now breathe with far less pain than before and her jaw muscles had healed enough for her to speak without much pain.


    "That''s... incredible!" the female alchemist said excitedly.


    "Yes, it is, but it only works for her," Cassandra said, "And she can only eat so many of those things a day."Shut the fuck up, Cassandra. She doesn''t need to know that.


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    "Interesting," the female alchemist said as she looked at Maxine like she was a research specimen, "Can I have a sample of your blood?"


    "No," Maxine said firmly as she tried to sit up, but Kerrigan pushed her back down.That bitch is probably thinking about how to get a hold of my bloodlines.


    "Don''t move, mother. Your wounds have yet to heal," Kerrigan said with concern, "I don''t want you to undo what little you just healed."


    "Alright," Maxine acquiesced.


    "Are you sure I can''t?" the female alchemist asked once more.


    "Yes, I''m positive," Maxine replied very firmly.


    "Very well," the female said regretfully and tossed Kerrigan a small bottle, "As promised, I''m returning your royal hive jelly. I have to maintain my integrity, even if it''s with a hive matriarch."


    "Thank you for honoring your agreement," Kerrigan said respectfully.


    "Now, get me out of this place. I''ve wasted enough of my time as it is," the female alchemist complained. Kerrigan motioned for her to follow before the two of them left.


    "That was a bit interesting," Cassandra said, "So do you need me to feed you? Or can you eat on your own?" She set the backpack on the bed beside Maxine and revealed that the backpack had another five purple snake fruit inside of it.


    "As long as it''s within reach, I can feed myself," Maxine answered honestly, "So, how did the fight go? I''m assuming that it didn''t go too badly or you wouldn''t be here."


    "They retreated a few minutes after that four-armed bitch knocked you to the ground. That bitch requested a prisoner exchange with Seton Academy. They argued for half an hour before they agreed to exchange that four-armed girl you brought with you for two young women. They were in pretty bad shape," Cassandra said angrily, "Those fuckers had raped them repeatedly, but the wierdest thing is that after a few hours one of them changed into a man. The Seton Academy''s elder freaked out when she saw it and took him to the ship." So she really did do it. Sandra better have a good fucking explaination for this. Wait, she said two young women. Who was the other one?


    "What about the other young woman?" Maxine asked.


    "It wasn''t that girl you kept talking with, if that''s what you wanted to know, but she was wearing the same kind of badge on her waist," Cassandra answered.


    "I see," Maxine said and quickly diverted away from this depressing topic, "Well, thank you for bringing those fruit. I should be on my feet sometime tomorrow thanks to you."


    "Don''t mention it. If it wasn''t for you, several draconic warriors would''ve died," Cassandra said, "It''s just too bad I couldn''t smuggle more of these over here."


    "Don''t worry about it. These are more than enough," Maxine said and saw Kerrigan return back from escorting the alchemst out.


    "Thank you again for bringing those fruit," Kerrigan said gratefully, "They have greatly hastened mother''s recovery."


    "You''re welcome," Cassandra said happily and started to head for the exit, "Now, I best head back. No offense, but you are really creeping me out. I can find my own way out."


    "None taken and have safe travels," Kerrigan said and Maxine said, "See you later." Kerrigan grabbed a purple snake fruit out of the backpack and made Maxine another cup filled with pureed snake fruit and essence honey mixture. This dose healed Maxine''s ribs healed the muscles on the left side of her chest just enough that she could move around without hurting herself. Unfortunately, she would still feel pain if she decided to move around, but her left arm was still too badly damaged for her to move it. The damage apparently was far more extensive than she realized. Due to the extreme pain she felt at the time, she failed to see numberous micro fractures scattered throughout her left arm. If she had been hit even a few ounces harder, the bones in her left arm would''ve shattered. As it stands, only the bones in her left arm had recovered. Her muscles were still in horrendous condition and it would take at least another two doses for her to fully recover. Well, this sucks. I can maybe drink one more of those before they stop working for the day and I don''t think I have enough stored up nutrients to finish off my regeneration anyways. Time to eat.


    "At this rate, you should be able to move your left arm by tomorrow," Kerrigan said.


    "That''s probably the case, but for now, don''t give me any more of those fruit smoothies today," Maxine said, "I need to build up some calories and nutrients before you give me another dose of it."


    "Very well. What shall I make?" Kerrigan asked.


    "Something with a lot of meat," Maxine answered reflexively, even though the thought of eating meat still made her feeling queasy.


    "I know just the thing," Kerrigan said as she flew to the walked to the kitchen. After a few minutes, Maxine could smell turkey bacon being cooked. Yep, that''s definitely what I would make if someone said they wanted meat. It would be that or homemade meatloaf.It didn''t take long for Kerrigan to finish cooking it, and Maxine saw a plate with bacon, sausage and ham slices heaped onto it. The mere sight of it caused Maxine to salivate.


    "That looks absolutely delicious," Maxine declared.


    "I''m glad you you like it," Kerrigan said happily as she set the plate down on Maxine''s stomach, "Can you feed yourself?"


    "I should be able to," Maxine said as she started to eat what she hoped was her breakfast.


    "Mother, I think you''ve already realized that I''ve been talking to other hive matriarchs," Kerrigan admitted just as Maxine was finishing her meal, "But I have to know. Do you hate them?"


    "Not particularly," Maxine answered honestly, "Why?"


    "Because they''ve been telling me you will use the spiritual mark within me to control me and force me to fight for you," Kerrigan answered, "But I told them you are different than other humans that are driven by fear and greed."


    "They are not wrong that it''s possible," Maxine admitted, "But why would I ever do that? Besides ordering you to not attack humans, unless you are attacked first, I don''t recall using that spiritual mark to order you to do anything that you wouldn''t do in the first place."


    "And I''m grateful for that, mother, but the other hive matriarchs do not believe your intentions are completely pure," Kerrigan explained, "In fact, they are threatening to invade if I''m not released."


    "Are they listening now?" Maxine asked and saw Kerrigan nod before she continued, "Okay, you retards. Listen closely because I am not repeating myself. If I take that mark off of Kerrigan, the other humans will, I repeat, will kill her. There is no ifs or ands about it. If you don''t like it, kiss my ass. She''s my daughter and I will do what I think is necessary for her to survive. Is that clear enough for you? Or do I need to draw you a picture book?" Kerrigan giggled at the end.


    "They are not happy," Kerrigan said in amusement, "But they agree with you in that respect. They also want to know when you will release me."


    "When you reach gold stage," Maxine answered, "I doubt even immortals would want to come after you at that point. And it would help if you advertise you are not hostile by offering to trade for your honey. That stuff goes amazingly well when used in chocolate based goods."


    Kerrigan''s eyes widened in surprise as a thousands of voices thundered in Maxine''s head in perfect sync via spiritual sense, [Very well, human. Even we can sense you speak truth, so we will trust you for now. But if you betray her even once, we will ensure that your demise is as long and torturous as we can make it.] Maxine wanted to answer, but the spiritual sense connection was abruptly cut off.


    "I''m sorry about that, mother," Kerrigan immediately apologized, "They acted before I could stop them."


    "It''s fine," Maxine replied, "I''m just surprised they are so protective of you."


    "They''re treating me like thier long lost sister," Kerrigan said, "From what they''ve told me, new hive matriarchs are a rarity. I''m the first one to appear in the last thousand years."


    "Jesus!" Maxine exclaimed, "No wonder."


    "Indeed, mother," Kerrigan said, "Now you should get some sleep. You seem to heal faster when you were sleeping."


    "Alright, but I will check on how the others first," Maxine stated, "I''m not exactly sleepy right now."


    "Okay, mother. Just be sure to rest up immediately after," Kerrigan reminded Maxine.


    "I will," Maxine said and she sent her spiritual sense out towards the city.


    It''s walls were still standing and the soldiers were in rough shape. There was barely a single person amongst those standing guard that weren''t injured. Half the weapon emplacements had been destroyed as well.They had a rough fight, but they are still kicking.The four-horned kanzils weren''t doing much better. Their basic warriors had nearly been annihilated and the few that were silver stage and higher had various injures. A few were missing limbs. Even the female leader had visible burns on her face and arms.I see my lightning bolt did some damage, just not very much.


    Maxine redirected her focus to the students from Seton Academy. Most of them had light injuries, only a few were seriously injured. However, when she found Aziel Kelborn, he was curled up on his side weeping in a room on the outer layer of the ship. Yep, that looks about right after what he''s been through. I wouldn''t wish that nightmare on anyone. Now, where''s Sandra?


    Maxine searched around the city, but didn''t find her. So she looked inside of the ship and found Sandra in a room that was completely reinforced with formation arrays. Sandra was wearing manicles with their own arrays inscribed into them. She tried contacting her via spiritual sense, but one of the arrays on the manicles glowed before a barrier appeared blocking off her from contacting Sandra.


    [Have you seen enough?] Elder Miyan asked via spiritual sense.


    Maxine jumped slightly and winced in pain before she answered, [Yes, I''m just disappointed that Sandra actually did that and I wanted to hear from her why she did it.]


    [But can you blame the poor girl?] Elder Miyan asked, [She was being forced into a marriage with a vile man she hates. Worse things have happened when men or women were put in similar situations. The only good news for her is that no one has ever done anything quite like this before, so there is no precedent for me to dispense punishment.]


    [How could it be worse?] Maxine asked and regretted it immediately after.


    [One girl ran away from her clan the morning of her wedding day,] Elder Miyan said sadly, [They found her six weeks later in a prison cell filled with rapists on a planet sixty lightyears away. She was half mad and pregnant.]


    [I''m not even going to ask who her groom-to-be was to make her feel like that was the only way out,] Maxine said angrily.


    [That''s where you are wrong,] Elder Miyan said angrily, [She didn''t throw herself in there. Her groom did. I believe his reasoning when confronted about it was that she humiliated him by leaving him at the altar and needed to be punished for it.] What the fucking shit?! Who is that fucked up?


    [That''s horrible!] Maxine exclaimed, but in truth she was furious.


    [That it was,] Elder Miyan said sadly, [That woman was my mother and she died a few months after giving birth to me. I killed him just before I became a teacher at Seton Academy. Strangely, his family hasn''t done anything to me in the past three hundred years I''ve been teaching.]


    [I see. So I can expect you to punish Sandra quite thoroughly,] Maxine said.


    [Yes, I definitely intend to,] Elder Miyan, [Is that one of the reasons why you sent your spritual sense out here? To plead for her?]


    [No, I did it only to confirm whether she did it or not,] Maxine answered, [But I''ve already got that answer. Feel free to punish her however you deem appropriate.]


    [I wish it were up to me,] Elder Miyan replied, [But it isn''t. The headmaster will determine her fate once we return.]


    [That''s too bad,] Maxine lamented, [Well, I need to get back to resting.] Elder Miyan didn''t respond to her before severing the spiritual sense connection. Maxine mentally shrugged and tried to relax enough to sleep.I really wished that Sandra hadn''t done that to Aziel. I know he was a douchebag, but even he didn''t deserve that. Perhaps, his clan has someone like Madam Neshan to help him recover from that trauma. In any case, I need to heal up for the next round of fighting. The four-horned kanzils won''t wait long before going on the offensive again.

 Chapter 140

    The next morning Maxine drank another one of the snake fruit smoothies prepared by Kerrigan and had nearly fully healed. However she still couldn''t move her left arm without quite a bit of pain, and decided to keep it in a sling for the time being. For now, she intended get out of bed and get some breakfast to replenish her reserves before she could drink another one of those things. She couldn''t help fight the four-horned kanzils until she healed anyways and she figured it would only upset her if she saw fighting while she was still injured.


    Maxine sat up in the bed and sighed as she realized that she was still naked aside from a specialized sling to hold her arm against her body. With a thought, she activated her Shadow''s Embrace armor, but it didn''t cover her entirely. Her left arm was completley bare and her left side was partially covered. The Shadow''s Embrace armor hadn''t been given enough time to repair itself. Well, I should''ve expected that, but it will do for now until I find some more clothes. I still have a few sets of undamaged training uniforms, but I rather not wear those into battle. I will wear those if I can''t find anything else.


    She detected a pleasant smell eminating from the kitchen. Ahh, Kerrigan must be making breakfast. I wonder what''s she''s making. Although, if she is anything like Silky, it will mostly be meat.She crawledo out of bed and walked towards the table.


    "Mother, are you sure you are up to walking?!" Kerrigan asked worriedly as she came out of the kitchen with a plate heaped with various meats before Maxine could reach the dining table.


    "My wounds are mostly healed, so there shouldn''t be a problem for me to move around so long as my arm stays in this sling. It won''t do me any good to lay in bed all day. By the way, do you have anything I could wear?" Maxine asked calmly, "But before that, let''s go eat at the table."


    "So long as you don''t hurt yourself," Kerrigan chirped.


    "I won''t. The only part of me that''s still hurting is my left arm," Maxine said as she sat down at the small table in Kerrigan''s room before Kerrigan set the plate full of various meats down infront of Maxine, "Thank you. Can I have some fruit to go with this? Eating only meat is not good for me."


    "Of course, mother," Kerrigan said and went back into the kitchen. She brought back a small bowel of fruit along with a plate of food for herself. Maxine waited for Kerrigan to sit down before she started eating. All of the food that Kerrigan prepared tasted amazing as Maxine chowed down. Meanwhile, Kerrigan was hesitating while staring at her plate.


    "What''s wrong?" Maxine asked in confusion.


    "I''m just worried about those humans in the city," Kerrigan said.


    "They should be fine for now," Maxine said to reassure Kerrigan.


    "But still, I worry, especially for the little ones, mother," Kerrigan said, "Children are less likely to see me as a monster. A few of them even said I looked ''cool'' while I was on Earth."


    "I can see that," Maxine agreed. She had seen boys in the past that had spiders for pets for a very similar reason.


    "Oh! After we finish eating, could you watch over me for a little bit using your constructs?" Kerrigan asked, "I''ve nearly finished incorporating the DNA of that female you brought here and I''m about to undergo a brief metamorphosis. It shouldn''t take more than an hour."


    "Of course, I will," Maxine said happily, "I can''t wait to see how your new form will look."


    "Thank you, mother," Kerrigan said happily and began to dig into her food in earnest.


    "You''re very welcome, daughter," Maxine said happily and finished her plate before she added, "But before we start, can I get something other than this tattered armor to wear? I kind of feel exposed."


    "There are some clothes in the bed-side stand," Kerrigan replied, "I made them while you slept. Silky was kind enough to teach me how to weave her silk and even gave me some of it when I became human enough for it to be required that I wear clothing. She even explained to me why I needed to wear them, so you wouldn''t have to."


    "Good, you had me worried there for a moment," Maxine said as she walked towards as Kerrigan was finishing up her meal. She opened the draw on the night stand and sighed in aggrivation when she found a sleeveless full length white dress in the drawer. It was rather plain looking, but would suffice for now. This is not attire you would wear to a fight. Well, it''s not like I''m in any shape to fight anyways. At least, there is a set of bra and panties under the dress.


    Maxine swiftly created several shadow tendrils to help her get dressed since she still had difficulty moving her left arm. A few minutes later when she was finally dressed, she put her arm back int the sling and retracted her Shadow''s Embrace armor to allow it to repair itself. Unfortunately, she didn''t have any shoes or sandals of any kind to put on her feet, so she simply went barefoot.


    Just as Maxine finished putting on her clothes, Kerrigan walked over to a wall and waved her hand to cause a large section of it to melt away to reveal a small somewhat hexagontal section just big enough for Kerrigan to fit in. "This is room is the inner most portion of my hive and thus the safest while I undergo my metamorphosis. Could you summon up your wolves to patrol just outside of my hive? Their sense of smell will detect anyone attempting to sneak in. My warriors will crawl over every surface inside to ensure that it''s nearly impossible to reach here without being detected. The other hive matriarchs insisted on this level of security since I''m doing this on a populated planet." That makes sense. Anyone using a stealth technique has to stay on the ground. If they tried flying, it would defeat the purpose of stealth since they emit essence, mana or ki while in flight.


    "I understand, sweetie. Summoning them now and I''m also bringing out my dragon to hide just outside the main entrance to your hive," Maxine said, "Nothing deters a intruder any better than a face full of dragon flame."


    "I''ll take your word on that," Kerrigan said as she walked into the chamber and as some of her drones began to seal it, she added, "I love you, mother."


    "I love you too, my sweet daughter," Maxine said lovingly just before the chamber was sealed and summoned her Shadow Wolves in the nearby forests. She could instantly sense that Kerrigan had gone into a deep slumber while her body changed and she also felt a strange energy being emitted by Kerrigan. However it greatly disturbed her when she felt a sudden, yet weak, urge to rip open Kerrigan''s hexagontal chamber and devour her. What the hell?! It must be my hydra bloodline causing that. Wait, if I feeling like this, wouldn''t the local beasts feel a stronger urge?!


    Maxine immediately extended out her spiritual sense and became very worried when she saw every beast even remotely close to Kerrigan''s hive began rushing at it. I don''t think my wolves are enough to hold many back. Thankfully, the vast majority of them are copper and bronze stage beasts and that Kerrigan has so many warriors. We should be able to hang on as long as nothing bigger than an iron stage beasts comes.


    Maxine directed her Shadow Wolves to form up into groups of five and to intercept the beasts as they come. They were making short work of all of the beasts by simply ripping out their throats before moving on, but they were still getting closer and closer to Kerrigan''s hive. She estimated she had another five minutes before they got could see the hive between the trees.


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    She quickly checked how long it had been since Kerrigan had started her metamorphosis and she was upset that it had only been ten minutes.Fuck, I can''t keep them from reaching the hive before Kerrigan''s done, but I can bottleneck them at the entrance.Unfortunately, just at that moment, iron stage beasts were starting to arrive while mixed in with the weaker beasts.Hmm, it seems I have less time than I thought. The silver stage beasts won''t be far behind either.


    Maxine continued to direct her Shadow Wolves and was able to hold back the approaching beasts with greater ease than she had anticipated. Still, they managed to reach Kerrigan''s hive, but it took them ten minutes rather than her estimated five. Mostly due to the fact that the silver stage beasts had yet to arrive.That''s strange. Where are they?


    She extended out her spiritual sense to find them and felt a chill when she found a few dozen of them casually watching the weaker beasts charge forward.Crap, I was worried about that. Smart beasts are a pain in the ass. My guess is that they are seeing how quick the response time is on my shadow wolves or they are waiting for my shadow wolves to tire.


    Thankfully, she got some reinforcements from within the hive when some of the attacking beasts tried digging into the hive to reach Kerrigan. A swarm of her warriors rushed out and started slaughtering the beasts. The silver stage beasts looked at each other for a breif moment and promptly fled.


    It became much easier at that point. Kerrigan''s warriors simply killed everything and Maxine was forced to recall her Shadow Wolves before they were torn apart. But a few moments later, she was surprised when her dragon jerked it''s head out and seemed to have something invisible in it''s mouth as it shook it''s head violently side to side. The beast''s stealth technique faded and revealed a black cat-like beast.Wow, that thing just must''ve just been unlucky. It would''ve literately had to step on my dragon while it was hiding in the shadow of the entrance for it to be detected. Still, it would''ve been detected eventually anyways since only about half of Kerrigan''s warriors went out to kill the beasts.


    She only had to wait until Kerrigan finished her metamorphosis. With that in mind, Maxine checked on Kerrigan just before she was supposed to finish it. Kerrigan had grown long black and yellow hair while her exoskeleton had changed to a cream-like color. Her face appeared to be much more expressive as facial muscles twitched here and there. It was a very good start. Although it was still obvious that she wasn''t human, she changed enough that most humans would give her the opportunity to talk without them assuming she was hostile. Kerrigan is clearly going to do an external transformation in stages. Doing it all at once will leave her vunerable for far too long. It''s rather smart of her. A few moments later, Kerrigan''s eyes popped open and she very gently tore open the hexagontal chamber.


    "This is different," Kerrigan said to herself as she practiced making various facial expressions and looked at Maxine, "So, how do I look, mother?"


    "It definitely looks like you put a lot of effort into trying to look human," Maxine praised, "I especially approve of giving yourself facial expressions."


    "Thank you, mother," Kerrigan said happily, "Did I suffer many losses while I was undergoing my metamorphosis?"


    "Less than fifty of your warriors were injured and only a dozen were killed," Maxine answered, "I have to say they are quite fearsome and efficient at what they do. Did the other hive matriarchs help you engineer them?"


    "The other hive matriarchs gave me a few tips, but they are mostly of my design," Kerrigan said proudly, "Are they really that powerful?"


    "Yes, they are. They could probably face two, possibly three, ordinary cultivators at the same level and win with difficulty," Maxine said honestly, "But against a genius, it''s best just to swarm them. All you need to do is wound them a few times with their venomous attacks and it will only be a matter of time before the poison does it''s job."


    "The other hive matriarchs advised me to do the same some time ago," Kerrigan admitted, "But it''s good to hear you say it as well."


    "They''ve been doing this a lot longer than you have, so you should listen to them," Maxine advised.


    "I will, mother," Kerrigan said and two antenna rose out of Kerrigan''s hair, "Um, do I need to wear clothes?"


    "I strongly recommend that you start wearing clothes pre-emptively. Men are not the most picky of creatures when it comes to prospective mates," Maxine said honestly, "And to them, being naked is an invitation, even when you believe it''s not."


    "But that''s stupid," Kerrigan asked in disbelief.


    "I know it is, but that''s how some of them think. So you have to be careful to protect yourself," Maxine said honestly.


    "Thank you for telling me that, mother," Kerrigan said softly, Um, mother? The other hive matriarchs want to know how to spot the good and bad humans."


    "You can never know if someone is good or bad person just by talking to them. You have to decide for yourself if you will trust them or not," Maxine said sadly, "I''ve made a mistake or two trusting the wrong people. I even had a situation where I was going to help other humans kill a threat only to be betrayed at the worst possible moment." Namimgly General Jones convincing the asshole with the guass cannon to shoot me in the fucking arm while I was on the mission to kill that Temptest Weasel! I still can''t believe General Jones was dumb enough to pull that shit.


    "I see. Thank you for instructing me, mother," Kerrigan said with a slight bow of her head, "Um, I''m not sure what kind of clothes I should wear. Could you help me?"


    "Of course," Maxine said happily as she tried to visualize different styles of clothing on Kerrigan, "I think a backless dress is your best choice."


    "Oh? Why is that, mother?" Kerrigan asked.


    "There are not many kinds of clothing that can accomodate those wings of yours and a backless dress is one of few that will," Maxine said while gesturing to the translucent wings still sprouting out of Kerrigan''s back, "It''s what fairies prefer to wear and they''re build quite a bit like you are. Although, their skirts tend to be shorter for some reason, but it''s up to you what you want to wear."


    "I think a full length backless dress would look wonderful on me, mother," Kerrigan agreed as she walked over to an oaken wardrobe and pulled out a robe, "I will make it once I decide on a specific design. For now, I will wear this bath robe since it''s just us in here and I don''t need to fly inside of my hive."


    "Alright. Why don''t you get used to your new form while I go for a quick walk outside," Maxine suggested, "I won''t be going far. I just want to get some fresh air."


    "Alright, mother. Just be careful," Kerrigan said with concern as she tried walking unsteadily.


    "I will," Maxine said and she took her time flying out of Kerrigan''s hive. She landed on the ground within moments of exiting the hive and started to lap Kerrigan''s hive.


    She walked slowly and enjoyed the fresh air. With an idle thought, she checked on the four-horned kanzil army through one of her ravens. Their numbers had been severely diminished. She even spotted Shemna next to her mother. Although it was clear that the male four-horned kanzils were still ignorant of her gender.It''s good that she was able to keep up the facade. Still, it would be better for her, psychologically speaking, if she were able to join Seton Academy.


    However as she retracted her awareness away from her raven, Maxine felt as if someone was watching her. She looked around and only saw Kerrigan''s warrior insects. While they were patrolling near her, none of them seemed to be giving her any special attention.


    Maxine released a gentle pulse of her energies in a rapidly expanding sphere and watched it with her spiritual sense. If there was someone watching her invisibly, her pulse of energy would flow around them. It was one of the countermeasures she came up with for detecting those with high stealth skills, but it was tiring to maintain it. And it had limited range. So she only used it when she felt like she was being watched.


    [I''m sorry to disturb you. I just wanted to see the warrioress that managed to face off against a half-step immortal for a full minute while stilll in silver stage,] a masculine voice said admiringly, [To be honest, I''m rather surprised you are even standing after what I heard happened to you.]


    [I don''t like being spied on,] Maxine growled, [If you want to talk, get down here and talk.]


    [I understand that sentiment, but I''m sorry. I dare not get any closer,] the man said.


    [Can I assume it has something to do with my daughter?] Maxine asked with barely contained anger.


    [Oh? I thought that rumor was a lie, but yes, it''s about the hive matriarch,] the man said calmly, which only served to further infuriate her.


    [If you are not going to talk to me face to face, leave, so I can get back to my relaxing walk,] Maxine said, [I can''t exactly do that with someone staring at me like I''m some kind of exotic beast.]


    [I apologize,] he said sincerely, but Maxine got the feeling he was just putting on a show, [My name is Brant Kelborn and if you wish to talk to me ''face to face,'' I will be in the nearby city.]A member of the Kelborn clan? He must be making sure Sandra doesn''t escape, or he''s here to make sure she gets punished. But either way it''s not my problem. I have enough of my own problems to deal with. I need to be strong enough to defend myself when that damn Shadow Lord shows up. But I can''t exactly do that until my cores start accepting energies again. I wonder how long I will have to wait for that to resolve itself.

 Chapter 141

    Once Maxine returned to Kerrigan''s hive from her walk, she saw Kerrigan in her bathrobe while weaving a backless dress on a maniquinn that had the same body shape and proportions as Kerrigan. Good, she planned ahead. Although, I am curious why she''s making a seemless one though. Those can take awhile to make even with a cultivator''s speed. Doing things quickly doesn''t mean it will be of high quality. She hadn''t gotten more than a small portion of the dress done.


    "I bet that dress will look absolutely amazing when you''re done," Maxine commented, "Although, it would''ve been made a bit faster if Silky were doing that."


    "I''m well aware, mother, but I like doing things like this myself," Kerrigan replied, "Anyways, Silky is busy showing her boyfriend off to everyone to have much time to help me. Although, I do recall Silky mentioned that a few girls tried to flirt with Lan, but with a hanful of words, she was able to chase them off." Well, I kind of expected Silky to be very possessive of Lanitherin. It''s a common trait amongst arachne. They rarely ever want to share ''their man'' with anyone. I still don''t know how Jack convinced the arachne twins to date him at the same time.


    "Oh, alright," Maxine said, "So, how do you like your new form so far?"


    "Like I said before, it''s different," Kerrigan replied, "I found that I like having hair, but I think I would prefer it to be shorter. I think shoulder length should be just about right. Otherwise it will get in the way when I fly."


    "Braiding your hair is another alternative," Maxine offered, "But regardless of what you decide, I think you will look great. Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. I need to craft a few more nutritional potions to replenish my stock. I ran out a few days before I got hurt."


    "Thank you for letting me know, mother," Kerrigan said without taking her focus off of the dress, "I will let my warriors know to avoid this room to avoid disturbing you."


    "Thanks, sweetie," Maxine said gratefully before sitting down in a corner and retrieving a dozen different medicinal ingredients.This should be enough for six different potions and two of these should be enough to replenish my internal stocks of vitamins and minerals enough for me to finish healing up. I won''t even need the purple snake fruit smoothie.


    Maxine took her time and made the potions, but during the process, she accidentally used too much heat at one point. It turned the medicinal ingredient into a powder, but it was still useable. However it gave her a brief moment of enlightenment on how to make alchemical pills.I''m an idiot. I should''ve realized that pills should use powders instead of liquids. It solves one of the questions on my mind. Thankfully no other problems occured while she was making the nutritional potions and got the expected six potions from the effort.


    She quickly drank two of them and felt a refreshing sensation eminating from her stomach. Ahh, much better.She checked on her left arm and saw it was healing at a much faster pace than before due to the infusion of nutrients. She estimated that her bones and muscles would finish healing by this evening without any further attention.


    She put the remaining nutritional potions away in her dimensional ring and straightened as she felt someone''s spriitual sense brush against her mind. [I''m sorry to bother you while you are recovering, but this Kelborn brat wants you to act as a witness for Sandra''s trial,] Elder Miyan said, [And for some reason, he''s insisting we leave immediately to Seton Academy to commence her trial.]


    [Why? I barely know her and I was quite occupied fighting for my life during the last battle,] Maxine retorted.


    [I told him that, but he seems to believe you were the one that Sandra got that potion from,] Elder Miyan replied.Something isn''t right nere. If he wanted me to come along, he should''ve said it while he was here earlier. Why bring this up now? He might have something planned. I better prepare for his stupidity.With a thought, Maxine ordered her dragon to enter her shadow.


    [Now why would he have gotten that idea?] Maxine asked.It''s best I don''t admit to selling that damn thing to Sandra. I really don''t want to go through a bullshit trial. Considering the mindset of some clans, I could be considered a co-conspirator.


    [He forcibly searched her mind without my permission and said he saw you hand her a potion,] Elder Miyan said with a hint of anger in her tone. That''s not good.


    [You''re giving me all this trouble over a few healing potions?] Maxine asked incredulously. It''s not technically a lie since I actually traded some healing potions.


    [Unfortunately, the other elders are,] Elder Miyan replied sadly, [Or rather they said they are being forced to by the academy.]


    [I don''t care who you are being forced by. I''m not going,] Maxine said forcefully, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kerrigan straighten in alarm. In the next moment, she felt ten different peak gold stage cultivators attempt to suppress her with their various energies.


    [I''m truly sorry about this. I never thought Seton Academy elders would stoop this low,] Elder Miyan said regretfully, [Please, surrender. Several of them are at the same level as that four-horned kanzil that you fought and even if you could fight them, your ''daughter'' is nearby. They would use her to make you come with them.] Maxine glanced at her injured left arm. I could barely keep up with one person that strong when I wasn''t injured. That many would prove damn near suicidal to fight.


    [Fine, but your academy has made an enemy today,] Maxine growled angrily and told Kerrigan in english, "Get all of your various drones and warriors inside of your hive. I''m going to send you back to Earth after I cause a distraction."


    "But mother...," Kerrigan pleaded, but Maxine cut her off, "I can''t fight them or even run away if I''m worried about you. Now do as I say."


    "Yes, mother," Kerrigan says and Maxine shadow steps outside of Kerrigan''s hive.


    "I''m over here, assholes," Maxine roared at them in Alliance common to get their attention away from Kerrigan''s hive as Kerrigan moved her brood back into her hive.


    "Mind your tongue," one of the male elders roared at her.


    "Go to hell," Maxine snapped at him angrily as she hid a small glass orb inside of her fist from her dimensional ring.


    The male elder flew down towards her and raised his open hand to hit her. But Maxine crushed the glass orb and threw it at his face. It didn''t stop him from slapping her viciously, but his screams of agony the next moment were worth the pain.


    His eyes were bleeding and his skin was beginning to discolor as he feebly attempted to use his nails to dig out the contact poison. Idiot, it''s no longer on your skin. It''s already absorbed into your blood stream and it will soon spread to every inch of your body. I''m glad I made that stuff to deal with idiots while I was still on the hero world. It won''t kill him though, but it will make him wish he had died before it wears off.


    "Give him the antidote!" another elder roared at her as they surrounded Maxine.


    "It''s not lethal, just very, very painful and poisons have no effect on me," Maxine retorted while she put itching powder into her right hand from her dimensional ring, "So why would I make an antidote?" All, but one, of them lot of them just angrily glared at Maxine and that one elder was already helping their screaming compatriot back to the ship.


    "Was that really necessary?" Elder Miyan asked as she floated down from the sky.


    "What were you expecting me to do once you essentially used my daughter as a fucking hostage to get me to leave with you?" Maxine asked rhetorically as the last of Kerrigan''s brood entered the hive, "Do you honestly believe I would be cooperative about it? Because that would be retarded." Without warning, Maxine threw a handful of itching powder into the air. They all stepped away from her reflexively.


    "What was that?" Elder Miyan asked as she used a small pulse of energy to blast the itching powder away from her.


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    "Itching powder," Maxine said honestly with a cruel smile on her face, "It causes an intense itch on any exposed skin that it lands one. It''s been known to get so bad that a few people have actually scratched their skin off." A few of them paled slightly as few of them unconsciously started to scratch their neck. So long as their eyes are on me and not Kerrigan, I don''t care. I need to get her out of here.


    Maxine next ordered all of her shadow wolves to create a portal under Kerrigan''s hive and send it to Earth in the same spot it occupied before.


    "You are just making this harder on yourself than it needs to be, Maxine," Elder Miyan warned Maxine, "If you do anything more, the academy will believe you are Sandra''s accomplice. No matter what you do we are taking you and your ''daughter'' with us, so stop this foolishness."


    "Fine, but you are not going to lay a hand on Kerrigan," Maxine said coldly as Kerrigan''s hive vanished into the ground just in time for all of them to look in that direction. A few jumped into the air in persuit, but the portal closed before they could reach it.


    When all of their eyes were back on Maxine, Elder Miyan simply sighed and ask Maxine, "Why did you put all that effort to portect a hive matriarch that wasn''t even your real daughter?"


    "I don''t expect you to understand," Maxine said neutrally and briefly felt a familiar spiritual sense brush over her, "Just what you''re going to do." Maxine held out her hands and allowed them to place manicles on her. The second they snapped closed, she realized that she couldn''t used her energies at all. She could still use her spiritual sense, but that was it. While she was distracted, one of the elders tried to take off her dimensional ring, but it wouldn''t budge.


    "Don''t even think about it. That''s a gift from my grandpa," Maxine said coldly.


    "I don''t care who it''s from. We can''t allow you to take it with you," one of the elders snapped as he pulled out a knife.


    "Leave it alone," Elder Miyan said angrily, "So far, we don''t have any evidence that she knowingly aided Sandra. As it stands, we have already gone beyond what the rules of the academy allow by placing the cultivation sealing manicles on her. Or are you trying to rob a junior?"


    "I would never do such a thing! I just don''t want her hurling more of those irksome poisons at us," the elder retorted while scratching his neck furiously.


    "She only used those things to distract us while she sent her ''daughter'' away," Elder Miyan reminded them, "She has no reason to do it now and don''t forget, her poisons were non-lethal."


    "Tell that to Rocklan. I can still hear him screaming," the youngest elder complained, "How long is that poison supposed to last anyways?"


    "A few hours, I think," Maxine replied, "But I can''t be sure. I''ve never tested it on someone as strong as he is. Still, he should''ve known better than to get that close without having his guard up. I''m the student of a poison master for crying out loud."


    "Yes, he should have," Elder Miyan agreed as she hefted Maxine up over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, "I think you would prefer it if I carry you back to the ship."


    "Yes, I do. I don''t like men, at all," Maxine said coldly and noticed Elder Miyan loosened her grip slightly. However she still carried Maxine over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. However just Elder Miyan returned to the city and approached the ship from Seton Academy, she stiffened.


    "What are you doing here Brant Kelborn?" Elder Miyan demanded.


    "You know perfectly well why I''m here," Brant Kelborn said coldly, "Now hand that bitch over, so she can face her punishment with Sandra." I''m a bitch now? Anyways, I knew he was up to something. I just didn''t think he would move this soon. Still, I was prepared for this bullshit.


    "There is no proof of your accusations," Elder Miyan retorted, "And even if Maxine sold that potion to Sandra, she is innocent by the laws of the Alliance."


    "I don''t care. Either hand her over or fight the other Seton Academy elders to protect her. Your choice," Brant Kelborn stated coldly.


    "Or you can beg me for your life so keep my dragon doesn''t kill you," Maxine countered as she gave her dragon an order.


    "What dragon?" Brant Kelborn asked just before a huge slivery claw burst out of his shadow and pinned him on the ground. A single claw was pressed against the back of his head as the rest of Maxine''s dragon pulled itself out of his shadow.


    "What''s going on?!" one of the elders roared in surprise. However Elder Miyan simply sighed and set Maxine back on the ground. She even removed the manicles off of Maxine.


    "What are you doing?!" a different elder asked.


    "Isn''t it obvious?" Elder Miyan asked, "I''m releasing her so her pet doesn''t kill Brant Kelborn. Do you believe his clan won''t come after all of you for failing to protect him? Or do you think I''m too stupid to realize that he paid all of you off?"


    "I won''t let this go," Brant Kelbron said calmly.Does he not realize I can kill him? On second thought, I have a better idea.


    "I guess there''s no cure for this kind of stupidity," Maxine complained out loud and decided she had enough of the Kelborn Clan''s idiocy. She created a worm-like construct and threw it at Brant Kelborn. He looked on in horror as it pierced his neck and wormed itself into his body.


    "What have you done to me?!" Brant Kelborn screamed in panic.


    "Nothing immediately life-threatening," Maxine answered non-chalantly, "It''s just an insurance policy of sorts. So long as I live for the next twenty years, so shall you. So it''s in your best interests that I remain alive. Oh! And don''t try removing it. You could set it off by accident." Well, an immortal might be able to remove it with a few days of concentration. It''s literately embedded around his heart now, but that''s just part that''s just the portion of it that''s obvious. I had it detach literal thousands of worm constructs smaller than white blood cells into his heart and brain as well. In the event that someone were to remove the larger construct or one of the smaller ones incorrectly, the remainder would detonate at the same time. Good luck removing that!


    "This changes nothing," Brant Kelborn said angrily, "The people who harmed my cousin will be brought to justice."


    "Really? Then why not go after the bitch that actually fed him that damn potion?" Maxine snapped back, "I just sold her a potion to her that she requested. How the hell was I even supposed to know what she was going to do with it after that?!"


    "I don''t care about your excuses," Brant Kelborn growled, "Whether you knew it or not, you are still in part to blame for what happened to my cousin and you have to be punished for it."


    "Are you trying to get killed?" Maxine asked, "Because you should know I can remote detonate that thing wrapped around your heart." They stared at each other before Brant Kelborn sighed in defeat.


    "I''m forced to leave this as it is for now," Brant Kelborn said in a defeated tone, "But don''t think for an instant that I will forget about this."


    "Remember, you were the one that invited all of this to happen by bribing the Seton Academy elders to abduct me," Maxine retorted, "Now if there is nothing left, I''m leaving." She walked towards the shadow of the large ship still hovering in the air once it was clear no one was going to say anything to her.


    "Well done, Ms. Levings," a very familiar voice said from above Maxine just before she could shadow step away. She whipped around and looked up. It was Turan and he was smiling, almost joyously. Shit, I thought I felt his spiritual sense earlier. But why is he here so early? He must''ve already been nearby when they got the word out that another Maxine was in the area.


    "What do you want, shadow lord?" Maxine growled, "And who is this miss Levings?"


    "My apologies. I was almost certain you were someone I''m familiar with," Turan said apologetically as he floated down to land infront of Maxine and she noticed that he was holding a strange device in his hand, "Are you sure you don''t know me?"


    "Positive," Maxine said coldly.


    "That''s too bad," Turan said lamentingly, "Regardless, I need to observe you for the time being. Your master has made things difficult for my people. I don''t know how he did it, but he rendered any DNA scan on these other Maxines useless. But whatever he did doesn''t last more than a few months. So that''s how long I will be observing you for. I do apologize for the inconvenience."


    "So long as it''s that machine watching me and not you," Maxine said grumpily.


    "As you wish, Maxine," Turan said with a bow.


    "I don''t recall telling you my name," Maxine said suspiciously.


    "You know as well as I do that the name you are going by is Maxine. That is unless you wish to tell me your real name. Otherwise I shall continue to call you that," Turan replied, "But I''m still very optimistic about you. Out of all of the other Maxines, you are the closest to the original."


    "Whatever," Maxine said and glanced at the four-horned kanzil''s army before flying back to where she had Kerrigan''s hive at originally. Unfortunately Turan followed her, but she shrugged as she connected to the spiritual mark on Kerrigan.


    [Mother, are you alright?] Kerrigan asked in a panic.


    [Yes, I''m fine,] Maxine reassured Kerrigan, [I was able to resolve the problem, but I can''t bring you back for now, sweetie. Do you want me to bring you back here?]


    [That''s alright, mother. So long as we can talk like this, I''m happy,] Kerrigan replied, [Just be sure to talk to me at least once a day.]


    [I''ll try my best to, but you know I might get into a situation where I can''t risk talking to you,] Maxine reminded Kerrigan.


    [I know, mother,] Kerrigan replied, [Just be sure to be here for Silky''s wedding. She''ll be furious if you are not.]


    [It doesn''t take a genius to figure that out,] Maxine replied, [Well, I need to find a place to bunker down for the night.]


    [I understand, mother. Try to be safe,] Kerrigan said happily, [Now I best let grandpa know what''s going on before things get out of hand.]


    [Take care, sweetie,] Maxine said and severed their spiritual sense connection.


    Maxine looked over her shoulder as she continued her flight. Turan was maintaining a distance of four hundred feet. She didn''t like him following her at all. She created a portal directly ahead of her that would send her to the basement of hospital. She slowed down just before she entered it and closed it as soon as she was through.I really don''t like him following me like that. At least, I have this dusty basement room to rest in. I would''ve prefered it if I could stay in Kerrigan''s hive, but I can''t risk putting her in danger again.


    Next, Maxine ordered her dragon and other constructs to return to the shadows. With a sigh, she began to meditate after getting comfortable and suddenly smiled. Her cores were accepting their respective energies again. I should let them recover a bit more before I risk any rapid cultivation. I don''t want to damage my cores.

 Chapter 142

    Maxine opened her eyes as she finished her meditation and stood up. She had been hiding out here for the last two days and her ravens hadn''t reported any hostile activity from the four-horned kanzils. She found it odd that they hadn''t done anything and wanted to know what was going on.


    She quickly opened a portal to the city and stepped through it and immediately, she looked in the direction of the four-horned kanzil camp to find that it was simply gone. Huh? Where did they go? Their own records stated that they usually sieged this planet for six months. It hasn''t even been half that. So why did they leave? I wonder if Decaan or Cassandra knows what''s going on.


    She spread her spiritual sense out to find those two, but quickly retracted it when she found them. They were in the middle of having sex. Maxine''s face was blushing fiercely due to what she just saw. She knew something like that would eventually happen, but even though it was an accident, it made her feel like a peeping tom.


    "Good morning, Maxine," Turan said as he stepped out of a shadow infront of her, "Would you care for some breakfast? I managed to procure some delicious chocolate coated strawberries from a world called Earth. I know it''s strange to call a planet that, but the food from that planet is phenominally delicious. You should really try it." He flicked his wrist and a small paper box appeared in his hands with chocolate-coated strawberries inside of it. What is he up to?


    "No, thank you," Maxine said calmly, but she really wanted to eat the strawberries. Or rather, she wanted to eat something from her homeworld.


    "I insist that you try at least one," Turan said as he held out the box infront of her. Reluctantly, she took one and ate it. It was just as delicious as she remembered. She closed her eyes to best enjoy the flavor as she chewed.


    Once she finished it, she opened her eyes and asked, "Do you know what happened to the four-horned kanzils?"


    Turan looked both surprised and confused for a moment before he answered, "They left this world yesterday. Apparently, they had taken heavy losses and decided it was best if they retreated with the troops that they had."


    "Good, this world has seen enough bloodshed," Maxine said, "Now I imagine the locals will begin celebrating their victory soon."


    "Yes, they are going to tonight. They invited both of us for the festivities," Turan said to confirm Maxine''s statement, "Would you care to join me for it?"


    "No, thank you," Maxine responded coldly.Ugh, he''s acting like those young masters trying to court me when I was at the Kavros Clan. Although in his case, he isn''t looking at me with a lustful or greedy glimmer in his eyes. Still, it''s best if I keep my guard up.


    "That''s a shame. I was looking forward to sampling the local delicacies with a member of my distant kin," Turan said regretfully.


    Maxine stayed silent and simply scanned the city with her spiritual sense. She was hoping for the off chance she would find one of the leaders of this world. She still had an agreement to keep with the red fire drake. She definitely didn''t want that creature causing havoc amongst the cities until the locals could put it down and that''s assuming that they could.


    Unfortunately, her search rendered her nothing and she sighed.Of course, they wouldn''t dare come here. I''ve been too active at this city.


    "What are you looking for?" Turan asked curiously.


    "The leaders of this world. They''ve angered a rather nasty tempered red fire drake. I''m hoping that it will only take another one or two of them to appease the beast so it doesn''t go on a rampage," Maxine answered, "I gave it my word that I would find a few of those pricks."


    "Oh? I know where they are," Turan said offhandedly, "They''re in a bunker three hundred seventy two kilometers south by southwest of here. It''s well away from any large city. That''s probably why you havn''t been able to find it."


    "What?" Maxine asked in disbelief, "I mean, how do you know that?"


    "They were the ones I originally talked to when I arrived on this planet. I doubt they were aware that I could trace their signal to their secure bunker," Turan replied, "If you don''t mind, you could tell me where this fire drake is and I will deliver a few of them to it for you."


    "I would appreciate it. I don''t want any innocents to come to harm. That fire drake is on a quest for vengeance and those assholes deserve what''s coming to them. They were experimenting on night elves," Maxine said as she sent the red fire drake''s most recent location and saw a flicker of rage in Turan''s eyes when she mentioned the night elves, "She should be around there, but no promises. Just a warning though, she has a nasty temper."


    "I will be back as quickly as I can, Maxine," Turan said just before he blinked out of existence.Uh, how did he do that? He wasn''t standing in any shadow as far as I could tell and I didn''t sense him using spatial energies.


    Maxine flew down to a nearby park and sat at a bench while contemplating that mystery. She was sitting there for quite some time before she noticed Cassandra and Decaan approaching her on foot.


    "Hey, Maxine. Where''d your boyfriend run off to?" Cassandra asked in amusement, "Did you two have a fight?" Maxine felt instantly infuriated, but reined in her anger to find out why Cassandra called Turan that.


    "Did he tell you that?" Maxine asked while failing to completely hide her anger.


    "No, it''s just the way he was asking about you," Cassandra answered honestly, "He seemed genuinely worried about you. I don''t see why you would be angry about that." Maxine released a sigh and let go of her anger.It was just a misunderstanding.


    "He''s not my boyfriend, nor will he ever be such," Maxine declared.


    "Okay, care to explain why you hate him so much then?" Cassandra asked.


    "Fine," Maxine replied and relayed what had happened between the shadow elves and shadow lords, "His race and mine underwent a schism a long time ago. I''m not sure what the exact reasoning for it was, but the shadow lords viewed themselves as too superior to their shadow elf breathren for some reason. And they saw no need to mingle with an inferior race. Thus they decided to abandon our homeworld to look for better pastures. You have no idea how hard it was for us to survive when strongest members of our popuplation decided to up and leave. All of our enemies decided then it was a good time to attack. We managed to survive, but not without sacrifice. We had less than a tenth of our original population after it was all over and the shadow elves were forced to hide their cities to avoid being attacked again. So, that is why I detest all shadow lords. Their ancestors abandoned mine and left them to die." Well, I might as well play the ''I''m a shadow elf'' card as hard as I can.


    "I... I had no idea," Cassandra said, "But how long ago was that? Shouldn''t you try to make amends?"


    "Do you think the elders havn''t tried?" Maxine asked, "Every single time that they tried, they were rebuffed by the shadow lords for some nonsensical reason. Their lucky to get a communication from the shadow lords once a year."


    Before Cassandra or Decaan could say anything, Turan blinked into existence infront of them and said sorrowfully, "Had my ancestors known about the difficulties yours suffered, we would''ve helped you. No matter what you think, we still think fondly of shadow elves."


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    "Tell that to the dead," Maxine snapped and changed the subject, "So did you find her?"


    "Yes, I did. She was quite happy with the gift I gave her," Turan said neutrally, "And before you asked, she already agreed to leave this world peacefully."


    "Thank you," Maxine said.


    "I try," Turan said with a slight bow and smile.


    "What are you two talking about?" Decaan asked with clear suspicion.


    "Nothing you need to worry about," Turan answered before Maxine could.


    "I heard that there will be a celebration later today. Where will it be held at?" Maxine asked to change the subject.


    "In the city square," Decaan answered, "A large number of people have requested that you sing."


    "I only sang for the children at the hospital. How did they know I can sing and why would they want to hear me sing?" Maxine asked.


    "The hospital staff recorded you and posted it on the internet," Decaan answered, "Believe it or not, there are not many songstresses amongst my people and you by far better than any of them."


    "I rather not be infront of that many people," Maxine said weakly, "But if you insist, I will sing for the children in the audience and don''t count on more than a few songs. I don''t know that many of them."


    "Thanks, Maxine," Decaan said gratefully, "You have no idea how many people are looking forward to this."


    "You''re welcome," Maxine said and saw Turan had a strange smile on his face, "What that smirk for?"


    "You''re more like the original than I thought. She too loved children," Turan remarked, "She loved them so much that she went out of her way to rescue beastkin children being used as trackers."


    "Beastkin?" Decaan asked.


    "Beasts that appear to be mostly human, but still retain a few of their beastial traits such as ears, tails and sometimes claws," Maxine told Decaan before turning back to Turan, "Yes, I know. She also had that trait used against her as well if I recall correctly. Something to do with a teleportation trap placed on the inside of a wolfkin child''s ear."


    "And yet she still managed to save both of them and escape at the same time," Turan said admiringly, "She possessed both great skill and kindness."


    "She sounds like a wonderful person," Cassandra said.


    "Yes, she was," Turan said sadly.


    "Okay, let''s take a break from this depressing topic," Maxine said and asked Cassandra, "So, you two going to have kids any time soon?"


    Cassandra smiled proudly as she replied, "Of course, we will. I''ve been talking to that alchemist from Seton Academy about getting me a fertility potion to hurry it along."


    "Those are expensive and in high demand. I doubt that alchemist can get a hold of one," Maxine reminded Cassandra, "If you don''t personally know an alchemist capable of making them, it can be very difficult to get ahold of one."


    "Are you offering?" Cassandra asked hopefully.


    "I''m not sure if I can make one strong enough to have an effect on you," Maxine said honestly, "I could give it a try if you had all the ingredients for it. Let me make a quick list." Maxine retrieved a small piece of paper and wrote out the ingredient list for a fertility potion before handing it to Cassandra.


    "I''ll see what I can do," Cassandra said as she glanced at the list, "What the hell is a ''heart fruit of a lingu tree''?"


    "It''s a fruit literately shaped like a human heart," Maxine replied.


    "That''s disturbing," Cassandra commented.


    "Tell me about it," Maxine agreed, "And that''s not the worst one either."


    "How could it be worse?" Cassandra asked, but Maxine really didn''t want to answer.


    "There is one ingredient that looks like a sleeping infant," Turan offered in Maxine''s stead, "It''s a lotus core, which coincidentally is called a infant lotus core. They are quite rare due to over harvasting in the past and their appearance makes those that find them reluctant to collect the core."


    "By the fairies!" Cassandra cursed, "That''s disturbing."


    "It didn''t originally look like that, nor did it have the same name," Maxine explained, "Those lotus cores used to look very different, but because they had unique properties within these giant lotus cores added years of life to cultivators when made into potions. Human greed caused those flowers to develope that particular adapation, but that didn''t stop them entirely. It was only after they developed a very nasty contact poison on their petals that humans stopped harvasting them."


    "I would love to get a sample of one of those things," Decaan said exictedly and when both Maxine and Cassandra glared at him, he added defensively, "For scientific purposes only. I wouldn''t dare take a piece big enough to harm the plant."


    "That''s not a good idea," Maxine said as she glared at Turan for a moment, "Those particular lotus'' are now under the protection of some elves that are very protective of nature. If you were to even breathe on those lotus'' wrong, they would kill you and use your corpse as fertilizer."


    "I''m not that curious," Decaan said with a weak smile, "I prefer to live a nice long life."


    "You better not be," Cassandra said firmly, "So, whose hungry? It''s my treat."


    "I''m not sure about Turan, but I''m game," Maxine announced, "What we going to have?"


    "You''ll see," Cassandra said while smirking, "Just follow me." Cassandra grabbed Decaan''s hand and took flight dragging him behind her.


    Maxine followed behind them and she didn''t even have to bother looking to know Turan was right behind her. They flew slowly, but wherever Cassanda was leading them, it wasn''t far.


    She lead them to a plain looking building, but inside of it was a different story. It was a high class restraunt and from the smell eminating from the kitchen alone, Maxine was drooling. They were cooking meat from essence beasts and they were also using medicinal herbs in the meals as well. This setup would be something she would expect when she was staying at the Kavros clan. It was completely unexpected find.


    "Only high ranking members of the military and wealthy civilians can eat in facilities like this one and I''ve only dined in a place like this a few times. It''s expensive, but believe me, it''s all delicious," Cassandra explained as she flagged down a waiter, "A table for four, please."


    "Of course, Commander Cassandra," the waiter said with a slight bow and gestured for them to follow him, "Let me show you to your table."


    "I don''t like to eat red meats of any kind," Turan spoke up.


    "Don''t worry, sir. We cater to all of your dining desires," the waitier said as they finally reached their table, "Here is your table. Are you ready to make your order yet? Or do you need more time?" Everyone sat down at the table and ordered a variety of different meals when the waiter returned.


    "So what songs do you intend to sing tonight?" Cassandra asked, "Will it be that ''healing'' song? Because it''s a major hit amongst the soldiers." Maxine rolled her eyes.


    "I''m not sure yet," Maxine replied, "But I will definitely put some thought into it."


    "You know the healing song?" Turan asked with genuine curiosity.


    "Only the words," Maxine replied, "I can''t actually heal people with it. I lack the gift."


    "It is a rare gift," Turan commented.


    "Well, I don''t know about any of that," Decaan said, "But I''m sure you will do just fine."


    "By the way, I was wondering why you chose such a meaty meal, Maxine," Turan asked, "It''s quite uncommon for any elf to eat so much of it."


    "If you havn''t noticed, I''m a half-elf," Maxine told Turan, "And I have to eat copious amounts of meat daily to keep my bloodline in check. You don''t want to see me go berserk due to neglecting it. It''s not pleasant for anyone involved."


    "Yeah, I''ve seen what happens to her first hand and believe me, we don''t need a hydra going nuts in the middle of a city," Cassandra commented.


    "You can transform into a hydra?" Turan asked excitedly.


    "Yes, I can transform into a hydra, BUT I can''t control it at all," Maxine said, "So I don''t suggest you try to trigger that transformation. You could end up becoming my food."


    "Interesting," Turan said with a smile.


    Cassandra and Decaan ignored everyone else and started speaking softly to one another. Every once in awhile, Cassandra giggled. After a few minutes, the waiter returned with their meals.


    Maxine''s dinner composed of an extra thick medium-rare steak with various essence enriched vegetables on the side and a fruit salad for desert. It was so delicious that she had to force herself to eat slowly in order to maintain her manners. Still, her meal didn''t last nearly as long as she would''ve liked it to.


    After they were done, Cassandra said, "Let''s get you to the main square. I still need you to perform on stage within the hour." After she finished speaking, she signaled their waiter to return and began to settle their bill.


    "Fine, but don''t complain when I run out of things to sing," Maxine replied, "I don''t exactly know a lot of songs."


    "That''s fine," Decaan answered for Cassandra since she was settling the bill, "Just having an elf singing in public would be a huge boost to their spirits. You have to remember. My people''s religion revolves around fairies of any kind and they view you as a warrior amongst them."


    "Yeah, yeah," Maxine said, "Just show me where I need to be."


    "Don''t worry. You can''t mistake where you''re supposed to sing at," Decaan said with a smile.


    "Alright, let''s head out then," Cassandra announced. All of them got up and followed Cassandra to the city square, which was extremely crowded and like Cassandra had said before, Maxine immediately saw a bright orange stage. A good third of those present were children.


    Maxine sighed and took flight and landed on the stage, which caused everyone present to cheer happily. She was taken aback at their enthusiasm, but it only lasted for a moment. She walked up to the microphone on a stand and felt Turan''s spiritual sense expand outward just before she started singing the healing song.


    Maxine turned her head to glare at him, but he had already disappeared.Huh? I wonder where he went. No matter.She shrugged and began singing. She felt that something was off the whole time that she was singing. When she finally stopped, the crowd roared with applause. That was fun. Now, what should I do now that the four-horned kanzils have left? Should I head back to Earth? I should be strong enough to flee away from anyone below immortal stage, even if I can''t beat them, but I should still wait until I reach gold stage. That shouldn''t take me more than a month.

 Chapter 143

    AS soon as Maxine woke up in a large bed, she was still angry about the events of last night. She had a lot of fun singing, but her previous enjoyment had been ruined once Turan had reappeared. According to him, there had been a few people sent to capture her from the Kelborne clan to force her to remove the construct that she placed in Brant Kelborne. Turan had chased all of them off. Or rather, she hoped that''s all that he did. After all of that fuss, he strangely insisted that she sleep in a large, very comfortable bed. She could only guess it was so he could keep a better eye on her.


    Regardless, she knew that she didn''t have much time to laze about before he returned to observe her. It was especially important since she revealed that she could transform into a hydra last night. She struggled not to sigh in frustration.


    She knew making any comments about her transformation into a hydra would be a big red flag to Turan, but in the long run, it wouldn''t have made much difference if she had or not. Cassandra or Decaan would''ve said something about it sooner or later. Even if they didn''t, all it would take is a quick search of thier files to find a video of her transformation. In addition, it was less stressful just to throw it out into the open than try to hide it.


    Maxine got out of the bed and glanced at the wardrobe full of clothes in her size. The clothes had been a gift from the audience last night. She had forgotten that she was wearing her unaltered Shadow''s Embrace armor during her performance and those gifted clothes had been a response to that. They probably thought my armor was the only thing I had left to wear. They weren''t too far off on that guess either. Most of my clothes have been trashed from all the fighting.She walked up to it and selected a forest green dress before heading to the bathroom to enjoy a long, hot shower.


    After she was finished bathing and had fully dressed, she opened the door to her room and saw a small crowd of humans immediately rush at her with excited smiles on their faces. She shut the door on reflex and proceeded to lock it as her ''fans'' shouted and banged on the door. I completely forgot about how annoying it can be to be a celebrity.


    "Good morning, Maxine," Turan said from behind her.


    "How long have you been here?" Maxine asked angrily.He better not have been watching me take a shower.


    "I arrived just in time to see you slam that door shut and lock it," Turan replied, "I know better than to enter the room of a warrior while they sleep. I could get attacked by a relfex."


    "Good," Maxine said.


    "By the way, you look lovely in that dress," Turan complimented.


    "Thank you," Maxine replied, "Still, I would''ve prefered it if you didn''t come into any room I''m staying at without my permission and I don''t care what your orders are. Sometimes I just want to be left alone."


    "I will try to follow your wishes," Turan acquiesced, "So, what''s on today''s agenda?"


    "I was going to check on the world tree and the night elves under my master''s patronage," Maxine stated as a cover, but in truth, she wanted to see the tree itself. She''d only read a description of it. Even Guan hadn''t actually laid eyes on a world tree. Or else, he would''ve drawn an exquisite depiction of one in his notes.


    "I heard about that," Turan said off handedly, "And I thank you for taking me with you. Very few among our generation have even seen the remains of a world tree."


    "Just be sure to only look and not touch. World trees are far more fragile than you can imagine," Maxine reminded him.


    "I''m well aware of that fact. If you''ve forgotten, humans were the ones driven by greed," Turan said.


    "Good," Maxine said as she created a portal that lead to the roof and looked over her shoulder, "You coming?"


    "Yes, of course," Turan said while smling before he followed Maxine through the portal.


    Once one the roof, Maxine shot straight into the sky while stuffing the inside of her dress with shadow energies to keep Turan from peeking underneith it and focused her spiritual sense to the north. She found a few elves well over three hundred miles away and smiled to herself. So I was right. They were to the north. It only makes sense that they would be. There are no cities in that direction. Although, I''m not sure how far north the world tree will be. It can''t be too far.


    She turned north and started flying at a modest pace. She just didn''t see a point in flying beyond the speed of sound since it would only destroy her dress. However she felt that something was odd after flying more than an hour.I should''ve seen the world tree by now. Even a relatively young world tree should be overwhelmingly larger than any other tree.


    It was another three minutes before a large pink fairy flew up into Maxine''s flight path. She only needed to see the spiky hair to realize that it was Petal.


    "Hello, my lady," Petal said respectfully, "What is the purpose of your visit?"


    "I came to check on the world tree," Maxine replied and gestured over her shoulder to Turan, "And he insisted on following me." Petal glanced at Turan neutrally before she nodded.


    "I''m sorry, but I need to notify the night elf elders first before I can guide you inside," Petal explained apologetically and glanced swiftly at Turan, "Can you wait here?"


    "Yes, we can," Maxine said in an understanding tone and Petal flew back into the forest. They only had to wait a handful of minutes before she returned with Elder Evensong in tow.


    "I was wondering when you would come to check on the world tree," elder Evensong said happily once he was close enough.


    "Greetings, elder," Maxine said with a slight bow.


    "And this is?" Elder Evensong said as he stared at Turan curiously.


    "I''m Turan," Turan replied, "Maxine''s shadow lord observer." Elder Evensong''s expression soured for a moment before it brightened back up.


    "My people don''t have a problem allowing you to see the world tree, Maxine," Elder Evensong said, "But we will not allow Turan to approach. If he tries, we will attack him." Uh, this is new. I thought night elves weren''t inclined to use violence from their earlier behavior.


    "Oh? Why is that, elder?" Maxine asked with genuine curiosity.


    "They abandoned their own kind to die. They are no longer elves in our eyes," Elder Evensong said coldly and cut off Turan before he could even speak in his defense, "There will be no discussion on this matter. All shadow lords are forbidden from entering night elf territories. This was decided long before even I was born."


    "Very well, elder," Turan said respectfully, "Am I still allowed to wait for Maxine here?"


    "Yes, that''s fine, but do not move any deeper into our territory. I''ve been lenient enough as it is because you are her guest," Elder Evensong said and he turned to Maxine, "Follow behind me closely."


    Maxine followed behind Elder Evensong as he flew in an erratic patter, and eventually, she felt like she crossed some kind of threshold. At the same time, a massive tree that towered into the sky just appeared out of thin air infront of her. It looked almost as if it was made of organic metal as it shimmered slightly in the daylight. The leaves looked normal, but were as absurdly large as the tree itself. She could lay down on one with room to spare above her head and below her feet. It had a few normal sized flowers, but the color of them was constantly changing. She saw fairies of various colors flying to these flowers to drink the nectar within them. It was such a beautiful sight that she couldn''t imagine anyone trying to damage a world tree out of greed.


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    "Beautiful," Maxine said unconsciously.


    "Yes, it is," Elder Evensong agreed, "I take it you''ve never seen a world tree."


    "I only read a description of one, but words can''t even begin to describe it''s beauty," Maxine answered and hesitated before she asked, "Can I keep one of the flowers?"


    "No," Elder Evensong said firmly, "You may not be aware of this, but without the fruit of a world tree, night elves can''t reproduce." That definitely explains why they can''t survive without a world tree. They would all simply die out due to not having any descendants.


    "Why do you need to eat those fruit specifically?" Maxine asked.


    "The fruit of the world tree has special enzymes that we need in order to concieve. We''ve looked long and hard for replacements, but they simply don''t exist as far as we can tell. The only consolation that we have is that our conception rate is one hundred percent after a couple consumes a world tree fruit," Elder Evensong replied, "To make things worse, world trees only fruit once a century from flowers that bloom for a century." Daddy''s notes said nothing about that! So, it seems even his knowledge has gaps in it.


    "I wasn''t aware of that," Maxine said.


    "Very few are outside of the night elves," Elder Evensong replied.


    "So why did you tell me?" Maxine asked.


    "Unlike your master, you''re compassionate," Elder Evensong said honestly, "And are far less likely to harm my people by knowing this. He also cares deeply for you, almost like a father would, and I have a feeling he will do anything for you." Warning bells went off in Maxine''s head as she looked at Elder Evensong.


    "Humans have a saying: A teacher for a day is a father for a lifetime. I believe he''s taken that saying to heart," Maxine said calmly.


    "What an interesting saying," Elder Evensong said before he gestured towards the world tree, "Shall we continue?"


    "Of course," Maxine said.


    Maxine followed Elder Evensong closer to the world tree and she saw three night elves a few hundred feet from the base of it. One was a little girl, the next woman and a visibly old night elf woman, which meant she had to be truely ancient to show her age. But what caught her attention in the first place was that all three of them were singing different songs, but the different songs seemed to resonate with each other. This strange resonance effected the surrounding fruit trees causing them to rapidly flower and bear fruit in mere minutes.


    She had seen forest elves do something similar, but it would take them hours rather than the minutes that the night elves were doing it. She had no idea what was the main difference between them. However she didn''t think about that particular problem too hard. She didn''t have the gift for it anyways. Still, it was quite an amazing sight to behold.


    "Our songstresses are hard at work," Elder Evensong said.


    "How do those different songs cause the plants to grow so fast?" Maxine asked, "I''ve seen forest elves do something similar, but it was far slower."


    "Your question touches apon the secret of how we nuture world trees and it''s not something I''m willing to discuss," Elder Evensong said, "So I hope you understand that I can''t tell you the secret behind it."


    "I understand," Maxine said honestly.They need to guard this knowledge to stay alive.


    "Thank you for your understanding," Elder Evensong said as he bowed to Maxine slightly, "But as you can see for yourself, the world tree is very healthy and I imagine we can at most drain a liter or two of it''s sap without harming it." Yeah, trees of this size should have a lot of sap, but simply due to it''s size and wieght, it can''t have a lot of reserve sap for mending wounds. So it''s sap is just really really good at sealing any damaged areas.


    "Don''t mention it," Maxine said as her eyes were drawn to a young night elf couple as they practically danced towards their home in a tree. The night elf woman was holding what looked suspiciously similar to a purple snake fruit. The only difference outward difference between them was that this world tree fruit was much smaller.


    "Oh, it seems those two got the first world tree fruit of the season," Elder Evensong commented, "I know those two have desperately wanted a child. I''m glad they were able to find a world tree fruit so early."


    "Elder, that world tree fruit looks a lot like a purple snake fruit," Maxine said.


    "I''m aware of that fruit. We found it mere days after arriving on this world, but it''s similar in appearance only. It lacks the necessary enzymes that a world tree fruit has," Elder Evensong said sadly, "If only it was so easy to find a replacement."


    "Indeed," Maxine lamented and changed the subject, "Have you been contacted by my master yet?"


    "As a matter of fact, we have," Elder Evensong said, "He mentioned that you may want to see our world tree. That''s why I was expecting you, but he mentioned that you will be leaving this world soon."


    "Did he mention why?" Maxine asked.


    "I''m afraid not," Elder Evensong said in an apologetic tone.


    "Perhaps I should contact him after I''m done here," Maxine said.


    "I believe that would be wise," Elder Evensong said, "Is there anything else you would like to see while you''re here?"


    "Not really," Maxine said, "I guess it''s back to putting up with that shadow lord."


    "Try not to be too hard on him," Elder Evensong said gently, "He may be a shadow lord, but he is also a young man, who cares for you."


    "What makes you say that?" Maxine asked cautiously.


    Elder Evensong sighed before he answered, "Your anger keeps you from noticing how he was looking at you while you are not looking at him."


    "You have to be joking," Maxine said incredulously.No fucking way. I don''t believe he''s in love with me. If that fucker actually cared, he wouldn''t have let those other asshole shadow lords trap me like that in the past. I nearly died. If Avernus hadn''t intervened, I very well may have.


    "I''m afraid not. There is no mistaking that look," Elder Evensong said.


    "I don''t care about him, so let''s drop it," Maxine said grumpily, "Can you lead me back outside? I have a feeling it will be difficult without a guide."


    "You would be correct in that assumption," Elder Evensong said, "Follow me."


    Maxine followed him as he started to fly away from the world tree and felt a need to ask, "How are you able to conceal the world tree so well?"


    "Fairy magic contains potent illusion and befuddlement enchantments," Elder Evensong said while they flew, "In fact, it''s so potent that you probably didn''t realize that you made three laps around the world tree before Petal came out to greet you."


    "That''s a little scary," Maxine commented.


    "It can be, but fairies are not aggressive beings," Elder Evensong said, "In fact, they''re quite cowardly."


    "I''ve noticed," Maxine said and saw Turan waiting just ahead, "Well, thanks for the tour."


    "It was my pleasure," Elder Evensong said just before she felt the strange field pass over her again and noticed that as soon as she did, Turan''s gaze locked onto them.


    "Is the world tree as beautiful as in the old stories?" Turan asked as they got closer.


    "Even more than in the stories," Maxine said.


    "It''s too bad I couldn''t join you," Turan lamented, "But rules are rules."


    "Indeed," Maxine said and added, "I need to contact my master after we get back to the city, so I expect you to give me privacy to do that."


    "Very well," Turan said as he gestured for Maxine to lead the way.


    "No, I think you should lead the way this time," Maxine said.


    "As you wish," Turan said as he took the lead and headed back towards the city, "Are you afraid of men? Is that why you don''t trust me?"Where did that question come from?


    "I just don''t like men," Maxine admitted, "Why did you ask?"


    "I just noticed that you avoid physical contact with men and thought I should ask," Turan answered offhandedly, "Is there any reason for that dislike?"


    "I don''t know," Maxine lied.


    "I find that hard to believe, but do you mind if I ask a different question?" Turan asked.


    "Go ahead," Maxine said.


    "How and when did you become Poison Emperor Guan''s student?" Turan asked.Huh? Is he trying to fish for information? Why? He should almost be certain who I really am. I might as well play along.


    "He found me a little more than five years ago and asked me to be his student," Maxine said.


    "Interesting. That time coincides quite closely with the original''s death," Turan said under his breath before asking, "Did he tell you why he picked you?"


    "Yeah, he said I looked a lot like his daughter, if she were a shadow elf, and said it would be like teach his daughter," Maxine answered.


    "Final question, do you remember anything before you met your master?" Turan asked and Maxine finally understood why he was asking all the questions.It makes sense now. He believes my soul was damaged enough to cause amnesia, but not drive me insane or kill me. And daddy is probably one of the few that could heal such wounds using alchemy alone without any serious side-effects. A physical alteration potion to make me look like a shadow elf is child''s play in comparison.


    "I... I don''t ..," Maxine said in an uncertain tone before firming her tone, "Master said my memories would return with time." Turan nodded his head and didn''t say another word. There that should by me some more time and the other shadow lords are likely going to give Turan some time to win me over since I''m already talking to him. He may even try to give me gifts to boost my cultivation to show his ''affection.'' I wonder how many resources I can trick him into giving me before he realizes I''m putting on a performance.

 Chapter 144

    Maxine was finally back in her room and spread her spiritual sense against the walls, ceiling and floor to make sure Turan wasn''t trying to listen in. Additionally, she circulated a mist-like form of her energies throughout the room to see if anyone was in the room using a stealth technique. Still, that wasn''t a real guarantee that someone much more powerful than Maxine was listening in, but it would have to do. God damn it. Turan has gotten me feeling all paraniod.


    Maxine attempted to relax and reached out to her clone. It only took her a few moments to connect to it and her clone was in the process of being bathed. [Young lady, I thought your father told you not to use your clones,] Hellen reprimanded Maxine via spiritual sense.


    [Sorry, mom,] Maxine apologized, [But I need to talk to daddy.]


    [Fine, I will relay you, but don''t talk for too long,] Hellen reminded Maxine.


    [Don''t worry. I only wanted to ask him a couple questions,] Maxine assured Hellen.


    [Alright,] Hellen said just before Maxine felt a strange jarring sensation that almost made her sever her spritual sense connection on reflex. It felt as if someone was literately grabbing a hold of her spiritual sense and forcibly handing it off to someone else.


    [What is it, Maxine?] Guan asked, [Did you see the world tree yet?]


    [Yes, I saw the world tree. Words can''t describe how beautiful it was,] Maxine replied, [And I wanted to ask you something. Elder Evensong mentioned that you said I would be leaving this planet soon. Care to share why?]


    [I enrolled you in the Stardust Academy. They should be there within the week to pick you up at my request,] Guan said bluntly, [I''m sending you there because they have an extensive martial arts library and there is a blade grandmaster there named Horatio Quay. He owes me a favor and has agreed to guide you on the path of the blade.]


    [What about Lan? Doesn''t he need guidance as well?] Maxine asked.


    [You did an excellent job getting him started, but he is one of the few that will not need guidance to become a grandmaster,] Guan explained, [He''s a natural genius that rarely appears and will make great acheivements in the path of the blade on his own. In fact, even without you teaching him, he would''ve developed his own technique after a few short years.]


    [I knew he was a genius, but not to that extent,] Maxine admitted, [Silky sure can pick them.]


    [That she can,] Guan said proudly before his tone became grim, [Also, I believe the shadow lords know where you are. So brace yourself. They are likely to approach you soon, if they havn''t already.]


    [Turan is here,] Maxine said directly, [And I believe he''s under the impression that I have amnesia.]


    [That''s fine. He''s far less likely to try anything foolish,] Guan said with confidence, [He knows better than most what will happen to him if he does.]


    [That''s true,] Maxine said and for some reason, she could sense Hellen''s glare without being in direct contact with her, [I have a feeeling mom is giving us both the evil eye right now, so I better end it here.]


    [How did you even ... Never mind. We will talk another time, Maxine. Take care of yourself,] Guan said in a loving tone before their spiritual sense connection was severed.


    Maxine rolled her eyes and retracted all of her privacy measures. Within moments, Turan knocked before letting himself in. I''m fairly certain that I locked that earlier. It''s a little unnerving how he can so non-chalantly pick a lock and let himself in. At least, it''s better than him simply shadow stepping in.


    "My master is sending me to the Stardust Academy," Maxine announced, "Their ship should be here to pick me up within the week. You can decide if you want to follow me there or not."


    "I would follow you there, even if it wasn''t required of me," Turan stated.


    "Okay, but I believe you will need to be enrolled there in order to stay," Maxine pointed out.


    "A problem that''s solved with a simple transmission," Turan replied, "Would you like me to find any literature regarding the academy?"


    "It would be appreciated," Maxine replied, "I''ll just stock up on purple snake fruit while you do that."


    "Why would you need something as mundane as that?" Turan asked.


    "If you have to know, purple snake fruit has an interesting regenerative effect whenever I eat one. I want to see if it has a similar effect on anyone else that possesses a snake-type bloodline. If it does, I will be able to make a specialized potion out of them," Maxine explained, "I am an alchemist afterall and I need to make a name for myself if I''m ever to make any wealth. I can''t always rely on my master''s name to get ahead."


    "Interesting. Very well, I will be right back," Turan said as he shadow stepped away.


    Maxine used this moment to walk over to a small phone. She picked it up and almost immediately heard a young woman say, "This is room service. How may I help you?"


    "Yes, I would like a small bowl of purple snake fruit delivered to my room," Maxine said.


    "Certainly, ma''am," the woman said and quickly added, "It will be up in a few minutes and please don''t mind our staff. Some of them are fans of yours."


    "I see. So long as they don''t do anything too odd I won''t mind," Maxine replied.


    "I''ll try to remind them," the young woman said and added before hanging up, "Have a good day."


    Within minutes, someone knocked on the door before bringing in a cart with a bowl with a dozen snake fruit in it. The staff member that brought it was a young man with an excited smile on his face. "Your snake fruit, ma''am," he said.


    "Thank you," Maxine replied with a small smile, "You have no idea how much I enjoy these."


    "You''re welcome, ma''am," he said happily before asking, "Do you need anything else?"


    "No, that''s all. Thank you," Maxine said as she picked up a snake fruit and took a small bite out of it, "Delicious."


    "Just call the front desk if you need anything else," the young man said cheerfully and left after giving her one last look. She saw a glimpse of a group of young women rush at the poor man and heard them ask him questions in rapid succession.Poor guy is getting mugged by a bunch of beautiful girls. Or would that make him lucky? I think I will let him decide that. Regardless, it should be quickly known that I like to eat purple snake fruit. The locals will probably be gifting me large quantities of them very soon. I hope they don''t over do it. I only have so much space in my dimensional ring.


    A few minutes later, Turan returned and thankfully he used the door to enter the room. "I brought you the literature," Turan announced as he handed Maxine a knowledge crystal. She studied it for a moment before probing it with her spiritual sense.


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    She was quite surprised at how much information Turan was able to gather after such a short period of time. Along with the rules and regulations of the academy, this knowledge crystal contained a complete list of the teachers and their specialties. It also included a list of the top fifty social groups amongst the students listed and a comprehensive analysis of their capabilities.


    She was quite surprised at how detailed the information on the Stardust Academy was. Almost like they were planning on either recruiting these people for their personal forces or ... they were gathering information on future elites to be wary of. The shadow lords are almost terrifyingly skilled at information gathering.


    "I''m impressed," Maxine said out loud, "Do you also have a comprehensive analysis of me as well?"


    "Yes, but there are blank spots in yours," Turan answered in what Maxine thought was an honest tone, "I believe you have more trump cards aside from being able to transform into a hydra. It''s too wild and unstable for someone with your personality to be happy with." He''s not wrong. I only came up with a new trump card recently. But boosting my strength with four additional cores is just a desperation move. I can at best unleash one overpowered attack. After that, if my opponent is still alive, I''ll be too tired to fight back or even run.


    "A fair assessment," Maxine replied.


    "I can still show you what we have if you want to see it," Turan offered.


    "No, thank you," Maxine said even though she wanted to know what they had on her, "You probably have some non-sense on there that I can''t even do."


    "I doubt that," Turan said, "We already have it recorded that you can create constructs, but we don''t know what your limitations on that are. For all I know, you could have thousands of constructs."


    "Don''t be absurd. No one can control that many," Maxine countered.


    "Are you sure?" Turan asked, "It''s been recorded that the number of constructs someone can use is not at a fixed amount. They can create more as they get more powerful. They are only limited by certain resources."Seriously?


    "I didn''t know that," Maxine said honestly.


    "Oh? That''s quite common knowledge amongst the shadow elves," Turan said.


    "Well, I wasn''t privy to a lot of things because I''m a half-elf," Maxine complained, "I can''t really blame them. I was raised amongst humans, and they probably didn''t want to teach me too much from fear that I would leak it to the humans."


    "I see," Turan said sadly.


    "I heard that some children wanted to thank me for my performance last night," Maxine said to change the subject as a smile slowly appeared on her lips, "They will be in the hotel''s lobby in another hour and I wanted to see them."


    "You must adore children to risk being swarmed by your numberous fans," Turan commented.


    "I do and I don''t even understand why," Maxine admitted, "Perhaps, this feeling stems from a strong desire for children."


    "There are quite a few men quite willing to help you with that, myself included," Turan pointed out. Maxine almost reflexively recoiled at his statement.


    "As you pointed out earlier, I can''t stand the touch of men and therein lies the problem," Maxine retorted, "But I can always adopt. The maker knows there are enough orphans in this universe that need someone to raise them." .


    "Well, that is your choice. But it''s not the same as raising your own child," Turan commented.


    "Perhaps, but how would you know?" Maxine asked in return.


    "I don''t, but I feel that I would enjoy raising my own child rather than someone else''s," Turan replied.


    "Typical," Maxine said as she sat down on the bed and took a meditative pose, "I''m going to cultivate until it''s time for me to see those children, so if you''re going to stay, please don''t make any sound."


    "Of course, I won''t," Turan said as he took a meditative pose on the floor infront of the bed.Why doesn''t that make me feel any better?


    She cultivated in silence until someone knocked on the door. "Excuse me, ma''am. The kids will be arriving in a few minutes," the young man from before said from the other side of the door, "I thought I would let you know."


    "Thank you for the reminder. I will be down shortly," Maxine replied and she got off the bed. Turan had already gotten to his feet.


    Maxine rolled her eyes at him and opened up the door. Thankfully, her fans had taken a break of some kind and she quickly made her way to the elevator. While she could''ve shadow stepped to the ground floor, she felt that it would make the locals far more comfortable if she arrived in a more normal way.


    As soon as the elevator doors opened, she was delighted to see over thirty children in the lobby. Most of which saw her almost immediately and were smiling excitedly. However, she also noticed that nine of them were suffering from various types of illnesses and spotted their worried parents off to the side. I know I''m being set up to heal these kids and I should be angry about it. But I''m not. I''m probably the last hope for some of these kids and I can''t blame the parents or the people that were in charge of this. So, I don''t mind it if they want to take advantage of my love of children. In fact, I''m a little happy that they did. I was planning on visiting various hospitals to heal the children that I could while waiting on the people from the Stardust Academy.


    "Hello, little ones," Maxine said gently and glanced up at their parents for a moment before walking over to a wheelchair bound child, "I think I know why you are all here, but can I heal your sick friens first before we play?" More than half of the healthy children nodded their heads in agreement.


    "I''ll try not to take too long," Maxine said as she knelt before the wheelchair bound child and checked on his condition with her spiritual sense, "Oh? That''s a nasty spinal injury you have there, but I can heal it. Just try to remain still. This could take some time." He had 3 damaged vertebrae and his spinal cord had been shredded. The only saving grace was the boy''s age, so she could heal him completely one sitting. Had he been older, she would''ve had to heal him in slowly over the course of a month. A child''s physiology, on the other hand, was far more adaptable to change.


    After nearly an hour, she managed to heal the small boy. It hadn''t been nearly as difficult as she had feared, but still it tired her out mentally. It hadn''t helped that everyone else was watching her every move. It was annoying, but she tolerated it. It wasn''t every day that these people got to see visible white energies streaming from Maxine''s hands into a little boy''s body.


    "There, all done," Maxine said with a smile as she retracted her hands, but the little boy seemed confused.Oh, he doesn''t feel it yet. Perhaps a gentle touch will wake up his sensory nerves.In response to this, Maxine gently squeezed the little boy''s knee and saw his eyes widen with both surprise and delight.


    "Thank you!" the little boy said as he hugged Maxine. Maxine smiled as she hugged the little boy back, but the hug was short lived. The little boy turned his wheelchair around and approached his parents smiling parents.


    "You still need to build up your strength and relearn how to walk again," Maxine reminded him, "But I don''t imagine it will take more than a few months." Still, she saw grateful looks from the little boy''s parents.


    Next, she checked the rest of the sick children with her spiritual sense. Most of them had been exposed to airbourne contaminants and it injured their lungs.It seems there was some buildings were knocked down near where they lived. It was a condition that was relatively easy to heal and she was able to heal them all in less than half an hour. But there were two children that she didn''t dare to heal. One was diabetic little boy and the other was a little girl with brittle bones.


    She looked towards the people whom were clearly their parents and apologized, "I don''t dare help your children. Their ailments require specialized knowledge in order to heal that I don''t have. Nor do I have the skill to make a potion that would cure them either. I''m so sorry." She could see the exact genes that were responsible for their individual illnesses, but she wasn''t sure what would happen if she were to remove or change the corresponding genes. For all she knew, she could give them an even worse condition by trying to help. However she was sorely tempted to try, but her fear of causing more harm stopped her.


    "I can," Turan said confidently as he strode past her and knelt before the two children before he began to cure them, "You must forgive Maxine. She specializes in combat healing, not genetic disorders, but her knowledge does allow her to heal most ordinary ailments."


    Maxine swiftly checked on the children with her spiritual sense to make sure that Turan was actually curing them and to her surprise, he was.Damn, I didn''t expect that he would learn how to heal others. Perhaps, I was a bit harsh on him earlier. And that''s exactly what I should think had I no memories. Still, he offered to heal them without asking for anything in return. So, I will just play along for now.


    "Thank you, Turan," Maxine said softly.


    "Yes, thank you," one of the children''s mother said.


    "It was nothing. I just couldn''t bear to see Maxine so upset," Turan said with obvious honestly as he retracted his hands from the children, "There. The two of you are cured, but I suggest waiting a few months before playing with the other children, young lady. Your bones need time to harden."


    "Thank you, mister elf," the little girl, whom had brittle bones, said just before giving Turan a swift kiss on the cheek. Turan was stunned as the little girl turned around and walked with a pair of crutches back to her parents. Maxine chuckled lightly as did several other people in the room.


    Once Turan recovered a few seconds later, he simply smiled and walked back to Maxine''s side. Maxine ignored him and talked to the children and found out that children across their world would be coming to her to be cured. I guess that makes sense from their point of view. I''m an elf, a type of fairy that they worship. Why would they expect me to move around to heal their children when they could bring them to me? Still, there will be some children I can''t heal and Turan will use them to get into my good graces. And I will have to act nicer to him because of his thoughtful actions. Ugh, this is going to be a rough week.

 Chapter 145

    Maxine looked up at the ship from the Stardust Academy. It had taken it five days and during those days, she had managed to convince Turan to give her some space and it wasn''t an easy task to accomplish that. She had tried to get him to back off using polite methods, but those didn''t work. Eventually, she got angry and called him a stalker, which oddly worked and he stopped following her quite so closely.


    Yesterday, he gave her a special core as an apology for his behavior. It had perfectly fused energies of essense and ki within it and she had been studying ever since. It gave her some inspiration on how to safely fuse her own energies, but she was still a long ways off from ever accomplishing that feat.


    She was drawn out of her thoughts when the ship from the Stardust Academy ceased it''s descent a hundred feet above the city and opened up its side hatch. A young woman with antler like horns come out of her head and golden scales on her hands exited the ship and approached Maxine. A golden eastern dragonkin? It''s not every day you get to see one of them. If I recall correctly, they have the most destructive breath attack out of any dragon and are the most physically powerful of the eastern dragons.


    "I''m Piras Long, but I''m young miss Long to you," the golden dragonkin woman said with an arrogant and slightly angry tone, "Now get on the ship, If I wasn''t commanded by my father, I would''ve never come to fetch you." Something in her tone infuriated Maxine, but she pushed that anger down. However, her anger refused to be subdued and that it made it very difficult to think clearly. In that moment, Maxine realized that it was her hydra bloodline reacting to Piras Long specifically. It was almost as if their two species were enemies.


    "I answer to only my master," Maxine replied in cold tone, "And if my master hadn''t commanded me to go to the Stardust Academy, I wouldn''t even be waiting for you here." Her attitude is seriously making it hard to keep any control over my hydra bloodline. And I''m pretty sure she would prefer this cold attitude over me biting off her face.


    Piras Long''s face twisted into anger, but she quickly regained her calm, "There are very few people that would dare to talk to me like that and all of them have backgrounds similar to mine. So who is your master? I want to know who he is to give you the confidence to act like this." So, she came here without hearing all of the details. That''s really careless.


    "Poison Emperor Guan," Maxine replied. Piras Long looked mildly surprised, and her arrogant demeanor was dialed down. However it was still apparent that she didn''t like Maxine.


    "I wasn''t aware he had a student, but regardless, we are on a time table. So, get on the ship. We''ve wasted enough time with useless talk," Piras Long stated. At least this time, her tone doesn''t ooze with arrogance.


    Maxine shrugged and flew up to enter the ship. She looked over her shoulder at Turan and saw that he was terrified. She just now began to smell him. It was then that Maxine realized that both she and Piras Long were eminating dragon fear unconsciously. Poor, Turan. He''s getting a double dose of dragon fear. I''m surprised he''s still on his feet. It''s strange that I don''t feel the slightest bit of anxiety or anything in her presence. Perhaps my bloodline is high enough on the hierarchy to not be suppressed by her draconic bloodline.


    "You look terrible," Maxine commented after they entered the ship.


    "I''ll live," Turan said weakly as Piras Long walked past them.


    "Just be sure not to harrass, miss Long. She doesn''t appear to be the forgiving type," Maxine warned him, "And you better stay out of my room. That is unless you want to be my test subject for my itching powder."


    "Itching powder?" Piras Long asked out of curiosity as she took a peek over her shoulder.


    "It does exactly what it sounds like. One packet of that powder is enough to cause someone a severe itch that covers their entire body for twenty four hours regardless of their strength," Maxine explained.


    "How severe of an itch?" Turan asked.


    "Enough that you will keep on scratching even after you start scratching off strips of your flesh," Maxine answered.


    "I can see how that could be useful," Piras Long commented with a cruel smile, "Can I purchase some from you?"


    "No," Maxine said bluntly, "Unless you are immune to poisons or have a chitinous exoskeleton, one tiny mistake in handling this powder and you will dose yourself with it."


    "That''s a shame," Piras Long said just as the ship started to tremble slightly, "It seems we are underway. Your rooms are on the corridor to the left. Just pick one that you fancy. They''re all essentially the same." Piras Long immediately turned around and left them. Maxine had wanted to ask Piras Long a few more questions.


    After giving Piras Long''s departing back an annoyed look, Maxine went to the rooms. She gave Turan a glare before choosing one and closing the door behind her. The room itself was small. It had only a two foot gap between the wall and the bed. I know they make rooms this size out of necessity for crewmates, but shouldn''t a passenger get a bigger room for comfort? Or better yet, have a larger room for someone with claustrophobia. On the plus side, it''s very unlikely that Turan will be able to sneak into this room without me noticing. Still, it''s better to lean towards the safe-side.


    Maxine promptly started to put up various strings coated in her Maddening Itching Powder. Just as she finished, the door to her room opened to reveal Piras Long, whom raised an eyebrow.


    "Is that really necessary?" Piras Long asked, "He can''t be as bad as you''re making him to be."


    "Yes, he is," Maxine responded without any hesitation, "I''ve woken up with him standing over me and I do not want that to happen again."


    "Ugh, that man sounds like a fiend," Piras Long said as she looked disgusted, "Would you like for him to have an accident?"


    "No need," Maxine said, "The shadow lords would just send someone else and I rather deal with him than someone else. The next one they send may be far worse."


    "Very well," Piras Long said, "I just can stand the arrogance of the Shadow Lords. How dare they think they can manipulate someone with dragon blood!"


    "Thanks," Maxine said as her impression of Piras Long improved, "Sorry about behaving so childishly earlier."


    "Think nothing of it," Piras Long said, "I admit my behavior was not any better. I just felt this fury explode within me when I set eyes on you."


    "Strange, I felt something similar," Maxine admitted, "But it''s not as big of a problem now."


    "It must have something to do with our bloodlines. In ancient itmes, certain dragon clans were antagonistic with each other," Piras Long explained, "Is your bloodline perchance related to snake dragons?"


    "Hydra, actually," Maxine replied.


    "That explains it. Golden dragons in the past had a falling out with snake dragons, which are cousins to the hydra, and fought each other for several millenia. A bit of that hatred lingers within our blood," Piras Long explained, "It makes encounters with each other tense."


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    "That isn''t the word I would use," Maxine said, "Is that the reason you came to see me? To make peace?"


    "Yes," Piras Long admitted.


    "And did it have anything to do with finding out my background?" Maxine asked.


    "In part, but that''s not the only reason," Piras Long answered, "But more in part due to your strange bloodline. If I''m not mistaken, there have only been a handful of people that have managed to acquire a hydra bloodline. Your master was the most successful case by far as his life span wasn''t shortened at all and he could still have children. So I find it very curious for you to have a hydra bloodline. So I''ve come up with two theories: you are either his supposedly dead daughter suffering from amnesia, or he ''created'' you using his great knowledge of alchemy. And before you discount either, it''s not outside the realm of possibility since he''s already brought his wife back from the dead. That feat alone was thought impossible, so whose to say he can''t do something equally impossible." So, she already knew which bloodline I had before she came here. Yet she asked anyways. What''s more is she came up with all of that mere minutes after meeting me. She''s frighteningly intelligent.


    "That''s enough," Turan said angrily from behind Piras Long.


    "I already know which of those two options the shadow lords are leaning towards," Piras Long said while ignoring Turan, "But what do you believe?"


    "I believe he''s my master and that''s all there is to it," Maxine said neutrally, "If there is nothing else, I need to Turan-proof my room."


    "Actually, there is," Piras Long said, "I came to inform you that you will be tested once you arrive to the academy in both your martial skill and alchemical skills to help us place you into your classes. I suggest you study if you''re not confident that you will do well."


    "I can understand the martial skill test, but why are they testing my alchemical skills?" Maxine asked, "I''m Poison Emperor Guan''s student. That alone should exempt me from any alchemy tests."


    "They want to know the extent to what Guan has taught you thus far and what your ranking on the alchemist''s ranking board is," Piras Long replied, "They like to display rankings to encourage competition." Yeah, I read up on that. Thankfully, they don''t make the students fight each other. Instead, they have them walk into an illusion array and have them fight illusionary opponents that get gradually stronger and stronger. And with alchemy they just ask you to make the highest tier potion or pill that you can.


    "I''ve read the literature," Maxine said calmly, "I still don''t see the point of it."


    "Be that as it may, they will still insist that you take it," Piras Long said. But why though?


    "I''m guessing you won''t enlighten me as to why," Maxine complained.


    "I havn''t the faintest idea as to why that fool is insisting on it any more than you do," Piras Long said, "If there is anything else, I will be in my quarters near the bridge and don''t worry about your meals. They will be brought to you."


    "I will keep that in mind and thanks for letting me know about all of that," Maxine said.


    "You''re welcome," Piras Long said before walking down the corridor.


    Maxine promptly closed the door and continued to put up a few more itching powder coated strings before getting on the bed to cultivate. Thankfully, she wasn''t interrupted until one of the ship''s crewmates opened the door carrying a plate of food, but after seeing all of the strings crisscrossing the room, the crewmate wisely set the plate on the floor just inside the room before leaving.


    Maxine created some shadow tendrils to navigate the plate of food through the maze of itching powder strings and returned it once she was done eating. She quickly went back to cultivating and again she was awoken by food being brought to her. This routine continued until a veil was brought with her food after a week of being on the ship.


    She held up the veil to get a better look at it. It looked like it hanged just below her eyes and it was long enough to conceil everything from her cheekbones to her collarbone. She could only sigh as she put it on. I shouldn''t have to wear this damn thing. I know full well that men can control themselves when they see a beautiful woman. It''s just that they choose not to and now they will be just as distracted by wondering what I look like underneith it.


    Since it was clear that they were about to land, Maxine began to take down all of the itching powder coated strings and cleaning up any of the itching powder residue on the floor. She didn''t want to accidentally poison one of the ship''s crew, so she had to be thorough. Just as soon as she finished, Piras Long opened the door to her room and Maxine noticed that too she was now wearing a veil. Oh, good. I''m not the only one that has to wear this stupid thing. That makes me feel a little better about this.


    "We will be landing momentarily," Piras Long said camly, "See to it that the shadow lord knows of this."


    "He probably already knows," Maxine replied and she tugged on the veil, "By the way, is it really necessary for me to wear this thing?"


    "Very," Piras Long replied, "There are various beastkin males attending the academy that have difficulty controlling themselves. It''s best not to tempt them." So in other words, I''m being punished because a bunch of idiots can''t control themselves.


    "In that case, I better change into something less flattering," Maxine said since she was wearing another green dress.


    "That would be best," Piras Long said as Maxine ran back into the room.


    "Oh and by the way, I have this thing about men touching me. If they are to carelessly touch me, they may end up loosing a hand," Maxine said calmly, "I would appreciate it if you sent out word of this ahead of time. I don''t want anyone to complain that they hadn''t been warned."


    "I will have the captain forward it," Piras Long said calmly.


    "Thanks," Maxine said before closing the door to get changed into her training clothes and after she finished changing, she felt the slightest tremor of the ship entering an atmosphere. When she opened the door, Piras Long as still out there waiting for her.


    "Now that you''re ready, the both of you should head to the airlock," Piras Long said, "We are about to land. I will join you in a few moments."


    "Alright," Maxine said as she started walking to the airlock and Turan phased into existence behind her, "How long have you been there?"


    "The whole time you two were talking," Turan answered.


    "You do realize how much you sound like a creepy stalker, right?" Maxine asked.


    "Forgive me, but I was under the impression that I was performing the shadow elf courting ritual properly," Turan said in an apologetic tone. If that''s how they look for love, they are doing it in a very messed up way.


    "I don''t know about that, but where I was raised, they courted each other by singing ballads, reciting poems, giving gifts to each other and most importantly, spending time with each other," Maxine retorted.


    "Fascinating. Did you happen to be near a human city?" Turan asked.


    "Close enough. Why?" Maxine asked. Technically, I lived in the suburbs of a human city, but I''m not lying.


    "That explains it then," Turan replied, "It''s not uncommon for villages near human cities to adapt some of the human''s culture into their own. I just didn''t consider that you would adopt the human''s courting rituals as your own."


    "Whatever you say," Maxine said and Piras Long gave them both a wierd look as she walked up to them.


    "Stop the chatter. We are landing," Piras Long said just before Maxine felt a small impact through her feet, "Once we land, I will take you straight to the illusion array where your martial skills will be tested. I recommend that you don''t go all out in it because the rest of the students will be observing you."


    "I wasn''t going to," Maxine said.


    "Good," Piras Long said as the outer hatch opened up and she walked out. Maxine followed behind her and paused for a moment as she took stock of her surroundings. She immediately saw the formation array just outside of the academy walls with what looked like a holographic monitor above it. There was a list of names with numbers beside them, which she guessed was a ranking board of some kind, but she didn''t know how they kept score.


    The academy itself was rather bland. The metallic walls were easily three hundred feet tall and extended several miles in either direction. She didn''t see any defensive emplacements, but that didn''t mean there weren''t any. The gate leading into the academy was made of a bronze-like metal and was big enough to allow her full hydra form to fit through.


    She looked around for any students, but didn''t see any. She found that odd, but as soon as she started to approach the formation array, the large bronze doors opened up. Beastkin of every shape and size started to walk out in groups of three. Oddly enough, she only saw one group of humans exit the academy. They were all watching her as she followed Piras Long to the formation array.


    "Defeat as many enemies as you can inside the illusion array. Try to get a high score. The higher your score, the more resources the academy will spare for your cultivation," Piras Long explained.


    "One question: Can I have my constructs appear in it? Or will this test be based solely on my personal combat ability?" Maxine asked. She hadn''t found any reference material that stated that clearly.


    "It''s a test of your personal combat ability. Constructs are not allowed in it," Piras Long replied.


    "This should be fun," Maxine said with a smile just before she walked onto the illusion array.


    Instantly, a heavy mist appeared all around her and she had to walk a short distance before entering a place where there was no mist. In it, there were half a dozen shadowy figures infront of her with peak silver stage cultivation. They were just standing there waiting for her to make the first move. She withdrew her twighlight iron blades from her dimensional ring and hesitated for a moment before charging at the shadowy figures.

 Chapter 146

    Maxine slashed out with her blades at the shadowy figures and to her surprise, she was able to cleave four of them in half together. Those things barely even put up any defenses at all. It''s like I''m fighting complete novices. They just froze when I charged at them and didn''t even try to block my attack. Only after the shadowy figures that she cut down disapated into air did the other shadowy figures attack her. However their attacks were clumbsy and awkward. She found little difficulty dodging them and cutting the rest of them down.


    Another six shadowy figures appeared ten feet away from her, and she charged at this group as well. Unlike the last group, the one she first attacked managed to block the attack, but due to her much greater strength, she still managed to cleave him in two. Like the last group, she was able to quickly dispatch them with little effort. The only difference was that their higher skill levels made it take her longer to kill them all. Hmm, that batch felt like fighters that had seen some combat, but not much.


    Another batch of shadowy figures appeared, but this time there were seven of them. Maxine charged at them, but with the exception of the one Maxine charged at, the rest scattered. And the ones that scattered were moving to surround her. She knew what they were going to do. So, she quickly prepared a Crescent Moon Blitz, but altered it sightly.


    At the moment that she was about to strike the shadowy figure infront of her, the rest of them rushed at Maxine from every direction. She smiled and struck down to her side. Her attack rapidly spun around her in a move that was both defensive and offensive as it cut all of the shadowy figures to pieces. Well, it''s not like Bladestorm is a rare technique. I doubt there is a sword or blade user that doesn''t have this move in their repitour. Regardless, these illusionary opponents are starting to use teamwork. This will make this more challenging.


    When the next group spawned, there were eight of them and they charged at her rather than wait for her to attack. She slashed at them, but instead of cleaving one of them in half, three of them worked together to block her attack. Meanwhile the other five attacked her from the sides. She slashed at them as she retreated, but they didn''t follow. They split into groups of four and attacked her from the left and right.


    It was getting increasingly difficult to defend and attack at the same time, but she didn''t let up. She had discovered that she had many wasted movements while she defended and was striving to eliminate these wasted movements as she fought. As she did that, it became easier for her to fight these illusionary opponents.


    Once she had gotten all she could out of them, she slashed out viciously with the intent to cut them all in half. Blade ki coated her weapon and she managed to cut through three of them more easily than a hot knife through butter. Again, the blade ki comes out when onlyI want to cut them down strongly enough. Hmm, perhaps it''s linked to the intensity of my intent. Let''s see if I''m right.


    She infused her intent to cut through the shadowy figures as she slashed out, but her weapon didn''t become coated in blade ki. Her attack was easily blocked by three of them working together again while the other two pressed the attack. Shit, I''m still missing something. She quickly deflected their attacks before retaliating. What am I missing? It has to be something important.


    Suddenly, an image of Lanitherin''s blade ki flashed in her mind. Every time he held a blade, it looked so right in his hand. It was as if his blade was a part of him. She comprehended what she was missing. I''m my blades and my blades are me. And without them, I''m incomplete.


    Blade ki rapidly formed on her blades without her realizing it and her attacks cleaved through the shadowy figures along with their weapons. The resistance she felt as her blades cut through them was so slight that it was almost as if they weren''t even there. She quickly began dispatching the rest of them by cleaving both them and their weapons in half. Well, it''s too easy now. I have a feeling something brutal will be happening after this round and I don''t care. Bring it on!


    And just as she finished the last shadowy figure, her surroundings twisted into a grassy field with a dense forest infront of her. This place looks familiar. She felt a shiver of recognition as she heard people screaming from behind her and the roars of various beasts infront of her. She swiftly turned her head and saw the caravan of refugees that she saved in her past life at the cost of her own. She also saw half of the other caravan guards directly behind her to buy the caravan time to flee. No, please not this. I don''t want to relive my death. But when she saw the fearful faces of the children amongst the fleeing refugees once again, she turned around with a determined gaze. I know this is an illusion, but I can''t stand the thought of those children dying. Anyways, I think this is nothing more than a stamina management test. Afterall, a skilled warrior should know how to use minimal effort to defeat their enemies during large scale battles.


    Regardless, she didn''t have time to contemplate as a hoard of beasts breached the treeline. She unleashed a crescent moon blitz and was slightly surprised when she noticed that blade energy coated each one of the tiny crescent moon blades that made up the attack. She put it out of her mind and only took note of how much more powerful the attack was with blade energy mixed into it. It had double the destructive power as before as it managed to turn over one hundred beasts into bloody pulpe rather than the fifty she was expecting. And there were many more that were wounded. Hmm, it''s more energy efficient than killing them one at a time with my blades. I might as well spam that attack until they get too close to use it.


    She was quickly able to dispatch the first wave, which was composed mostly of copper and bronze stage beasts. But the second wave was completely comprised of bronze stage beasts and she had a great deal of difficulty killing them before they reached her simply because they were more durable.


    At this point, Maxine''s reserves were at a little more than half. She just hoped that the next wave included the boss of this hoard. Otherwise, she would run out of strength before she could deal with it.


    Thankfully, she spotted a silver terror bear was leading the charge of this wave. I take him out swiftly and that should cause the rest of thise hoard to disperse. But since this is an illusion it might not follow that line of reasoning, so I should be prepared to wipe out the rest of them. As an after thought, she glanced back and saw that most of the other warriors that had stood with her had already fled. Figures. They probably abandoned me before, but I was too preoccupied to notice.


    Without wasting anymore time, she rushed at the silver terror bear and plowed through the beasts in her path. When she was only a dozen feet away, it swung out with it''s left paw pre-emptively. Maxine couldn''t stop or change directions at this range and speed. So, she leaned back and slid beneith the strike. She slashed the silver terror bear''s armpit as she slid past it. Blood sprayed out of the wound violently. I must have sliced an artery for it''s blood to flow so freely. It shouldn''t be able to move that fast either with a wound like that. I might as well start slaughtering it''s minions wihle it bleeds to death.


    Maxine got back to her feet mid-slide and started cutting through bronze stage beasts as she distanced herself from the now enraged silver terror bear. Blood loss would begin to effect it in a minute or two with how much blood it was loosing and in five minutes, it would quite possibly be dead.


    Unfortunately, the beasts around her were slowing her down enough for the silver terror bear to catch up to her. It tried to bite her in half, but she spun around before dodging narrowly to the side. As she stepped forward to stand beside it''s head, she cut it''s throat out in one fluid motion before it could even react. Stupid beast was asking for it. I''m just happy I''m fast enough and have a good enough weapon to pull something like this off.


    Maxine jumps back and starts to dance around the dying terror bear while slashing at any of the weaker beasts that attempt to get any closer. It only takes a handful of seconds for the silver terror bear to die from bloodloss. Unfortunately, the beasts surrounding her do not scatter. Instead, all of them charge straight at her. Should''ve known that they wouldn''t scatter. I can''t really expect a perfect simulation of a battle against beasts.


    Maxine unleashed a bladestorm the instant the beasts were about to reach her and began slaughtering them with terrifying efficiency. She slashed out with just enough force to end each beast respectively. She couldn''t risk wasting any of her strength. Otherwise she would run out of strength before she could defeat them all.


    When she struck down the last beast, she used her blades to help her remain standing as she panted heavily. She knew she couldn''t recover much before the next round, but she rested anyways. However the scenery didn''t change and that worried her. She looked around for a few moments and finally heard something charging at her form the forest. She couldn''t identify it by the sounds it was making or by the rhythm of it''s steps. It almost sounded like a large crab, but considering where she was she didn''t believe that was a possibility.


    She faced the direction it was coming from and paused for an instant in shock when she saw it. It wasn''t a beast, but a shadow demon. It''s entire body was covered in a construct, except for it''s blood red eyes that were quite visible. The construct it formed around itself walked on crab-like legs and it''s upper body was covered with wiggling tentacles lined with various bony barbs. The only thing in Maxine''s favor was that it only had one core. Thus she had it beat when it came to endurance. What kind of fucked up, Cthulhu-inspired nightmare is this?


    "He''s mine! You can''t have him!" a crazed voice screamed psychotically, "HE''S MINE!" That''s odd. The other illusionary beings didn''t speak, but this definitely fits in with a shadow demon. And she''s a yandere-type shadow demon that thinks I''m after her ''man.'' God, I hate having to fight the crazies. They''re unpredictable.


    The shadow demon didn''t waste any time after screaming at Maxine before charging, but she stopped over a dozen feet away. It confused Maxine until she saw the tentacles that made up most of it''s upper body elongate and start flailing at her. Oh, shit!


    Maxine immediately started dodging for her life, but she was still getting minor wounds all over. There were just too many bladed tentacles and what made it worse is that there was no strategy behind it. The attack pattern was completely random and the attacks came from every which angle. She could deal with that many attacks if there was a pattern or a plan behind them, but not against this.


    Maxine started cutting the tentacles off, but they grew back as fast as she dismembered them. And whenever she tried blocking an attack, the force behind it knocked her off balance for a fraction of a second, which earned her a few extra small wounds. This is ridiculous. Out of pure frustration, she unleashed a bladestorm and created a mist around herself. She created nine coreless shadow clones within that mist to help her fight this female shadow demon. She rapidly retreated while her shadow clones to distracted the shadow demon.


    She quickly switched out her blades for her bow and started forming an arrow with most of the energies she had left. A one-shot kill was her only chance at beating this thing. However her shadow clones were taking heavy losses. During her retreat, three of them had been destroyed in a puff of greyish mist. The remaining six were quickly being picked off one at a time.


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    She still had two clones up when she finished charging up the arrow and took aim. She guessed the location of the female shadow demon''s heart by both the size of her eyes and their position on the massive construct. She released her arrow at the same moment that her last shadow clone was destroyed.


    She watched the arrow fly almost as if it was in slow motion, but so did the shadow demon. The shadow demon moved it''s tentacles in the way while trying to shift it''s body out of the way. Unfortunately for it, it was moving far too slowly to avoid getting hit. At the moment of impact, a small greyish cloud exploded from the shadow demon, obscuring Maxine''s vision. But she was certain that it hit close enough to the female shadow demon''s heart to kill her.


    Unfortunately when the cloud dispersed, she found that the arrow had missed it''s mark by quite a bit. The arrow hit the shoulder rather than the heart. How did she pull that off? She must''ve shifted her tentacles at the last moment to divert the trajectory of the arrow just far enough from her heat to survive the attack. She''s smarter than ... Orianna?! Maxine couldn''t believe her eyes. Her attack had revealed the face of the shadow demon she had been fighting and it looked like it was Orianna in shadow elf form. The only difference she could see was that her hair was brown instead of black. However it was still quite obviously her sister.


    Seeing Orianna in this situation had stunned Maxine to such a degree that she dropped her bow and fell to her knees. "Sister?!" Maxine exclaimed in shock, and tried to snap herself out of it. This is an illusion. This IS an Illusion, right?


    Orianna approached Maxine with a gaze twisted into hate and approached slowly. A single tentacle wrapped around Maxine''s neck and lifted her up so she could look into her eyes. "I have no sister," Orianna growled and it finally dawned on Maxine. That''s right. The original Maxine didn''t have any siblings.


    "Yes, you do," Maxine asserted while gathering her courage to do what needed to be done, "And I love you enough to free you from your madness. Forgive me." She pulled one of her twilight iron blades into her right hand from her dimensional ring and thrust it swiftly into the illusionary Orianna''s essence core. For an moment, illusionary Orianna did nothing, but when she looked down at the blade sticking out of her chest, the construct she built around herself dispersed.


    Maxine returned her blade to her dimensional ring and caught Illusionary Orianna before she could hit the ground. The construct had concealed the fact that Orianna was naked, but Maxine didn''t care about that. With her core shattered, she wouldn''t last more than a handful of seconds, a minute at most, and illusion or not, she was going to stay with her sister until she passed. Illusionary Orianna''s eyes looked at Maxine for the first time since their encounter started without madness. It looked like she wanted to say something, but she scattered into motes of light before she could.


    Maxine felt a deep twisting pain within her, but she held it in. She had to keep chanting the words ''that was an illusion'' repeatedly in her head in an attempt to rein in her emotions, but it didn''t matter how much she chanted those four words. Her grief was winning that battle. She silently wished something would attack her, so she wouldn''t have to face this pain. But nothing came.


    She could no longer contain it and tilted her head back before she howled in pain and anguish. Suddenly she was pulled up onto her feet and pulled into an embrace. She buried her face into that person''s shoulder and cried in earnest.


    "It''s alright. It was just an illusion," she heard Turan say as he stroked the back of her head, "You didn''t kill your sister." I know that you idiot. Her sudden burst of anger helped her regain her sense and she realized something alarming.


    "You saw?" Maxine asked hoarsely.


    "We saw blurred shapes fighting one another, but I knew which one was you. However when you called out for your sister, I couldn''t believe my ears," Turan answered calmly while trying to comfort Maxine, "I didn''t know she had fallen to madness and became a shadow demon. Now I understand why you don''t want to remember your past."


    "Maxine, I''m very sorry. I tried to have the illusion array eject you when I realized what was going on, but it wasn''t responding," Piras Long apologized, "The illusion array shouldn''t have recreated your sister like that. In fact, it was set up specifically to avoid that kind of scenario. What it should''ve done is recreat one of the toughest fights of your life and adjusted the difficulty accordingly. It shouldn''t have generated an illusion so traumatic. The only way you should''ve been put through that was if someone tampered with it and ... Oh, no. Don''t tell me you were forced to fight and kill your own sister?!" Wait, what?! When did I fight Orianna? I don''t remember that! Or is this just some sort of twisted mind game someone put into the illusion array? But it''s unlikely that they know who I am. It''s possibly whoever tampered with this illusion array, keyed it to the shadow element and had the scenario to force that person to fight a close relative as one of the later opponents. My subconscious did the rest of the work for the array. That would be at the very limit of a mid-tier array master. Afterall, illusion arrays were originally meant to fuck with the mind of whoever walked into it in one way or another. Still, I better talk to daddy later if I can to see if we ever fought. Although I really doubt I would forget such a thing. "


    I didn''t know I had a sister before today," Maxine said weakly as she pushed Turan away.


    "She has amnesia," Turan said before Piras Long could ask any questions, "But I can see why she would suppress that particular memory, even if she didn''t. No normal being would want to remember such a thing."


    Piras Long as well as almost everyone nearby was giving Maxine a look of either sympathy or horror. However there was one exception and he was calm. It was a middle aged man wearing a golden Alchemist''s Union badge at his hip and he wasn''t there before she had entered the illusion array. I bet he is just dancing for joy inside his head. After what I just went through, my mental state is a mess and I''m in horrible condition to perform alchemy. He knows it too. He might even have had a hand in altering that illusion array. In fact, I''m almost certain he did. The Kelborne clan is not likely to pull something like this. The risk that I would remotely set off my construct wrapped around Brant Kelborne''s heart by accident is way too high if I were to become mentally or emotionally unstable.


    "Maxine is not in any condition to perform alchemy at the moment," Turan stated, "I request that you hold off on your test until tomorrow."


    "Denied," the alchemist said coldly, "The rules of the Stardust Academy state that all students must be tested at the time of their arrival, regardless of their mental state."


    "I doubt the headmaster will agree with you and I doubt that was alchemy was intended to be included in that since it is an optional course, Alchemist Rhodes. And it couldn''t be more clear that the illusion array was tampered with," Piras Long chimed in, "Even you can see that."


    "But the headmaster isn''t here and I am. And I say she takes the test now," Alchemist Rhodes said with a confident smile and he shifts his gaze to Maxine, "Bring out your alchemy cauldron and your ingredients. You did prepare them, right?" Yep, he definitely had a hand in it. Fucking asshole.


    "Cauldron? Why would I need one of those things?" Maxine asked in confusion.


    "Alchemy cauldrons are a necessary device when performing alchemy," Alchemist Rhodes said condescendingly, "Even the lowliest apprentice knows this."


    "But I''ve never needed to use one," Maxine responded in a tone far more calm than she felt as she withdrew a purple snake fruit, a few mililiters of hive honey and a few other auxillary medicinal ingredients and had them hover infront of her.


    "You''re just as prideful as your master. Just make the potion, so I can go back to more important things," Alchemist Rhodes said with a smile that said that he didn''t think she could make anything, "By the way, what potion are you attempting to make? I know it''s a healing potion based on your auxillary herbs, but I don''t recognize the main ingredient." The fucker didn''t even bother taking me to a private room away from the irratating stares of my fellow students. He''s really trying to make this as hard as possible.


    Maxine extended out threads of her white and black energies towards the herbs as she answered, "My own creation. I haven''t named it just yet, but it is a specialized healing potion meant for snake-type beasts or those that carry their bloodlines. It can induce regeneration at a speed visible to the naked eye mere moments after consumption." She rapidly coated all of parts of her herbs that she could use with the white portion of her energies while the black energies completely obliterated everything else. Shit, I messed up and took out more than just a bit of useless fiber. I wouldn''t have made a mistake like that were I calm. Thankfully, a small mistake like that won''t ruin the potion. If I hadn''t made a few dozen of these things before my trip here this would be extremely hard. Thankfully he didn''t insist that I make a pill. It didn''t end too well the last time I tried to make a pill. At least, I have a couple thousand purple snake fruit. I still can''t believe my fans donated so many.


    "That would be amazing, if it works," Alchemist Rhodes said, but she saw him gaze on with confusion at her refinement method. Ignore him and concentrate.


    Maxine formed a small flame and began to grill the medicinal components into a liquid state as she brought them together into a purple orb. She carefully controlled the temperature as she folded the orb of medicinal components into itself. This medicinal solution rapidly shrank as the remaining impurities were grilled away while preserving the medicinal elements.


    Once she was certain that she removed all of the impurities that she could, Maxine produced a vial and placed the finished potion into it. The color of the solution was lavender, but that was a sign that she had produced a high quality version of her healing potion. "There finished," Maxine said.


    "Impressive display, but how effective is this potion really?" Alchemist Rhodes said and Maxine felt him use his spiritual sense to send a message, "We have an injured gorgon at the academy''s medical center. We will test the effectiveness of your potion on her. I will take the three of you there." He waved his hand and Maxine felt his energies pick her up off of the ground. She noticed Piras Long and Turan were also being carried by him as well.


    Alchemist Rhodes bolted through the academy gates with the three of them in tow. Is he trying to show off his power? Why? He''s an alchemist. His pride should be in his skill, not his power and I could probably fight with him evenly at this point. He isn''t even a the peak of gold stage. Still, this patient is a welcome distraction. I really don''t want to think about what happened in that illusion array.


    She put up with the rather slow speed as they moved through the academy and reached the medical center. It was an ugly square shaped building whose only decloration was the sign indicating that it was the Stardust Academy''s medical center.


    He set the three of them down and didn''t even give them a moment to collect themselves before walking into the medical center. Maxine chased after him and saw him waiting impatiently infront of an opend doorway down the central hallway. "She''s in there," Alchemist Rhodes said as he gestured into the room.


    Inside, Maxine saw her patient on a rather impressive medical bed. It had a built in sensor array that was constantly taking measurements of her vitals. That is a nifty piece of technology. They must''ve acquired it from the Technological Union.


    However, the gorgon''s wounds were horrible. She was covered in bloody bandages and half of her serpent hair was cut off. She could only imagine the amount of pain the poor woman was in. "Why hasn''t she been treated by the healers yet?!" Maxine demanded as she rushed to the gorgon''s side and swiftly fed the potion to the gorgon.


    "The healers have already seen to her and said she would recover on her own," Alchemist Rhodes said indifferently and Maxine whipped her head around to glare at him hatefully.


    "Perhaps. But she would be left with horrible scarring," Maxine said angrily, "You may not care how you look, but to girls, our appearance is very important."


    Alchemist Rhodes opened his mouth to retort, but no words left his lips. His jaw simply hanged open as his eyes were glued to the young gorgon Maxine was standing over. She shifted her gaze to the gorgon and saw that her serpents that made up her hair were regenerating at a visible speed. Gorgons don''t possess the ability to regenerate lost body parts. It must be a special effect of my potion. Still, it''s healing far more of her injuries than I expected it to, but still not the the extent that it would on myself. Still at her current rate of regeneration, the potion should wear off in another two minutes and it will take at least another dose, possibly two, for her to fully heal. And it can''t be given to her today. She may be silver stage, but her body can only handle so much in one day. I''ll come back tomorrow. The only reason I''m able to take more than one is due to my sturdier biology.


    "As you can clearly see, my healing potion is quite effective and that I''ve clearly passed your test. Now, what do you think my alchemist rank is?" Maxine asked.


    "I will need to confer with my fellows," Alchemist Rhodes said with an awed tone before he turned to leave.


    Maxine turned to Piras Long and decided to change the subject by asking, "How did I do on the martial skill exam?"


    "We can talk about that later," Piras Long said, "First, you need to talk to a mind mender and afterwards, we will find your instructor."


    "Yes, I should," Maxine agreed swiftly and Piras Long led Maxine to a different area of the medical center as a thought occured to her, "Is it possible to talk with someone I''m familiar with?"

 Chapter 147

    Maxine sat down in a chair within a shielded room. This room had a very special communicator that used quantum entanglement to ensure it was completely secure. She had no idea how it worked, but Piras Long assured her that it was impossible for anyone to listen in. Her only complaint was that it had barely enough room for a seat and the screen of the communicator. Still, she kept her complaints to herself since this was the only means to contact Madam Neshan and have a private talk. It was very important to her since Madam Neshan was the only one that Maxine was comfortable enough to talk to about this.


    She used her spiritual sense to look for any gaps in the shielding or any listening devices. Even though this room was supposed to be entirely private, it was still possible that someone could''ve bugged it either by bribing or sneaking past the attending elder. To her relief, she didn''t find anything and released a sigh of relief before looking up Madamn Neshan''s information up on the terminal. It took only a few moments for her to answer.


    Just as Madam Neshan''s face appeared on the terminal, she spoke cheerfully, "It''s so good to see you, Maxine. I never believed for a moment that you had died."


    "What made you come to that conclusion?" Maxine asked.


    "Woman''s intuition, child," Madam Neshan said calmly, "Mine just happens to be more accurate than others, but I doubt you called me just to talk about your survival. Tell me why you really called me."


    Maxine swiftly described what happened to her in the illusion array and had to stop a few times to keep herself from crying. Madam Neshan look furious. "That''s horrible," Madam Neshan said sympathetically, "I understand entirely why you contacted me, but there is no need to worry. Your sister is completely fine. In fact, she is going to an academy along with young Maxwell."


    "That''s great. It will be a good experience for her," Maxine said while feeling slightly better, "By the way, which academy are they going to?"


    "Didn''t Guan tell you?" Madam Neshan asked in surprise, "They are going to the Stardust Academy. They should be there in another week." Of course, they are coming here. Why would daddy send his son-in-law to a different school when the blademaster of his choice is already here?


    "He didn''t say anything about it to me," Maxine said, "But I imagine my teacher will know more of the details."


    "That he should. Regardless, it will do you some good to have Orianna near you. Her presence will be a constant reminder that what you experienced was nothing more than an illusion," Madam Neshan said kindly.


    "You''re right about that, but just hearing you tell me that she''s alright is helping," Maxine agreed, "By the way, what kind of weapon did my sister decide on using?"


    "She didn''t choose one at all. Every time she picked a weapon up, it reminded her of the monster that she used to be. It caused her too much pain," Madam Neshan explained, "Hence, she took a gentler path, one of music. She became quite skilled with a flute and has mastered a special song to make others cease to see her or anyone else that she doesn''t want them to see. And she''s beginning to master a tune that will render all who hear it into a deep slumber." I never thought Orianna would take that path, but it''s for the best. I much rather she take this gentler path. .


    "That''s great and I understand entirely why she would focus on that rather than fighting," Maxine said happily.


    "So was her husband," Madam Neshan said with a smile, "It''s a shame that you missed their wedding. Your grandmother did a remarkable job of planning it. Although, she was not pleased that Orianna insisted that it be held on Earth. She wanted it held in your ancestral home."


    "I bet she did," Maxine chuckled as she imagined the fuss that her grandmother Claudia caused over that, "She didn''t even like it whenever I left the city for any reason."


    "She may not have liked it, but she still let you from time to time," Madam Neshan said confidently, "She understood that you needed some freedom. She felt that if she kept you locked up in the mansion all the time that she might loose you like she lost your mother."


    "I knew she was afraid of loosing me. It''s why I tolerated my three bodyguard," Maxine said.


    "And she was grateful for it," Madam Neshan said, but she suddenly changed the subject, "Have you cried yet? If you have, it wasn''t nearly enough. I can tell that you still have a lot of emotion that needs to be released. Perhaps you could cry on Turan''s shoulder again."


    "I rather not give him the wrong idea," Maxine said firmly, "Anyways, I have a feeling that my new teacher will be putting me under some rough training exercises."


    "Physical activity does help relieve emotional stress, but it''s better if you cry to release those emotions," Madam Neshan said as she glanced down at something, "I seem to have someone else in need of my counsel. Is it alright if we end it here for today?"


    "Yes, go ahead. I feel a little better than before," Maxine said, "Take care."


    "I will," Madam Neshan said as the communication device turned itself off.


    Maxine sat there for a few more moments before exiting the shielded booth. However she didn''t see Piras Long anywhere. Instead, she saw a blindfolded gorgon and that gorgon walked up to Maxine before bowing. "Thank you for treating my little sister," the young gorgon said gratefully, "But she needs more of that potion you gave her. Please, I don''t care what it costs. Just please, give her another one." She was moved at the young gorgon''s dedication as a big sister.


    "I agree. She does need more, but not today," Maxine said as she walked up and gently placed her hand on the gorgon''s shoulder, "I was worried that she wouldn''t be able to survive a second dose. Rapid healing in it''s own way puts a lot of stress on the body and she needs at least a full day to recover from that stress. I should have the potion ready by then. And don''t worry about paying me. I wasn''t expecting to get paid for it anyways."


    "Thank you," the young gorgon said with gratefully as she straighten up and hugged Maxine.


    "It''s alright," Maxine said comfortingly as she hugged the gorgon back, "What''s your name?"


    "Ismena," the gorgon said as she retreated out of the hug. Maxine saw wet marks from Ismena''s tears on the blindfold.


    "Alright, Ismena," Maxine said, "Do you know where Piras Long went to?"


    "Oh, um, I believe she went to one of her classes. She said something about your teacher coming to get you in a little bit," Ismena said.


    "She could''ve warned me that she needed to go to class before I went in there," Maxine complained, "Anyways, do you know anything about my blade instructor? His name is Horatio Quay." Ismena immediately retreated a few steps fearfully.


    "He''s your teacher?!" Ismena asked in a horrified tone, "Don''t you know how cruel his teaching methods are?"


    "And those are?" Maxine asked.


    "It''s said that he throws his students into illusion arrays that makes them face nightmarish scenarios," Ismena answers, "He says its to help them improve as a blademaster."


    "What?!" Maxine asked as her anger instantly inflamed. He''s the one who put me through that bullshit!? I''ll castrate that fucker with a DAMN SPOON!


    "You can try," a man''s voice said from the side. She looked and saw a grizzled man with a trimmed beard wearing a grey yukata. She sensed that he had a cultivation of gold stage rank one, but blade energy seemed to dance in his eyes. She knew that meant he had a high degree of mastery over blade energy, but even with that knowledge, she had to restrain the urge to attack with everything she had.


    "Master Quay," Ismena sqeaked and she turned to Maxine, "Thank you again, but I should really get going." She didn''t even give Maxine an opportunity to reply before she fled.


    "How did you know what I was thinking?" Maxine asked Horatio Quay.


    "They very way you move and breath speaks volumes of how much you want to hurt me and I''m fine with that. After what I did to the illusion array, you have every reason to be angry with me," Horatio Quay replied calmly.


    "You''re damn right I do," Maxine growled angrily. Okay, resist the urge to kill him. He''s supposed to be your teacher. After you learn what you can, then you can kill the fucker.


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "And I hope that you will understand in time that it was necessary," Horatio Quay said.


    "And how was forcing me to kill my sister in an illusion necessary?!" Maxine yelled.


    "You didn''t kill her. You freed her illusion from madness," Horatio Quay calmly corrected, "Yes, she died as a result, but for a blessed handful of moments, she was free from her madness. You also gave her comfort and kindness in the few moments she had left. You would be surprised how many promising young warriors come to me hoping that I will teach them only to be lacking in some regard. They either ruthlessly cut down their loved ones without a second thought, have a mental breakdown after killing them or they can''t bring themselves to do it."


    "Why?" Maxine asked, "Why do you put your students through that?"


    "My reasons are my own," Horatio Quay answered, "And your master is well aware of my methods, so don''t bother complaining to him. He seemed quite confident that you could handle anything I threw at you."


    "I would''ve still prefered a warning," Maxine said angrily.


    "Your enemies won''t give you any warning, so why should I?" Horatio Quay asked rhetorically before he turned around, "Now follow me. I will show you to where you will be staying."


    "You''re still an asshole," Maxine said.


    "I may be an asshole, but I''m your teacher. So I expect you to mind your language and if you don''t, I may just make your training schedule harsher than I already plan to," Horatio Quay said as he turned to look at her with a vicious smile. That shouldn''t be too hard. I just have to remember my time at the Kavros clan.


    They walked out of the academy''s hospital and headed towards the east. Why are we walking instead of flying? Does he had a reason to take things this slowly? Maybe the dorms are nearby.


    After several minutes, Horatio Quay suddenly burst with movement as he drew his blade and did a backhanded strike at her waist. She reacted reflexively by quickly leaping back and leaning backwards to avoid the blow as much as possible. When he changed the course of his slashe into an overhand strike mid-swing, she retrieved one of her blades from her dimensional ring and barely managed to deflect the blow by holding her blade at an angle with her other hand at the tip.


    Maxine promptly landed on her back and rolled backwards back onto her feet in a combat stance as she retrieved her other blade. Horatio Quay simply returned his blade back to his sheath with a smile on his lips. She noticed that his blade was dull and would''ve at most left a very painful bruise had he actually hit her.


    "Excellent reflexes and I''m pleased to see that you didn''t drop your guard in a place that is supposed to be safe," Horatio Quay praised Maxine.


    "I learned the hard way to always keep my guard up," Maxine said angrily without dropping her combat stance,.


    "What happened?" Horatio Quay asked.


    "A beating from someone far stronger than I am," Maxine answered, "And probably would''ve cost me my life and the lives of two children, if I hadn''t thought quickly on my feet."


    "Good, at least I don''t have to teach you what dropping your guard will cost you," Horatio Quay said, "Quite a few of my potential students dropped their guards when they felt safe. They never could understand the need to be ready for an attack at all times."


    "How many students have actually accepted and taught?" Maxine asked skeptically.


    "Six. Five of which became great warriors," Horatio Quay said proudly, "But one of them became the wife of a clan leader. It pained me when I heard that she was killed, but she lost her mind after her eldest son died. I don''t fault her killer for their actions. They were protecting an innocent whom had nothing to do with her son''s murder. Although from what I''ve been told, her son was no saint and deserved his fate."


    "What did he do exactly?" Maxine asked out of curiosity.


    "Acts of rape, murder and theft too numberous to count," Horatio Quay answered, "My foolish disciple didn''t correct or stop her son''s behavior and his weak-willed father let it happen. Complete foolishness. Still, he loved his wife and I can only pity him."


    "I see," Maxine said to herself. So that''s why he keeps talking about the will to act and why he pulled that bullshit. It still doesn''t excuse his bullshit.


    "Now, before we continue, transform into your ''battle'' form," Horatio Quay ordered and added once he saw Maxine wasn''t going to transform, "I''ve been led to understand that you have a hard time controlling yourself after being in it for more than a few days and I''ve talked about this particular issue with other teachers with equally berserk transformations. They explained that they gained mastery of their beastly transformations by maintaining their battle form for long periods of time. I don''t care how ugly or distasteful it makes you look. This is for your benefit. Now, transform." I can''t think of a reason to tell him to fuck off when he puts it so logically.


    Maxine shrugged before she transformed into her battle form and became uncomfortable when Horatio Quay started walking around as he examined her. "Are all of your claws envenomed?" he asked.


    "That''s right, but be warned, there''s no antidote for my venom," Maxine stated, "It''s another reason why I avoid using this form for long periods of time. It''s just too dangerous for other people. Also my quills are also envenomed."


    "There may be an antidote for your venom, but I''m not sure how willing anyone will be to try it," Horatio Quay said offhandedly, "Some creatures with toxic blood with venom glands secrete the anti-toxins to their venom into their urinary tract. So, it''s possible that the antidote to your venom could also exist in your urine. Although as far as I know, it hasn''t been proven in the case of hydras."


    "So, someone would have to drink my ''urine'' if they wanted the antidote?" Maxine asked in amusement. He has to be joking. Guan''s notes mentioned that, but those anti-toxins are no where near as effective as the antidotes for the venoms.


    "Like I said, it hasn''t been proven in hydras, but it is a distinct possibility," Horatio Quay answered just before he began hovering off the ground, "Enough of that. I will show you where you will be staing now. No more tricks or tests for today." Maxine followed him behind him as he flew to the north, but never once dropped her guard. She saw a small approving smile when Horatio Quay turned his head slightly to look at her.


    It took a couple minutes before she saw their destination. A six acre grassy field with a pair of small houses that had a training field adjacent to them. They landed infront of the larger of the two houses.


    "You will be staying in the other structure and will arrive at the training field at dawn. There we will train with the blade until high noon. After that, you are free to do whatever it is you wish for the remainder of the day so long as you finish your daily tasks. I suggest that you improve your alchemical skills. A secondary skill such as that is quite useful," Horatio Quay said as he turned and tossed Maxine something. She saw what it was before she caught it.


    "How long have you had this alchemist badge?" Maxine asked as she held up a gold alchemist badge with her name inscribed on it.


    "I ran into Alchemist Rhodes on the way to get you. He handed it to me before running off to complete an order," Horatio Quay replied, "Now go to your quarters. I havn''t been over there in some time, so I Imagine it''s in dire need of cleaning." And with that, Horatio Quay walked into his dwelling and left her to clean up the one he just gave her.


    Maxine walked over to the smaller house while feeling dread over how dusty it would be. As soon as she opened the door, she audibly sighed. It wasn''t as bad as she thought it would be. It was worse. Cobwebs were hanging from the ceiling and the sparse furniture was covered in dust and what she hoped wasn''t rat droppings. The thick layer of dust on the floors was horrible as well. If she didn''t use her energies, this would take her the rest of the day and most of the evening to clean just one room.


    But just as she mobilized her energies, Horatio Quay told her via spiritual sense, "Clean with just your physical abilities." She was going to curse at him, but he severed the connection before she could. That asshole. How the hell am I supposed to clean this quickly without using my energies? Hell I don''t even see a fucking broom.


    It took her a few minutes of searching to find the broom closet and pulled out a broom, bucket and mop. As she was removing the cobwebs with the broom, she heard someone knock on the door. She used her spiritual sense to see that it was Turan. Unless he''s here to help, I don''t want to see him. Still, I should at least try to be nice to him since he tried to comfort me earlier.


    "Come in," Maxine shouted to Turan while she continued to clean.


    "Are you ...," Turan paused as he saw the quills sticking out her head instead of hair, but he quickly continued his question, "alright?"


    "I''ll live," Maxine answered, "And I prefer it if you didn''t gawk at me. It''s one of the reasons why I normally don''t retain my natural state." No need to be completely truthful with him.


    "Sorry," Turan apologized, "It''s just that I''ve never seen you like this."


    "I know, but I still don''t like you staring at me," Maxine replied as she set the broom down and pulled out some rags to knock the dust off all the countertops and furniture, "But the other more important reason that I don''t usually use my natural state is because my claws and quills are all lined with a hydra venom. One moment of carelessness and I could accidentally kill someone with something as minor as a scratch."


    "You care about others just as much as your master''s daughter," Turan stated and Maxine felt his spiritual sense expand to block out any observers, "Do you truly remember nothing?" Is he trying to bait me into confessing my identity? That''s not going to happen.


    "I remember a few bits and pieces, but nothing of importance," Maxine answered without looking at him, "And if you try to peek under my clothes, I will poke your eyes out."


    "Then let my following words be for when your memory returns: I''m sorry for what happened to you. I had no idea that the others would force your cultivation to advance like that and if I could have, I would''ve stopped them. It wasn''t until you were at death''s door that I realized how I felt about you and I genuinely wish to see you happy, even if it''s not with me. Just know that I''m here if you need me," Turan said with a loving gaze and before Maxine could respond to him, his spritual sense retracted as he asked, "Do you need any help getting this placed cleaned?" Holy shit, he is in love with me.


    "I''d... appreciate it," Maxine said unsteadily as she eyed him carefully. She expected Horatio Quay to yell at her to do it by herself, but oddly, he didn''t.


    Turan smiled at her as he picked up a broom and began sweeping the dust out the doorway. Maxine continued to dust every piece of furniture and countertop. They continued to clean until well into the evening.


    When they finally finished cleaning, Turan offered, "Would you like it if I took you out to eat? There are several restraunts located in this academy."


    "No, thank you," Maxine said gently, "I''m too tired from today to go out. Perhaps another time. I''m looking forward to laying down after a quick dinner."


    "As you wish," Turan said with smile, "I wish you a good night."


    "Good night, Turan," Maxine said as she escorted him to the door, "And thank you again for helping clean this place."


    "Think nothing of it. See you tomorrow," Turan said as he left and took flight.


    Maxine watched him fly off before closing the door and heading to her bedroom. She casually retrieved some rations from her dimensional ring and managed to scarf it down before reaching her bed. In which, she promptly fell down into face forward and fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

 Chapter 148

    Maxine was hurled out of the Endless Battle formation array and simply laid on the ground panting. She didn''t even care that her sweat was making her clothes cling to her body. She was just too tired after spending the past three hours fighting an endless horde of opponents with varying levels of skill and strength. That situation constantly forced her to use smaller and smaller movements to both attack and defend. She knew that she would eventually run out of stamina, but she also knew that she would still feel pain from the minor injuries that she sustained while in the array. However, when she was ejected out of the formation array, all of her injuries had vanished. Fucking illusionary arrays messing with my mind.


    She had only been laying on the ground for a few moments before Horatio Quay blocked the sunlight. "You defeated one thousand two hundred twenty illusionary warriors," Horatio Quay informed Maxine, "That is far more than I expected. It seems you''ve had a lot of experience fighting large groups and that means that I can increase the difficulty sooner than I planned. From now on, this illusion array will include some weaker gold stage opponents. You can have fifteen minutes to rest and eat before we move on to one on one sparring." First he throws me into that damn formation array without any fucking warning and now he wants me to spar with him! At least, he''s letting me get some food down.


    She continued her mental complaints until she saw a food tray heaping with various meats. She only looked at it for a moment before she rolled onto her hands and knees and devoured the food provided as quickly as she could. She could feel her strength returning rapidly as she ate, but she still wasn''t back up to full strength when Horatio Quay returned.


    Like before, he wasted no time and threw her roughly onto a grassy field well over a mile away. He arrived just as she landed and proceeded to slash at her with his blade just as she landed on her feet. Maxine immediately jumped backward to dodge by a mere milimeters and drew her own blades as she took her stance. She saw an approving smile on Horatio Quay''s face before he rushed at her.


    She slashed out with her right blade, but she was completely dumbfounded by what happened. Horatio Quay casually slapped the side of her blade away with his free hand before he raised his blade to use the flat of his blade to slap her across the face. She attacked him again in an attempt to wound him, but the same thing happened again every time she tried to attack.


    She was pissed, but she did her best to control her anger. She knew he was testing her willpower and how much she would take before she would finally snap. I have to remain calm. He''s trying to see how easily you give in to your anger. It''s not like pain or humiliation piss me off that much anyways. This continued for another half hour before he stopped slapping her with his blade. By that time though, her cheeks were both red as apples.


    "Good, very good. I can see you have your anger well under control," Horatio Quay said, "But that begs the question as to why your choice of words is so vulgar. No matter. We can work on that another time. For now, I noticed there were several flaws in your technique. In particular, the one where you attacked swiftly enough for it to appear that you had twelve arms. Can I assume that attack style is your creation?" He saw flaws in the technique? How? I could barely see the blur that my arms left.


    "Yes," Maxine answered, "What can I do to improve it?"


    "You need to fight against an equal opponent that uses the same technique for it to become obvious to you and I have just the thing to help you," Horatio Quay said as he revealed a vicious smile. Oh damn.


    Maxine only saw the ground brighten up for an instant before she was in a completely different place filled with fog. When the fog cleared, she saw her doppelganger in a fighting stance. It was a perfect copy of her with one exception. It had no face. That''s unsettling.


    Before she could fully process what was going on, her doppelganger charged at her and used her technique, Hydra''s Relentless Assault. Shit! She was forced to use it herself to keep up with it. However, she was still at a disadvantage since she was fighting in a exhausted state while her doppelganger was fully rested.


    It took her awhile to realize that her doppelganger was attacking in a very specific pattern and it allowed her to see the flaws in it''s technique. That''s how it looks when someone is fighting me? Why couldn''t I see those openings from my end? With that in mind, she started correcting her own technique and she began to wound her doppelganger. Unfortunately, her strength was waning faster than she could correct her technique.


    She tried a desperate gambit and focused all of her offense onto one point. But her doppelganger deflected both of her blades to the side. She was completely open and her doppelganger hacked down at Maxine''s head. She felt the blood drain from her face, but before the attack could land, she was ejected out of the formation array. She landed on the ground and laid there in exhaustion. However she never let go of her blades.


    "You lasted twelve minutes. You did very well against yourself while in an exhausted state," Horatio Quay praised.


    "I hate you," Maxine said weakly as she laid on the ground.


    "As I said before, I''m fine with you hating me," Horatio Quay said calmly, "But you can''t deny that your technique has improved."


    "But your methods suck," Maxine retorted.


    "Cowards don''t get to complain about my methods," Horatio Quay said coldly. Maxine was surprised for a moment, but calmed down in the next moment. He has to be guessing.


    "I''m not a coward," Maxine asserted as she sat up.


    "Then what do you call changing your name and face several times to hide from others if not cowardice?" Horatio Quay asked, but didn''t bother waiting for her to respond, "Your master revealed everything about your past to me, including your heiritage."


    "Why?!" Maxine asked incredulously.


    "I needed to know everything about you to know if you could withstand my teaching methods," Horatio Quay responded calmly, "And I''m going to do my very best to rid you of your cowardice."


    "No, why are you saying that kind of thing HERE?!" Maxine demanded.


    "Why not?" Horatio Quay asked in return, "You should have no fear of anyone knowing who you are and if someone comes, defeat and kill them. Regardless, there are very few that would risk offending any academy by harming one of their students since it would instantly mark that person for death and the faction they came from would be barred from having any of their young warriors from joining an academy for a period of five hundred years."


    "Fine," Maxine said grumpily, "What do we do next?"


    "Mental exercises," Horatio Quay said as the most complex board game imaginable appeared between them. She found out quickly that it was a real-time three dimensional strategy game involving thousands of units. Needless to say she lost horribly several times before she was able to put up a decent fight in it.


    It wasn''t until the sun was direclty over head that they stopped, but it wasn''t because of a set time limit. It was because Maxine was mentally exhausted. "You''re free for the rest of the day. Any more training would be pointless. Go relax and have some fun because tomorrow we will do this all over again," Horatio Quay said calmly as he got up and walked to his small house.


    Since Horatio Quay released her for the day, Maxine intended to first get a bath in. She was covered in sweat and just wanted to feel clean. Unfortunately there wasn''t a bath tub or even a shower in her small cottage, but she saw a women''s bathhouse while Horatio Quay escorted her here.


    She wasted no time and flew straight to it. When she got there, she saw that there were very few humans in the bathhouse. It was predominately occupied by beastkin. She also noticed that there were no changing rooms. Thus, Maxine shrugged and put her clothes directly inside of her dimensional ring. She glanced around for a spot that had enough space that she wouldn''t be afraid of scratching someone accidentally, but it was hard finding such a spot since there were Lamia and other beastkin with large lower bodies occupying the bathhouse. Still she found one after looking for a few moments.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    However as she approached it, she drew the curious gazes of half the young women bathing. Maxine mentally shrugged as she reached the rather open spot and sat down to soak. After a few minutes, a red-haired lamia approached Maxine.


    "I''ve never seen one of you before," she said, "If you don''t mind me asking, what are you?" God damn it. I just wanted to get clean without being bothered.


    "I''m a hydra/shadow elf hybrid," Maxine answered.


    "Oh? So Ismena wasn''t full of shit," the red-headed lamia commented, "Does that mean you''re Master Quay''s student then?"


    "Yeah," Maxine answered simply.


    "Is his training as tough and cruel as they say?" the red0headed lamia asked.


    "You have no idea," Maxine replied and glanced at the lamia, "I didn''t catch your name."


    "Oh, I''m such a dunce! My name is Mia," the red-headed lamia replied, "What''s yours?"


    "Maxine," Maxine replied, "And I would prefer to be left alone right now."


    "Oh, alright. It''s just that everyone is curious about you," Mia said.


    "I understand, but I''m very tired right now. And I would like it to just enjoy bathing in peace," Maxine said.


    "Oh, alright," Mia said, but she paused before saying nervously, "Just watch out for the bear and tiger tribes. They''re a bunch of bullies."


    "Thanks for the heads up," Maxine said calmly as the lamia slithered away. She got a few blessed minutes of peace before being approached by a pair of young women with short hair. The one on the left had orange hair with black strips in it and a set of round ears on top of her head. Maxine didn''t needed any more hints to what kind of beastkin that girl was when she noticed the tiger tail traling behind the girl. The other one had short brown hair with roundish ears as well, but she was heavily muscular. Clearly this young woman was a bearkin. Damn it now what?


    She closed her eyes as she sighed. "Hey, little lizard," one of them said, "You are in our spot. I know this is your first day, so I will forgive you just this once. So go on over to the rest of your kind. Oh, wait. You don''t seem to have any." Is that really the best insult she can come up with?


    "This is a public bath, so your claim to this spot is invalid. If this were a private bath house, you would have every reason to ask me to move, if you had reserved this spot, but it isn''t," Maxine said coldly and opened her eyes to look at who just spoke, "Also, I''m not a lizard. I''m more closely related to a snake. Although both are reptiles, there is a significant different between the two. So next time just use the word reptile when talking to someone with scales to avoid making yourself look like an idiot."


    "I don''t care what the hell you are. And I''m not asking. I''m telling you: Move," the tigerkin woman said angrily and when Maxine didn''t move, she lashed out with her clawed hands, "Don''t say I didn''t warn you!" However Maxine effortlessly caught her wrist. Is she stupid? She''s a reckless idiot. She should know better than to attack an unknown opponent! And that''s beside the point. If even a drop of my blood hits this water, it would poison everyone here!


    Maxine felt her rage skyrocket and reflexively grabbed the throat of the bearkin woman when she tried to attack Maxine as well. The tigerkin woman attacked again, but Maxine had enough. She grabbed the idiot by the throat and shielded her forearms from their claws.


    "Are you both completely stupid?!" Maxine roared as she felt the insides of her eyes stretch vertically and her teeth sharpen to points, "You two dumbasses could clearly tell that I''ve had a bad day, yet you still tried this bullshit! So I''m going to give you a choice. Either you two stay as far away from me as you can, or you can become my next MEAL!" Both of them had become pale and completely limp in her grasp. It took her a moment to realize she was unconsciously unleashing dragon fear on them due to her anger. This had also caused everyone else in the bathhouse to look at Maxine fearfully.


    She took a deep breath to regain her calm and released both of them. At the same time, her teeth and eyes returned to their previous state. I shouldn''t have exploded like that. That asshole, Horatio Quay, is to blame for this shit. He''s messed with my emotions enough that it''s becoming difficult to control myself. And it didn''t help that these two idiots were trying to establish their dominance over me.


    She turned around before using her energies to gather up an orb of the bathhouse water and used it to scrub herself down. Once she was done, she got out of the water and dressed herself before leaving. During that whole process, the bearkin and tigerkin women had moved to the other side of the bathhouse at a run.


    She wandered around the academy looking for a place to eat. She passed a few stalls of people trying to sell equipment and potions, but nothing was of any interest to her. She ended up retrieving a few purple snake fruit from her dimensional ring to eat and headed to the medical center. She still needed to make that healing potion for Ismena''s sister.


    Maxine heard shouting just as she reached the entrance to the medical center. She turned her head and saw Ismena shouting at a very muscular and hairy man. It wasn''t until she saw the monkey like tail that she realized he was a type of apekin.


    "How many times do I have to tell you that I''m not interested in you?!" Ismena roared at him, "I don''t care what kind of protection you can provide. It won''t change my mind!" The male apekin looked visibly hurt, but not from the slap.


    "It only has to be on the surface. They wouldn''t force your sister into a difficult situation again if you simply appeared to be my woman," the apekin male offered, "Please, let me protect the both of you." Maxine walked swiftly up to both of them. Ismena looked like she tempted to agree, but Maxine didn''t let her answer.


    "Excuse me. Who the hell caused Ismena''s sister to get hurt?" Maxine asked with a smile that promised pain if she wasn''t answered.


    "Tia, the princess of the tiger tribe, and the other of the members of her pride," Ismena answered reflexively, "They said it was to give her some experience, but it''s a lie. They used her as a literal shield, so they could finish the mission without getting hurt themselves."


    "That''s cowardly," Maxine said angrily, "I doesn''t matter anymore since neither you or her will be joining them on these missions ever again."


    "But..," Ismena tried to say, but Maxine cut her off, "No buts. Just tell them the truth that you and your sister have become my subordinates. As a gold-tier alchemist, I need a couple people to run a few errands for me. Now, let''s go check on your sister." But that''s not the only reason. No matter how much I don''t like it, that bastard Horatio Quay is right. I can''t keep hiding and having a few powerful allies will definitely help me. Advertising that I''m a gold tier alchemist is one way to get others to come to me in hopes of some kind of friendly relationship. And now that I think about it, I think I saw a few beastkin women that were wearing the Guardian Mother badges. It might be a good idea to join them or ally with them. That reminds me, I need to check on the village in the Shadow World at another date. It''s been awhile since I last checked up on them.


    Ismena stood there in shock for a moment before she nodded her head and with happy voice, said, "Yes, ma''am." The male apekin had a complex look on his face, but in the end, he gave Maxine a grateful look. It looks this fellow really likes Ismena. I wonder to what extent though. It has to be a strong like if he''s willing to protect her from the academy bullies.


    Maxine made her way to the room in the medical center that held Ismena''s sister and swiftly checked on the poor girl. Ismena''s sister was sleeping and and after a brief examination via spiritual sense, Maxine judged she was strong enough for another dose of her specialized healing potion.


    "Ismena, I didn''t have time to make the potion for your sister earlier, so I''m going to do it now," Maxine explained, "So, could you stand outside to make sure that I''m not interrupted?"


    "Yes, I can," Ismena answered swiftly and gave her sister a quick glance before leaving the room to guard the door.


    Maxine began to concoct her specialized healing potion. Everything went far more smoothly this time since she was more emotionally stable. However as soon as she took her focus off of the potion, she heard Turan and Piras Long arguing.


    "... that," Turan growled.


    "I won''t know for certain until I ask, elf," Piras Long said in a tone oozing with venom. I definitely missed something, but I don''t particularly like Piras'' sense of superiority.


    "As you wish. We will wait and see her opinion on the matter," Turan said with cold fury.


    Ismena''s sister took that moment to wake up. "Excuse me, but who are you?" Ismena''s sister asked.


    "I''m the alchemist treating your wounds and I need you to drink this," Maxine said as she put the potion up against the young gorgon''s lips. Ismena''s sister looked at the potion for a moment before drinking it.


    "Thank you," Ismena''s sister said after she finished drinking the potion and could clearly feel her serpents for hair regenerating, "I don''t care how much my sister owes you. I will pay it all."


    "She doesn''t owe me a thing," Maxine said, "And your sister has neglected to tell me your name."


    "Thank you so much. My name is Reina," Ismena''s sister answered simply.


    "Well, Reina, I heard about how you got those wounds and it''s best if both you and Ismena start spreading the word that you two work for me," Maxine said, "I don''t think anyone is dumb enough to piss off a gold tier alchemist to bully you and your sister."


    "You would be surprised just how stupid those muscle brained idiots are and it''s not just over those two," Piras Long said as she intruded into the room, "You also humiliated two promising young women of the Bear and Tiger tribes in the baths. They came to me for information about you. I can get them to back off if you join my faction, The Gilded Roses." I think I would be embarressed to be with them. You are basically announcing you are rich women and I don''t think things are a serious as she claims.


    "No, thank you," Maxine replied calmly.


    "I told you she wouldn''t," Turan said smugly.


    "Anything else that I should know?" Maxine asked.


    "The Tiger-Bear Mercenary Group has no idea of your background," Turan said, "I''m certain, once they discover it, they will back off."


    "I''d prefer it if they don''t. It''s time I stopped relying on my master for protection. He can''t always be there for me," Maxine said calmly.


    "Interesting choice. I hope you don''t regret it," Piras Long said before leaving.


    "Good riddance," Turan said a few moments after Piras Long left.


    "Now, Ismena, Reina, can either of you explain to me why you let others bully you?" Maxine asked, I really want to know why. They can turn people to stone with their gaze alone. All it takes is one instance of either one of them loosing their temper and removing their blindfolds. I know it only turns them to stone for a few hours, but that''s plenty of time to smash them into tiny pieces. And the only evidence of their crime would be a pile of rubble.

 Chapter 149

    "We tried turning them into stone, but when it wore off, they just treated us even more poorly," Ismena answered.


    "You mean to tell me that you didn''t even break off one of their arms once they were turned to stone?" Maxine asked.


    "What?! How could you even think of such a thing?!" Ismena exclaimed. I see. She''s a very gentle person. They both are. It''s a rarity among cultivators.


    "I see our upbringing is considerably different," Maxine stated, "It''s obvious that you grew up in a gentle enviroment. Mine was not nearly as kind. I knew what it was like to kill before I even reached my fourteenth year. While I can understand your reluctance to harm others, it''s poorly suited for a cultivator and as you''ve undoubtedly experienced, you will be abused because of it."


    "I know that, but I still can''t bring myself to hurt another person," Ismena said.


    "And that''s why you should work for someone that can protect you," Maxine said, "Now, how does your stony gaze work?" I know from what they told me so far that their gaze has a time limit and that they can''t control it, hence the blindfolds.


    "Well, our gaze has some limitations. The biggest ones are that it''s most effective one weaker opponents and they actually have to drectly look at our eyes for it to work. If I were to try it on someone even a rank above me, it would only slow them down a little bit and for only a handful of seconds," Ismena explained, "To top it off, it uses up a tiny portion of our strength every time it gets triggered. I would run out of strength if it triggered more than ten times in a row." Hmm, those are some big limitations.


    "I don''t know why you didn''t ask me," Turan complained, "That''s pretty much common knowledge."


    "Common knowledge or not, it''s still better to hear it directly from a gorgon," Maxine said.


    "There is one other thing," Ismena said softly and Maxine looked at Ismena with a curious expression, "Our ability has no effect on serpents or other gorgons." I expected other gorgons to be immune to it, but not serpents.


    "That''s a fascinating quirk to your abilities," Maxine said and decided to change the subject, "Regardless, it''s time I explain what I expect of you two. For now, I only expect you two to run errands for me like purchasing more medicinal herbs or potion bottles and perhaps heping me clean my small house. I don''t expect either of you to fight, but I do insist that you learn some disabling martial arts for self-defense purposes."


    "What''s a disabling martial art?" Reina asked.


    "It''s a martial art that focuses on dislocation and bone breaks of the limbs. It''s very painful for the one on the receiving end, and is a non-lethal combat art," Maxine answered, "With that out of the way, I need to go run a few experiments." Experiments involving my piss that is. I really need to verify that it can at the very least weaken my venom enough to keep silver stage cultivators from dying. This is especially important since I havn''t seen a single person under silver stage the entire time I''ve been here.


    Maxine left without waiting for them to respond and walked into the nearest restroom. She went into a stall and retrieved a glass cup from her dimensional ring. As quickly as she could, she emptied her bladder into it and proceeded to pour her urine in a series of vials. Afterwards, she stored them into her dimensional ring since she had no intention of performing her tests in a restroom. I better finish up on this once I get back. I really do not want someone to find me ''playing'' with my own piss.


    She made her way towards the entrance of the medical center and found Alchemist Rhodes waiting for her. "So, you are in your transformed state," Alchemist Rhodes said before pinching the bridge of his nose, "I honestly didn''t think you would walk around like that while knowing how dangerous is it for other people."


    "I was only out to treat an injured patient and take a bath," Maxine responded, "I''m heading back to my quarters now."


    "Fine," Alchemist Rhodes said in annoyance, "Just so you know, those two girls you humiliated happen to be the rising stars of the Tiger-Bear Mercenary Group. They are rather furious with you. I wouldn''t be surprised if they don''t approach you with demands."


    "I don''t care what their demands are. They were the ones that provoked me, not the other way around," Maxine replied as she walked past Alchemist Rhodes, "Now, if there is nothing else, I need to get back to my quarters. I really don''t want to accidentally poison someone before I figure out how to at least weaken the effect of my venom."


    "Good luck with that," Alchemist Rhodes said to Maxine''s back. I don''t blame him for not being too encouraged with my attempts. It took alchemists thousands of years before they could make a useable antidote for normal hydra venom. At least in my case, I may have a head start on them.


    Maxine swiftly flew back to her small cottage next to Horatio Quay''s. Once inside, she retrieved a vial of her urine and squeezed a single drop of her venom from one of her claws into it. She used her spiritual sense to watch the reaction. To her surprise, there was something that acted as a counter-agent to her venom in her urine, but it didn''t neutralize her venom entirely. But it reduced the lethality by half, which was more than she had expected. She still needed to refine her urine to extract that counter agent and mix it with a few other medicinal ingredients to improve it. However she wasn''t expecting more than another five percent reduction to lethality of her venom. It wasn''t enough to ensure survival like a true antidote, but it definitly increased their odds considerably.


    However she lacked several ingredients to get that extra five percent. While the ingredients were not common, they were not rare either and wouldn''t be costly for her to acquire. Still she needed to make some potions in order to either trade for them. I guess it''s time I started earning some money. I''m almost out of beast cores to trade with.


    Maxine opened her cottage door and saw Horatio Quay. "The Tiger-Bear Mercenary group sent a couple peopel to talk with me. They complained about your behavior at the baths," Horatio Quay said, "They said you attacked two of their promising new members."


    "If I attacked them, neither would still be breathing. You know that," Maxine retorted.


    "Yes, I know and I told them the same thing," Horatio Quay said with a smirk, "Those two idiots felt so insulted that they demanded that you face their leaders in the sparring arena."


    "And did they hand you a letter of challenge?" Maxine asked. Well, that''s one academy rule that I like. Any fights to resolve issues have to be first declared with a letter of challenge and if the other party accepts, they can fight it out in the arena. Too bad I have no intention of accepting that bullshit challenge.


    "They did," Horatio Quay answered as he handed her two letters of challenge.


    "And what would you do with it?" Maxine asked.


    "I would throw it into a puddle of dirt infront of their faces as my way of accepting their challenges," Horatio Quay answered.


    "That so?" Maxine asked as she set the challenge note aflame, "I don''t intend on replying to it at all."


    Horatio Quay started chuckling for a few moments before he regained his composure and asked, "Are you aware of just how insulting your lack of action is?"


    "Yes, I do," Maxine replied, "They deserve as much for bullying others." In fact, it''s literately the worst insult you can give a warrior that''s directly challenging you. Even a coarse and mocking refusal is less insulting.


    "I detest ''bullies'' as well. It''s a form of cowardice to use your strength against those weaker than themselves," Horatio Quay said, "They lack the courage to even face opponents that are on par with themselves. Why else would those two ladies flee so swiftly from you after you threatened to turn them into your next meal?"


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    "Who told you about that?" Maxine asked in slight panic.


    "A young lamia called Mia told me," Horatio Quay answered, "You left quite the impression on her." Oh, thank god. I thought for a second I had some perverted old man peeking at myself and the other women when I was at the women''s bathhouse.


    "I must have if she risked talking to you," Maxine said, "You literately terrify most of the student body and I''ve gotten more than one look of sympathy for being your student."


    "Of that, I have no doubt," Horatio Quay agreed, "My teaching methods are brutal by even the harshest of teachers, and I know that. Why do you think I would allow you so much free time? It''s to allow you sufficient time to recover both mentally and physically."


    "I just thought you were some sadistic prick that enjoyed watching your students suffer," Maxine said angrily.


    Horatio Quay simply shrugged his shoulders before turning around to leave, but he paused for a moment to say, "That young man, Turan, is waiting for you at the training field. Take this old man''s advice: Go have some fun with your boyfriend. Afterall, you''re only young once. Just keep your clothes on. Your training will have to be put on hold on the off chance that you get pregnant." WHAT?! Does he actually think that me and Turan are dating?! And why does he think we are fucking? But that would explain why he didn''t put up a fuss when Turan helped me clean last night. In his mind he was letting the two love birds have some private time.


    Maxine wanted to correct Horatio Quay, but the old man had already left. She grit her teeth in frustration and walked to the training field to give herself a few moments to calm down. She had managed to calm down when she reached the training grounds.


    Turan was facing away from her, and as if on cue, he turned around with a brilliant smile on his face. He really is a good looking man, but too bad for him, I''m not interested. I need to let him know that. It would be cruel to let him think he has a chance when he doesn''t.


    However before she could tell him, Turan asked her, "Are you ready to go get dinner? Or would you prefer to wander the academy for awhile first? Your teacher seemed quite adamant that you relax as much as possible." She glanced at the sun and realized with a start that more time had passed than she realized. I can''t believe I lost track of time.


    "Fine, let''s go get something to eat," Maxine said, "But this isn''t a date and don''t you dare pretend otherwise."


    "I''m well aware you only see me as a friend," Turan said without loosing his cheerful mood, "Now, let''s get going. I have the perfect place in mind."


    "Alright. Lead the way," Maxiine said.


    Turan took flight and Maxine followed behind him. Eventually, Turan descended towards a rather popular restraunt and it was mostly populated by women. Maxine was confused as to why it was so popular until she saw various chocolate dishes being served as deserts. So, he wants to spoil me then. I guess that can be a good thing. I ran out of chocolate a couple years ago and the smell of that chocolate cake is driving me crazy. Turan chuckled at Maxine and she glared at him.


    A waiter had them seated and Turan swiftly ordered a salad. However Maxine ordered enough steaks for five people and asked for a slice of german chocolate cake to go with it. Turan raised his eyebrow at Maxine, but she didn''t care. She was hungry.


    When the food arrived, Maxine took her time eating it. During the day, she was forced to eat quickly, but now she had the luxury to enjoy her food. It also helped that the steaks were perfectly seasoned and cooked. She was unconsciously groaning in pleasure at the wonderful taste and received a few odd looks because of how loud she was. The german chocolate cake was equally cooked to perfection. Turan had finished quite some time ago and had been watching her for quite some time.


    Just as Maxine finished, a waiter came up to her with a bottle of wine and said, "A gentleman asked me to serve you some of our best wine as a gift."


    Maxine really didn''t want it and was suspicious about it''s origin. However she accepted it nonetheless. She just wished she could enjoy it like she used to in her past life. But after experiencing what a violent drunk can do in the form of Johnathan Levings, she lost all desire to drink anything with alcohol in it. However, some small part of her wanted to at least try it. What could it hurt? It''s not like I''m going to become like that bastard from one bottle of this stuff. It''s not like I can get drunk with my biology, anyway.


    After the waiter filled their glasses and left, Turan said, "I wouldn''t drink that if I were you. It could be laced with something."


    "I know, but there are very few things that I can think of that would have any effect on me," Maxine answered and took a small swallow of the wine, "Regardless, I doubt that a single swallow of this stuff will effect me." I hate to admit it, but that was pretty good. It tastes like it''s made from a wide collection of herbs, but a few of them were thrown in recently. Those recently added herbs taste like the ingredients for a rather potent sleeping potion. So, who wwould go to this kind of trouble to capture me and Turan? Could it be those Tiger-Bear Mercenaries? It''s possible, but it could be someone else that just wants to smuggle me out of the academy discreetly. Although, whoever did this didn''t do nearly enough research on me.


    Turan sighed as he reached for his wine, but Maxine said, "I wouldn''t do that if I were you. That is unless you''ve been having trouble sleeping lately."


    "A sleeping potion?" Turan asked.


    "Yes, and a strong one at that. Too bad those things don''t work on me," Maxine said as she continued to drink her wine and felt someoen''s gaze on her, "Could you see who is keeping an eye on us without being noticed? I want to be sure who put this in the wine before I jump to conclusions."


    "Two young elves are watching us while they eat their meal," Turan said, "It''s clear they are the ones that sent the wine, but it doesn''t look like they are associated with the Tiger-Bear Mercenary Group. They are not keen on inviting elves into their midsts." Elves? Why would they be after us? Maybe they just want to talk.


    "Oh? There are elves here?" Maxine asked just loud enough for the two elves to hear and turned her head to see two blonde elven girls on the other side of the restraunt. Both quickly turned away and paid attention to their food. Nope, they definitely don''t want to talk. Shit, what could we have done to merit being drugged over? I might as well send one of my ravens over to see what they are talking about.


    Maxine ordered one of her ravens to listen into their conversation and she nearly spit out her wine when she heard them. "Did you see how beautiful that girl is?" one of them said, "And with the way he''s looking at her, there''s no way they are not dating."


    "Damn," the other elven girl said, "That means he''s probably not going to go out with me no matter how much I ask."


    Maxine quickly stopped herself from listening in any further into their conversation. Damn it. Now I feel embarressed. At least, I know they are not the ones that tried to drug me. So, if it wasn''t them, who drugged this wine?


    Maxine mentally shrugged and decided to bait the people that drugged her. She grabbed the bottle and started drinking from it directly, which earned her a few glares for her poor manners, but she didn''t care. As soon as she finished off the bottle, she actually felt slightly tipsy. Huh, I didn''t know that I could still get drunk. I must''ve consumed it faster than my body could metabolize it. But I doubt I will stay like this for long. I can already feel it wearing off.


    She used her energies to make it seem like she was blushing slightly and slowly shifted her expression to one of drunken intoxication. "Turan, could you help me get home please?" Maxine asked with a slight slur and faked a yawn, "I can''t seem to remember how to get back." Turan sighed before he left a small pouch on the table and walked over to Maxine to help her to her feet. At the same moment, she spread many of her ravens into the shadows and ordered them to survey her surroundings as she moved.


    She intentionally stumbled and swayed on her feet as he helped her walk out of the restraunt. However she was very careful not to scratch Turan with her claws or quills. But thankfully, she didn''t have to keep up the act for long. Her ravens discovered several tigerkin and breakin following them. However they stopped for some reason when Maxine thought they were about to make their move.


    "Sir, we are about to capture that woman that humiliated Tianna and Koulan," the bearkin that was in charge said.


    "That''s exactly why I''m calling you. You are to abort your current mission. Those two idiots gave you those orders without authorization," an man''s voice said angrily, "They didn''t even bother investigating that woman''s background. If they had, they would''ve discovered that she is a gold-tier alchemist and you know how protective the association is of their members. Return to base with the others."


    "Understood, sir," the bearkin in charge said before signaling the rest of his group with handsigns. Within seconds, they dispersed and Maxine let out a sigh.


    "So, what just happened?" Turan asked Maxine.


    "I was trying to lure out whoever drugged that wine, but they backed off at the last second," Maxine answered as she pulled herself off of Turan and stood steadily, "So, how did you figure out that I was acting?"


    "While I didn''t know your intentions, I wasn''t fooled from your act in the least," Turan answered, "Your biology guarantees that you can''t get drunk. At least, not from drinking that amount of any wine. You could probably drink a dozen dwarves under the table before you would become truely drunk."


    "It figures you would know that," Maxine complained as she glanced at the rapidly darkening sky, "Well, I best head back and thanks for the dinner. It was nice."


    "You are very welcome," Turan said, "Would you like me to escort you home?"


    "No, thank you," Maxine replied, "I should be fine. Good night."


    "Good night, Maxine," Turan said with a smile before Maxine could fly off.


    As Maxine flew back, she took in the scenery and thought about the day. That bastard''s the training methods are nightmarishly difficult, but they are helping me improve rather quickly. And he did say he would up the difficulty, didn''t he? Now, why do I have a feeling he''s going to be saying that alot in the future? Oh, well. I will try to meet up with the Guardian Mothers tomorrow and I will try to make a few potions before I go to bed. God, I do not look forward to tomorrow.

 Chapter 150

    God, I hate being right. Maxine panted heavily on the ground while covered in painful welts that would probably heal before she went to sleep. It has been a week since Maxine started training under Horatio Quay''s tutelage and like she had anticipated, he increased the difficulty of his training regiment twice in that time. She just wished he kept to using the flat of his blade during their sparring matches, but he decied today was the day that he would switch to using a metal training blade in their sparring matches.


    "You did quite well today," Horatio Quay praised, "But you still have room to improve. Those welts are evidence enough of that."


    Maxine asked a question that had been bugging her for the past week, "How are you able to dodge my attacks and hit me? I''m much faster than you are."


    "I use smaller movements to dodge and attack," Horatio Quay answered, "So, while I may be physically slower than you, I can still defend and attack because of this. It''s simply a matter of skill and experience vs athleticism."


    "And why did you use my attacks to give yourself a shave then?" Maxine asked angrily as she eyed his freshly shaven jaw.


    "Mostly to anger you," Horatio Quay answered, "But you acted beyond my expectation and kept your cool. I''m rather impressed. Most young people would''ve lost their calm at such humiliation and they didn''t have the savagry of a hydra bloodline urging them to give in."


    "I''m not like most people," Maxine growled and recovered enough to sit up, "Can we move on to the next exercise, please?"


    "Certainly," Horatio Quay said as he produced the game that they''ve been playing lately. However Maxine noticed her assigned troops were very familiar. She had 280 wolves, 17 ravens, 3 human dual-weilding warriors and one dragon. That''s the exact same number and type of my constructs. That''s too accurate to be a coincidence.


    "What the hell?" Maxine asked in surprise.


    "Like I said before, your ''master'' told me quite a bit about you," Horatio Quay said with a smile, "I know whose daughter you are." What? He treats me like this knowing I''m Guan''s daughter. No, I''m getting ahead of myself. Perhaps daddy gave him false information.


    "And whose daughter am I?" Maxine asked cautiously.


    "A certain famous poison user''s daughter," Horatio Quay answered with a vicious smile, "I thought we covered that."


    "And why are you not afraid of him?" Maxine asked.


    "Because I''m on the same list of people and groups that the Alliance will not mess with," Horatio Quay replied, "Your father is ranked third the last time I checked while I am ranked seventh." Oh shit. The two spots above Guan are huge groups. One of them is the Black Hand Assasins and the other is the Sacred Beast Alliance. To be ranked in the top ten as an individual, you would have to be some kind of monster. Daddy has both his immense might and poisons to earn him on that placement. How the hell did Horatio Quay earn his spot as a fucking gold stage cultivator!? Wait, the person ranked seventh doesn''t look like Horatio Quay. If anything he looks like that guy''s father. I guess it''s possible they are the same person if this picture was taken centuries ago, but still he''s listed as a peak immortal stage cultivator. And, he definitely doesn''t look like he should have a title like Blade Demon. Regardless, it''s best to tread lightly.


    "Can we begin our exercise now?" Maxine asked with a hint of fear in her voice.


    "Of course," Horatio Quay answered as they began the strategy game.


    Maxine looked at the terrain and sent her wolves to the forests to limit any ranged offensive. She had her dual-wielding warriors mount up on three wolves and follow behind the wolves. Next she sent out her ravens to do some scouting and kept her dragon in reserve. It only took her ravens a few minutes to find the enemy forces. There were at least one thousand of them and the majority of them were heavy infantry. The others were carrying crossbows as tall as they were on their backs. Dragonkiller crossbows?! Shit, the heavy infantry is hard enough to take out using just my wolves, but those crossbows make it hard for me to use my dragon. Hmm, but that doesn''t mean I can''t win.


    She sent thirty of her wolves to perform a hit and run attack. They were torn apart by the heavy infantry, but half of them managed to lure one hundred of the heavy infantry to follow them into the forest. Maxine immediately had the rest of her wolves fan out to ambus the heavy infantry and once they were in the forest, her wolves ambushed the heavy infantry. She lost ten more wolves, but it was worth the sacrifice.


    Unfortunately, the remainder of Horatio Quay''s forces charged towards the forest. Shit, I can''t fight them head on, but this is where some vicious tactics come in play. Maxine had her dragon take flight while her wolves allowed themselves to be seen before fleeing deeper into the forest. She watched as the heavy infantry charged into the forest, but the crossbowmen didn''t. Instead they were setting up. Shit, this won''t work if they kill my dragon. She broke off a small portion of her wolves to circle around to attack the crossbowmen.


    Unfortunately the heavy infantry noticed and started to turn back. In desperation, Maxine ordered her dragon to torch the forest starting with the place between the heavy infantry and the crossbowmen. Her dragon made one pass before it started getting hit with the crossbow bolts. Thankfully it managed to set the forest around the heavy infantry on fire before it was shot down, but the majority of her wolves were in the blaze as well. Both were burned alive. Her remaining wolves were not enough to kill the crossbow men and she lost the game.


    "You cheated," Maxine complained, "You geared your troops specifically to counter mine."


    "Yes, I did," Horatio Quay said calmly, "Your enemies will do the same thing if given a chance. Or do you believe they will not have made any preparations to counter your abilities?"


    "I don''t believe they would be that careless," Maxine agreed with him, "And I understand why you want me to be prepared for that, but I have no intention of ever being in a situation where I have to fight such unfavorable odds."


    "It doesn''t matter what your intentions are if your enemies are prepared enough and force that situation on you," Horatio Quay retorted, "That is why we do these exercises. It''s to prepare you for such a scenario. Regardless, you did very well considering how poorly of a match up you had."


    "Thank you," Maxine said, "I still don''t like loosing."


    "Now, let''s have another match," Horatio Quay answered.


    "Understood," Maxine answered. They continued playing that particular game for several hours, but Maxine wasn''t able to defeat Horatio Quay. They only stopped when Maxin sensed that Ismena and Reina approaching through the shadow wolves she placed in their shadows.


    "I see your helpers are here," Horatio Quay said calmly, "Let''s stop here for today. Go enjoy the rest of your day." He disappeared before she could respond.


    She stood up and winced. The welts she earned earlier hadn''t healed yet. But she was quickly distracted when Ismena started reporting, "I sold the healing and antidote potions that you gave me yesterday and I bought large quantities of the herbs you requested."


    "Good," Maxine said happily, "Did you manage to find out where the Guardian Mothers have set up in the academy yet?"


    "Yes, they''re to east of the elven district," Ismena replied, "But may I ask why you want to talk to them?"


    "We need more allies," Maxine answered plainly, "My identity as a gold-tier alchemist can only provide so much protection."


    "I think I get it," Ismena replied.


    "Good," Maxine said cheerfully, "Did you get harrassed by anyone today today?"


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    "No, we were mostly left alone," Reina chimed in happily, "These alchemist helper badges you got for us worked wonders. Those bullies from the Tiger-Bear Mercenary group avoided us."


    "That''s right, but while we were on our way back, a courier approached us," Ismena said as she held out a letter, "He asked me to give this to you."


    Maxine took it and swiftly read it. It was an apology for the behavior of their members and invitation for her to meet the two leaders of the Tiger-Bear Mercenary group at their base within the academy. I didn''t expect this. I wonder what they are planning. Still, there is no way in hell that I will go visit their headquarters. I''ll just send a coreless shadow clone in case this is somehow a trap.


    She promptly created a coreless shadow clone and linked to it through a tiny portal on the bottom of it''s left foot. Ismena and Reina looked on in surprise.


    "I didn''t know you could create clones so effortlessly," Ismena said.


    "Technically it''s not a clone. It''s a construct," Maxine replied.


    "Does that mean you will be sending it to the Tiger-Bear Mercenary''s base," Ismena asked.


    "Yes, and I will be making some potions while I do so," Maxine said and saw the sisters give her a disbelieving look, "I''m not going to explain how I''m able to. I don''t need anything else from you two for now. Go on and have some fun."


    "We will," Ismena said and walked off with Reina trailing behind her.


    Maxine walked into her cottage and began making potions with a small portion of her mind. Meanwhile she directly controlled her shadow clone to make it''s way to the Tiger-Bear Mercenary group''s base.


    As soon as her clone arrived to the base, she placed most of her focus on it. The guards opened the door and allowed her in without saying a single word. Inside, she encountered a secretary of some kind that gestured for her to follow and shrugged her shoulders before following behind. No one is talking to me. This isn''t a good sign. She was lead into a rather spaceous room and saw the two young tigerkin and bearkin girls off to the side. Both of them were smirking at her. Another bad sign.


    There were two large male beastkin relaxing on a nearby couch. The tigerkin looked lean, but Maxine had no doubt that he was physically powerful. He was easily over six feet tall. The bearkin male on the other hand was massive. He was easily seven feet tall and nearly four feet wide. His arms were bigger around than Maxine''s waist and he had the face of a brawler that had taken way too many punches to the face. His nose looked had been broken several times. But both of them had a cultivation of Gold rank five.


    "Welcome, I never imagined you would accept our invitation, Alchemist Maxine," the tigerkin male said with a sauve voice, "My name is Rigel and my hulking companion here is Drugar. I believe you''ve met Tianna and Koulan."


    "Yes, I have," Maxine said calmly and decided to get straight to the point, "Care to explain why you wanted to see me?"


    "Of course," Rigel said calmly, "We wanted to ask you to be our excusive alchemist." A mercenary group is asking me to be their alchemist? They must really think highly of themselves. They would have a hard enough time getting a silver-tiered alchemist to work with them.


    "I''m sorry, but I will have to refuse," Maxine said politely, "Two of your members already have quite some hostility towards me and I don''t think it would be appropriate for someone of my standing to associate with a mercenary group."


    "Normally, I would agree, but I think you will do it anyways, Miss Levings," Rigel said with a smirk.


    "Who are you talking to?" Maxine asked without revealing any emotion, "Because I know you are not talking to me. If you were, you wouldn''t have said something that stupid."


    "Oh and why is that?" Rigel asked in amusement.


    "Because you will make an enemy out of a gold-tier alchemist for no good reason," Maxine said angrily and she altered her appearance so that her eyes became verticle slits and her teeth sharpened, "An alchemist that could easily place a large bounty of every member of your mercenary group and will pay double for you fuckers be brought to me alive. So I can have you watch as I EAT ALL OF YOU ALIVE!" Rigel was pale and sweating, but Drugar looked smug as if he knew this was going to happen. Tianna and Koulan were backed up against the wall shivering in fear. I didn''t expect my dragon fear to be this potent without actually directing it at them, but still, that Drugar seems to have some resistance to my dragon fear.


    "I told you that blackmailing her was a very bad idea," Drugar said with a deep voice. Maxine raised her eyebrow. Wow, if it wasn''t for his fucked up nose, he could easily attract girls just by speaking.


    "I see at least one of you has a brain," Maxine said calmly as her appearance reverted, but she was still very angry, "I can forget that you just tried to blackmail me, if you make it worth my time." Rigel visibly relaxed and took a deep calmling breath. It''s safer to make them think that I''m greedy than to just walk away. This way they won''t freak out and do something stupid since they believe that they bought my forgiveness.


    "I hope this will suffice," Rigel said as he tossed her a dimensional pouch. Maxine caught it and peered inside it with her spiritual sense. It was filled with common, uncommon and a few rare herbs. I could make a lot of potions with this. Hmm, there is even a few dozen sets of herbs for breakthrough potions for both bearkin and tigerkin. Interesting, but this recipe is the most crude and ineffective recipe. I will improve on it and sell them at the Alchemist Association


    "Yes, this will do nicely," Maxine said with a pleased smile, "And try to buy the potions with the tiny hydra drawings on the base of them. Those are mine and they have far higher quality than the others."


    "We will keep that in mind," Drugar said calmly, "Do you need anything else from us?"


    "No, I''m fine," Maxine said as she created a portal in her shadow leading to her main body before dropping the dimensional pouch into it, "I''ll be leaving now." She switfly returned her focus back to her main body and dispersed her shadow clone into a cloud of rapidly fading smoke before either of them could say or do anything.


    Maxine finished concocting her potions before transfering the contents of the dimensional pouch to her ring. Afterwards she stood up and left her cottage. She wanted to see if she could either join or set up a deal with the Guardian Mothers. Although, she would much rather join them. As far as she heard, they look after each other as well as any orphaned children they find during their missions from the Mercenary guild.


    As she was flying to the Guardian Mothers'' base, she saw a large group of elves singing and dancing. That looks fun. I think I will make some time on another day to join in on that fun. A few moments later, she arrived infront of the local Guardian Mothers'' office.


    It looked much like an over large orphanage and she could hear the faint sounds of children within it. She only raised an eyebrow as she walked into the unguarded entrance and saw several young women playing with a large group of children from various species. She was concerned when she spotted a harpy, and an arachne child among those children. It was concerning because both races were extremely protective of their young.


    "Are you sure it''s safe for you guys to watch those two?" Maxine asked the wolfkin Guardian Mother that was present while gesturing to the arachne and harpy children.


    "Of course. Both of their mothers are members and asked me to watch over them while they attend classes," the Guardian Mother member answered, "Is there any reason you are visitng today?" Its a good idea to ask a wolfkin to watch these kids. They are known for their ferocity when protecting the young of their pack and this girl clearly has chosen the Guardian Mothers as her pack.


    "Yes, can I talk to the current leader of your branch?" Maxine asked and saw the Guardian Mother member glance down at the gold-tier alchemist badge at Maxine''s hip.


    "Yes, she''s on the second floor. Her office is the only one with the double doors," the Guardian Mother member replied.


    "Thank you," Maxine said as she proceeded up to the second floor and saw several groups of children running around before she found the office with the double doors.


    "Hello, Alchemist Maxine," a young brunette said softly as Maxine walked into the office, "I wasn''t expecting you to visit. How can I help you?"


    "You can help me in several ways," Maxine said while a smile and noticed a name plate on the desk, "One of which is that I want discuss forming a bond of friendship with the Guardian Mothers, Melina." However against Maxine''s expectations, Melina''s expression soured slightly.


    "I''m sorry, but we can''t discuss that," Melina said apologetically.


    "Why is that?" Maxine asked out of curiosity.


    Melina sighed before she answered, "You sold a certain potion to one of our members and as you recall, she used it for malicious purposes. We can''t be associated with someone who sells poisons of any kind." Maxine was instantly furious, but attempted to remain calm. It didn''t help that she was still angry from when she talked to the Tiger-Bear Mercenaries.


    "I didn''t sell a poison. It was a potion," Maxine growled as she failed to keep her anger from showing, "And I genuinely believed she wanted to get out of a marriage with someone she hated. I had no idea she was going to use the potion that way. In fact, I had no idea it worked on men at all since it was specifically designed to be used for lesbian couples to concieve children."


    "I''m sorry, but your explaination won''t change my stance," Melina replied.


    "Fine, then," Maxine said angrily as she turned around to leave, "You know I only came to your group because our mentality regarding the treatment of children aligns, but clearly you disagree. I just hope you don''t regret this decision later. I know of several large clans that would be ecstatic to have any alchemist befriending them, let alone a gold-tier one. Goodbye." She didn''t wait for Melina''s answer as she stormed out of the Guardian Mothers'' orphanage.


    "Wait, I didn''t mean to-," Melina said as she chased after Maxine, but Maxine ignored her. At this point, she was afraid that her hydra aggression would cause her to kill the young woman in her enraged state before Maxine could hear her out.


    She quickly stomped the ground to rocket herself off of the ground and flew towards her cottage. I don''t know what I was expecting. Although, it was a bit juvenile of me to throw the fact that I''m a gold-tier alchemist in their face like that, but the way she said that shit just pissed me off. I know I shouldn''t have gotten so angry, but this fucking transformation is pushing my aggression all the way to eleven. It''s making it real hard to keep my temper in check. It''s best that I just focus on my training and completely my breakthrough potion.

 Chapter 151

    Maxine woke up and looked at her grey hand. It was devoid of usual claws that she had grown somewhat accustomed to. Horatio Quay had told her to revert back to her ''elven'' state for a few days after he saw how aggitated she was yesterday evening. She welcomed that order, and he put their training on hold for a few days while aggression reset. I should get out of bed. I have quite a few things I would like to do today. And since the Guardian Mothers have no intention of being on friendly terms with me, I may as well start recruiting some people to be part of my personal force. I know neither Ismena or Reina are up to any kind of real violence. I best go out to the Alchemist Association and get what I need for making potions. After that I should see if anyone is interested in being part of my personal force.


    She got up and put on some simple clothes. She prefered to wear simple clothes since whatever she wore ended up in tatters sooner or later. She reserved her nice dresses and the like for when a situation called for them. And she had no need to braid her hair since she wasn''t going to be doing any training and simply let her hair hang freely down to her waist.


    As soon as she opened her front door, she saw Melina bowing to her at almost a ninety degree angle. I wasn''t expecting this first thing in the morning.


    "Why are you here?" Maxine asked coldly as she donned her ice queen facade.


    "I''m sorry for the way I treated you, yesterday," Melina said sincerely while maintaining her bow, "It was unfair of me."


    "You''re damn right," Maxine said angrily, "And while we are on that topic, why the hell did you call that potion a fucking poison?! Any potion healing or otherwise can be used as a poison given the right circumstances! Hell, any cultivator with half a brain knows that you can''t take more than one healing potion of their level a day without overexerting their body''s reserves. If you do, that WILL kill you!"


    "I''m sorry. But when I heard that you were half-hydra, I became afraid of you and I now know that I shouldn''t have said what I said," Melina practically sobbed, "Just please don''t blacklist my guild." She was worried about that?! I would only be able to blacklist her branch with my authority within the Alchemist Association and it would be idiotic to make an enemy out of their guild. I have enough of those as it is just from being daddy''s little girl.


    "Blacklist? Do you honestly believe I''m that petty?" Maxine asked incredulously as she put her hands on her hips and leaned forward.


    "Well, I...," Melina said uncertainly and Maxine cut her off, "Just leave. I don''t want to even look at you." Maxine walked around Melina and started walking toward the Alchemist Association''s building.


    "Wait, were you serious about what you said yesterday?" Melina asked from behind Maxine.


    "Yes, but consider my offer of friendship rescinded," Maxine said angrily without turning around, "You have to earn it now." She didn''t wait for Melina to speak before she launched into the sky, but she didn''t head to the Alchemist Association. She changed her mind and headed towards the elven quarter. She felt the need to relax and calm down before she did anything related to money making. I need to chill out before I work with anything alchemy related. A calm mind produces better results anyways.


    She quickly landed at the entrance and admired all of the green trees there. Elves were known for growing their homes out of trees and declorated them with flowering, but not harmful, vines of various colors. It was a sight to behold.


    "Welcome, cousin. I''m Elwynn," a beautiful blonde elf with red eyes said cheerfully, "Are you called Maxine by any chance?" You don''t see a blood elf every day. I wonder if the others realize that she needs to drink blood periodically to remain healthy.


    "Yes, I am," Maxine replied in a friendly tone.


    "Great, there''s been a question that I''ve wanted to ask you," Elwynn said carefully, "Or rather, everyone in our academy has wanted to ask."


    "Go ahead," Maxine said.


    "What kind of hydra are you descended from?" Elwynn asked nervously, but still in a cheerful manner. What sort of question is that?


    "A Quilled Hydra and one that had twelve heads," Maxine replied. And it was also a king-class hydra. Hence it''s title: Twelve Headed Hydra King. Although I can understand why they omitted quilled part of its name. It''s title is already a mouthful as it is.


    "Oh, thank the maker," Elwynn said in relief, "You see a bunch of the students thought you were a descendant of a Silver Hydra of all things." Is she serious?! Those fucking things prefer to eat children for some fucked up reason and were hunted to extinction for that very same reason more than half a millenia ago.


    "I don''t know why anyone would make a mistake a basic as that. While there are silver hydras with quills, they are not only much larger, but they tended to avoid humanoids. Humans just are not worth the effort of eating due to their immense size. That question shouldn''t have even been necessary if someone had bothered to do some research about the characteristics of that particular variety of hydra," Maxine answered irratably.


    "I''m sorry. I didn''t mean to upset you," Elwynn apologized by bowing deeply.


    "Just do not bring that up ever again," Maxine warned Elwynn, whom straightened up, "So, is it alright if I just wander around here for awhile? I need to relax and this place is definitely helping."


    "Of course, so long as you don''t mind everyone''s cautious stares," Elwynn said, "But you don''t have to worry, I will let everyone know that you are not a silver hydra descendant."


    "Thanks," Maxine said to Elwynn as she left.


    Maxine continued to wander around the elven quarter to admire all the vegetation and was drawn to the sound of music and song. She found that elves were taking turns singing while the rest performed dances. She knew that this was their means of relaxation and fun inbetween classes. Should I join in? But the decision was taken from her when a couple elven women grabbed her hands and physically dragged her towards the stage.


    "Wait a second," Maxine pleaded with them.


    "Oh, come now. I could tell you wanted to sing, but you were too shy to go up on your own," the elven woman pulling Maxine''s right hand said just before they got onto the stage, "Now, go ahead and sing." I never thought elves would be this forceful. Oh well. Singing is a good way to relieve stress anyways.


    Maxine began to sing a forest elf song and watched the elves dance to it. Even after she finished that song, she was enjoying herself so she continued singing the various wood elf songs that she knew. The crowd of dancing and smiling elves quickly multiplied. She only stopped when sh ran out of songs to sing and stepped down from the stage for it to be taken over by someone else.


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    The young elven woman that dragged Maxine up to the stage quickly ran up to her. "You were amazing!" the young elven woman said, "But why did you only sing forest elf songs? I can only imagine how wonderful you would sound singing in high elven."


    "I only know forest elf songs," Maxine replied, "I lost all of my memories prior to five years ago."


    "That''s too bad," the young elven woman said sadly and quickly added, "I hope all of your good memories return and all the bad ones don''t."


    "That''s an interesting thing to say," Maxine commented.


    "Even with our long lives, it''s better to be happy than sad, right?" the young elven woman asked.


    "Definitely," Maxine agreed.


    "I''m glad that you agree," the young elven girl said before she glanced over Maxine''s shoulder, "It seems the only other shadow elf here has arrived. I''ll leave you two alone then. Have fun!" The young elven girl said as she danced back into the crowd.


    "You too," Maxine called out as the young elven girl disappeared from her sight. She''s a nice girl. It''s too bad that I didn''t catch her name.


    "I didn''t think you would sing on your first visit here," Turan said from behind Maxine, "Still, it was wonderful to hear you sing."


    "Thank you and I needed some stress relief," Maxine replied calmly.


    "Yes, I''ve heard how you threatened to eat several people recently," Turan said with a slight smile, "It''s good that you didn''t. I know how much it upsets you when you realize what you''ve done."


    "That it does," Maxine said softly, "Can we talk about something else?"


    "Certainly," Turan replied, "What would you like to talk about?"


    "Well, I would like to know why these people think that I''m related to the extinct Silver Hydras," Maxine stated in irratation.


    "A few ignorant humans in this school voiced that assumption," Turan said sadly, "They''ve been corrected already by a teacher, but that didn''t prevent the rumor from spreading."


    "Well, that''s one question on my mind that''s been solved. Still I can''t believe anyone would believe such a stupid and unfounded rumor," Maxine complained.


    "You would be surprised what others think," Turan said in amusement, "Almost everyone in the school thinks we are betrothed."


    "You''re joking," Maxine said in disbelief.


    "I''m sorry, but I''m not," Turan said apologetically, "It doesn''t help that I''m the only man you speak with consistently."


    "I know, but you are fully aware of why I don''t like men," Maxine complained.


    "Yes, your adoptive father ... wait does that mean your memories have returned?!" Turan asked excitedly.


    "Some of them," Maxine said.


    "What do you remember exactly?" Turan asked cautiously.


    "I think it would be best if we had this discussion in private," Maxine said coldly, "Let''s just say I''m very disappointed in you and leave it at that."


    "Alright," Turan said while lowering his head in shame.


    "Now, what have you been studying exactly?" Maxine asked to change the subject.


    "Formations and illusion arts mostly," Turan answered calmly, but she could see in his eyes that he was anything but calm.


    "That''s interesting," Maxine said, "Um, what''s your rank on the leaderboard?"


    "One thousand seven hundred thirty seventh on the martial leaderboard," Turan answered with an iota of pride, "Although I still don''t understand why they didn''t allow your entrance exam to count towards your rank." That''s pretty impressive when you consider there are over fifty thousand students at the peak of silver stage like he is.


    "I didn''t hear about that. Piras just told me it would take them awhile to judge my rank, but I can see why they wouldn''t," Maxine reasoned, "It probably had something to do with my teacher manipulating the testing array."


    "You could always take the test again," Turan offered.


    "I could," Maxine agreed, "Where is that testing array? Piras Long neglected to inform me about things like that."


    "It''s about ten kilometers north of the Alchemist Association building," Turan answered.


    "Huh, I can''t believe I hadn''t noticed it before," Maxine commented to herself, "Thanks for letting me know. I will go take that test again. I just hope that my teacher hasn''t made any modifications to it."


    "I doubt even he is that courageous," Turan said as Maxine turned around and took flight.


    Maxine flew towards where the testing illusion array was supposed to be and saw it after flying for a short while. Just like outside of the academy, there was a leaderboard posted beside it that automatically updated. Just out of curiosity, she walked up to it and tried to look herself up and found that she was given the ranking of twelve thousand thirty eight for no particular reason. Hmm, there doesn''t seem to be a score of any kind next to my name. I guess they just put me in the top fourth and hoped it would make me happy.


    She walked over to the illusion array and began the test. Just like when she performed in the illusion array outside of the academy, she first faced the shadowy figures that were pitifully unskilled. She dispatched them with greater ease than before, but when it came to the point that the landscape changed, she faced ten gold stage one shadowy figures. This should be fun.


    These stronger shadowy figures were far faster than their previous incarnations and were able to use weapon energies. They were difficult to defeat, but they were no where near as difficult as the endless hordes that she has been fighting in Horatio Quay''s illusion arrays. It took her less than a minute to cut them all down.


    However, she felt her irratation rising when their numbers doubled in the next round. This doubling trend continued after each successive victory until she was faced with one hundred and sixty gold stage rank one adversaries. She fought fiercely, but she eventually was struck down before being thrown out of the illusion array.


    "Damn it!" Maxine growled as she landed on her butt just outside of the illusion array. She ignored the looks she was recieving from several onlookers and checked the leaderboard for her ranking. She saw her name become highlighted as it jumped to the five hundred fourth position. Oh? It seems there are a little more than five hundred people better than me in the silver stage. That shouldn''t be too surprising. Some of those guys are nearing one hundred years old. It wouldn''t surprise me at all if they are better than me. Even if I include both of my lives, I havn''t been a cultivator more than twenty years and they have had teachers to guide them inbetween real life experiences. The only thing I have more than most people in my rank is raw power and speed. Although the gap in the purely physical arena would increase sharply if I were to transform. Still I have a lot of catching up to do.


    "Unreal," Piras Long said softly from behind Maxine, "I knew you were a gifted warrior, but I had no idea to what extent until now."


    "What''s there to be surprised about?" Maxine asked, "I''m a silver stage queen cultivator. I''m far faster and stronger than anyone else at my level, but I can admit there are others more skilled."


    "Perhaps, but everyone in the top 500 are prodigies that have been studying here at the academy for at least a decade. You havn''t even been here for a month," Piras Long explained.


    "My teacher is a madman," Maxine said simply, "He throws me into very realistic training scenarios in the form of illusion arrays. So it''s either learn fast how to dodge and attack or suffer a lot of pain. And don''t get me started when it comes to one on one sparring sessions. That prick doesn''t hold back at all against me. I can show you the welts he''s given me if you want."


    "He''s known for being rough, and I don''t recall him ever being that effective of a teacher," Piras Long remarked.


    "Well, his teachimg method is effective with me," Maxine said with a shrug, "But I''m mostly motivated to get better than him, so I can give him the beating of his life, heal him afterwards and continue that process until I get tired of beating him."


    "No comment," Piras Long said with a slight smile.


    "Well, I best head back. My teacher gave me a few days to get my hydra side time to calm down and I intend to relax most for most of it," Maxine said.


    "Enjoy yourself," Piras Long said.


    "Thanks," Maxine said before flying off towards the cottage that Horatio Quay was letting her use.


    It didn''t take her long to arrive there and she went inside. She noticed a few things had been moved and that there were a few small silver scales stacked neatly on the table. However she didn''t pay those details much mind, and headed to her room to cultivate for the rest of the day and evening to ensure that her foundation was stable. She wanted to be extremely certain that the spirals within her cores were perfect before she even attempted to breakthrough to gold stage. She had no plans to breakthrough before at least a year had passed since her recent surge to her current cultivation level. Hmm, I still have a lot of work to do, but my teacher did say to relax for now. So, I should just spend the rest of my time off doing things that I find relaxing. Oh, I nearly forgot! Before Maxine went into her cultivation session, she sent a message through her alchemist''s badge to ask them to put out a notice that she is looking for people to do certain tasks for her. With that out of the day, she got comfortable and began cultivating.

 Chapter 152

    Maxine enjoyed the last few days of her break by singing with the elves and leisurely crafting healing potions. She was visited a couple times by Melina, whom gave her a few gifts, and a foxkin clan that asked her to make a few potions for them. The foxkin were very generous with the compensation for her time. She already knew they were trying to get the friendship of a recently risen, unafiliated gold tier alchemist. Regardless, she still appreciated their attitude, and told them to come to her if they needed more potions made.


    As soon as her small rest was finished, she began her training again in her battle form and she was now going through the mental portion of their training session.


    "You''ve improved," Horatio Quay commented as he moved his troops to counter Maxine''s assault.


    "Thank you," Maxine replied calmly while ignoring pain from the fresh set of welts scattered across her body.


    "And I noticed your new position on the leaderboard," Horatio Quay said calmly, but hs tone became somewhat harsh as he added, "Do not let that go to your head. The only reason you scored so high is due to your multiple cores. When it comes to pure skill, you are far behind everyone else. I hate what they''ve done to the leaderboard system. I preferred the older system where students had to fight each other to gain their rankings. Knowing how to fight against a wide variety of combat styles makes for a better warrior in the end."


    "I know," Maxine said calmly while focusing on their game, "You don''t need to say anything else. I''m well aware of the limitations of this kind of enviroment provides me."


    "Good," Horatio Quay said approvingly and Maxine felt frustration as his forces appeared out of nowhere to ambush her troops, "I expect you to take a mercenary contract with me a week after your sister and her husband arrives. You need live combat to solidify your understanding of the way of the blade." He''s being less and less discreet. He must love playing with fire. Or he really is the Blade Demon from that damn list. That fucker is described as a battle maniac and if he keeps behaving like this, he will get his fight.


    "I guessed you would insist on that eventually," Maxine said as she looked up at Horatio Quay since she knew that her loss was a foregone conclusion at this point, "You won, again."


    "I did, but you made me work for it far more than last time. Well done," Horatio Quay praised Maxine, "Now, I imagine you will want to stock up on those purple healing potions of yours in advance."


    "You''re damn right I will," Maxine agreed as she stood up. And I should tell the Alchemist Association to get me an order of Purple Snake fruit and where to get them. I may need more of them in the future. I only have so many in my dimensional ring. At least I thought to put the scales that I shed into my dimensional ring. I honestly didn''t think I would shed scales at all. I wonder if I can sell them to an artificer or something.


    "Oh, that young man visited again while you were training," Horatio Quay said, "But I don''t think he will be visitng you again before you are done with your daily training exercises."


    "What did you do?!" Maxine demanded angrily.


    "I threw him into the endless fighitng array," Horatio Quay answered with a cruel smile, "He lasted longer than I thought. And I warned him that I would throw him into it every time he comes to bother you while you are training."


    "God damn it," Maxine cursed as she simply walked away while pinching the bridge of her nose. And that just proved to me that he is a sadistic prick.


    Maxine proceeded to go to her cottage and checked herself over for any loose scales. Ismena had notified her that she found the scales in Maxine''s bedding. Afterwards, she made a batch of normal healing potions and the purple healing potions specifically made for anyone that was related to serpents.


    Once she was done, she headed out to go get something to eat and was intercepted by Turan mere moments after she left Horatio Quay''s training grounds. He seemed extremely nervous.


    "You havn''t been approached by any elves with particularly dark skin have you?" Turan asked nervously.


    "I saw a couple of extremely dark purple elves with white hair when I was singing yesterday. Why?" Maxine asked out of curiosity.


    "I just heard that a pair of female drow have arrived recently at the academy," Turan said nervously. Drow? I hope they are not assholes like they are depricted in the novels found on Earth.


    "And why exactly should I be concerned?" Maxine asked.


    "I''m just advising that you be cautious if they approach you. That''s all," Turan said with genuine concern.


    "I usually am," Maxine replied with a slight smile, "I wasn''t planning on visiting the elven quarter today anyways. I wanted to see the snake-type beastkin today. I know that there are lamia and gorgons here, but I''ve yet to meet any other snake-type beastkin." And I''m worried how the elves will react to my current appearance. I know they might ignore my lineage when I look more elven than anything else, but I doubt they will be as accomodating if I show up looking like I do now.


    "There are not many varieties of the serpent-type beastkin," Turan lamented, "There might be one or two types beyond lamias and gorgons."


    "I''ve never seen the males of their species. So that would be something new," Maxine offered.


    "There are no male gorgons. I think there are a few snakemen," Turan said, "Unless you want to see a marilith. I think the academy has a couple of those studying at it, but I will warn you they are not pleasant company." If I recall properly, snakemen are the male equivalent to lamia. I still think it''s strange that there are no male gorgons. I guess their situation is the same as the arachne where there are no males of their species. Although, I have heard of the marilith. Their men are on average weaker than the women of their species and both are known for having powerful, almost unhealthy, attachments to their weapons.


    "I will take my chances," Maxine replied as she started walking towards the Alchemist Association first.


    "Do you mind if I join you?" Turan asked.


    "Go right ahead," Maxine replied and took flight towards the beastkin areas. It wasn''t hard to find where the snake-type beastkin resided. All she had to look for was a part of the academy that looked like a jungle. Unfortunately, the serpent-type beastkin were not at any of the jungle or desert terrains within the academy. Instead, she found them by chance when she spotted buildings that were reminiscent of ancient greek and roman architecture.


    However as soon as she landed just outside of it, she encountered three female marilith. Each of them wielding a scimitar in each of their six hands and were wearing sleeveless leather armor. As they slithered closer, she realized they looked of hindu descent. They look alot like the lamia. Well, that is if you can ignore the fact that they have verticle slits in their eyes, have six arms and skin tones that wouldn''t be out of place in India. She managed to keep herself from twitching when one of them flicked out a forked tongue. Oh, yeah. I forgot about their tongues. I think I recall that they see themselves as the warrior caste of the snake-type beastkin.


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    "Hello, ladies," Maxine said in greeting, "I hope I''m not intruding."


    "Release Ismena and Reina from your service," the lead marilith said coldly as she ignored Maxine''s greeting, "We can protect them better than you can."


    "If you could protect them so well, neither of them would be forced to join missions with the Tiger-Bear Mercenary group," Maxine retorted, "And I''m not forcing them to work for me."


    "That''s right. They owe you a debt," the lead marilith said calmly, "Tell me what they owe and I will repay it."


    "Before that, havn''t you noticed that since they''ve been working for me that they havn''t been harrassed by anyone?" Maxine asked.


    "It matters not. I will not allow one of those under my charge become indentured servants to another," the lead marilith replied with the same calm tone.


    "They are not indentured servents. They are my alchemist helpers, but what''s more, they are my friends," Maxine said gently, "Just ask them."


    The mariliths looked at Maxine for a few moments before the one to the left spoke, "Ka''leth, I sense no disception from her. Either she is a very gifted liar or she speaks the truth."


    "I still can''t allow one of our people to work for a dragon, even if she is related to a serpent," Ka''leth, the lead marilith, said coldly. Okay. Now I''m getting somewhere. But that begs the question: What have the dragons done to piss these ladies off?


    "And what has the dragon tribe done to you?" Maxine asked.


    "They wiped out most of the serpent-type beastkin," Ka''leth said sadly, "There used to be as many varieties of our kind such as the Yaun-ti and the Vasuki." I think I''ve heard of the Yaun ti, but not the Vasuki.


    "Vasuki?" Maxine asked in confusion. None of them seemed to want to answer, but thankfully, Ka''leth seemed to pity her enough to answer.


    "They are the direct descendants of the mother of all snakes, Kadru. They had a human face, complete body of a serpent and six powerful arms. Their physical strength was unequaled, but the price for such strength was their fertility," Ka''leth said sadly, "The marilith are the result of a vasuki mating with a human in an attempt to make themselves more prolific. There were more variations created due to the thinning of their bloodline, but they either died out or hunted to extinction." I pray that Ka''leth is misinformed. But some part of me knows they are not lying. It''s stupid, but fear of another race has caused extinctions before. Humans are not the only species that is capable of it. Hell, the humans of Earth are responsible for the extinction of several species because they were a threat.


    "I see why you don''t trust dragons, but I''m a hydra-shadow elf hybrid," Maxine said calmly, "And I was raised amongst humans. So I don''t see why you are so distrustful of me."


    "Humans are the worst," Ka''leth said coldly.


    "Some humans are horrible, but not all of them are," Maxine reasoned, "You should visit the planet called Earth sometime. I bet the three of you would become instant celebrities there."


    "Really?" one of the marilith flanking Ka''leth asked.


    "I''m not one hundred percent certain, but I believe they would be drawn to you out of curiosity if nothing else," Maxine answered honestly.


    "Interesting," Ka''leth said, "Hmm, we seem to have gotten off track. So I ask you again, how much will it cost to have them released from your service?"


    "They owe me nothing. I healed Reina free of charge," Maxine said directly, "They can quit any time they want to."


    "What?" Ka''leth asked in confusion, "I was under the impression that they were paying off a debt."


    "That''s odd," Maxine commented, "What did they tell you about the whole thing?"


    "Ismena said she owed you a debt and both her and her sister were working for you as recompense," Ka''leth replied, "Is that not the truth?"


    "It seems there is a misunderstanding here and I know exactly how to resolve it. I will just send you my memories of our encounters," Maxine announced as she extended her spiritual sense to send the memories to Ka''leth, whom allowed Maxine to proceed.


    After viewing the memories, Ka''leth nodded her head and agreed with Maxine, "I see, but I still don''t entirely trust you. You could''ve held back some of your memories. Regardless, what you''ve shown me is enough by the laws of my people, but I will still be watching you. And I warn you. If you so much as harm a single scale of either of them, I will do my best to make your life hell."


    "You have my word that I won''t hurt either of them intentionally," Maxine assured Ka''leth honestly, "Now can I, please, look around?"


    "Yes," Ka''leth said, "But I''m watching you." She seems to be quite prejudiced against anyone with even a sliver of draconic lineage. I can''t really blame her though if what she said about their history is true.


    Maxine shrugged as she walked passed Ka''leth into the serpentfolk quarter. The land dedicated to them was quite miniscule compared to the other beastkin groups, but she simply assumed it was due to them having fewer numbers. However that was an incorrect assumption. The place was crowded with lamia training with various polearms. The few gorgons she saw carried either a simple sword at their hip with a shield on their back or had a short spear of some kind in hand. Oddly, she didn''t see any other marilith besides the three at the entrance to this place. I guess they have the same problems as dragons and elves when it comes to having kids.


    "Hello," a red headed lamia with a glaive said in greeting as Maxine walked by, "Welcome. Are you looking for something or someone specific?" Why does she look familiar? OH! I think she''s the same lamia I saw in the bathhouse. I think her name was Mia.


    "No, I''m fine. I''m just looking around," Maxine said, "Your name is Mia, right?"


    "I''m so glad that you remembered," Mia said as she swiftly slithered up to Maxine, but Maxine stepped away from her.


    "Sorry, I''m quite venomous," Maxine said as she gestured to her claws and quills.


    "I forgot about that trait of yours. I''m not the smartest," Mia said with an apologetic smile, "But I don''t think you are a bad person though. I don''t care what Ka''leth says about you. You''ve been protecting Reina and Ismena from the bullies."


    "That I have," Maxine agreed, "Do you have anything fun to do around here?"


    "Um, we have a small concert at night," Mia said uncertainly, "But if you are looking for something right now, you just need to keep walking down the road. That''s where a few of my sisters are practicing with their instruments. It sounds very beautiful."


    "That sounds wondeful. Thank you," Maxine said.


    "It is," Mia agreed before she paled slightly, "Oh, darn. I should get back to practicing. I don''t want to get yelled at again. Bye!" Maxine didn''t even get an opportunity to reply before Mia slithered away and went back to practicing various moves with her glaive.


    Maxine proceeded down the road and after a few minutes, she found the place where several lamia and gorgons were playing various musical instruments. She only saw a couple instruments that vaguely resembled a violin or a harp. Otherwise she didn''t recognize any of the instruments being played. However she found their songs were beautiful even when listened to as a whole.


    She oddly felt at ease listening to this music. Even the violence dwelling within her blood seemed to calm as she listened to the various songs being played. So, that old saying ''music calms that savage beast'' is true. I just wish it were so easy to stay this calm all the time.


    Maxine closed her eyes and simply enjoyed the music. It was a few moments before she spontaneously joined in by singing a song from Earth. When she finished that song, she felt as if all the stress had been drained out of her and finally opened her eyes.


    She reflexively recoiled when she saw a couple dozen serpentfolk children infront of her. They were staring at her in wonder. She looked around for their parents and saw them watching her out of the corner of their eyes.


    "Did you like my singing?" Maxine asked them. A very young gorgon simply nodded her head.


    "Can you sing us another one, please?" a marilith boy asked. He looks a lot like Ka''leth. He''s probably her son.


    "Of course I can," Maxine said gently with a smile, "But you wouldn''t rather sing with me?"


    "Yes, please," a young lamia said with a diamond shaped pattern on her serpentine lower body said.


    "Marilith don''t sing," the marilith boy said firmly.


    "Well, that''s too bad," Maxine said in return, "But that doesn''t stop everyone else learning a few songs and I bet your parents would love it if you could sing well to them." She saw the eager faces of the girls in the group while the boys didn''t seem as interested. However all of them, except for the marilith boty, sat attentively as she sang the lyrics of a couple simple children''s songs. She continued to teach them for some time until they ran off to their respective parents and began to show off their newly acquired knowledge of song. I do not envy those parents. Well, I best head back now. I wonder what tomorrow will bring, but I definitely know where I''m going to relax while I''m using my battleform.

 Chapter 153

    Maxine spent the next couple weeks training with Horatio Quay and spent her free time with the serpentfolk. She found out that the young marilith boy was in fact Ka''leth''s son and that his name was called La''tren. However no matter how often she came by to teach songs to all of the other serpentfolk children, Ka''tren not once joined in. She didn''t put much mind to it since he often complimented a few of the young lamia on their singing skill. But, before she realized it, it was the day that Orianna and Maxwell were going to arrive.


    "We won''t be training today," Horatio Quay said to her as soon as Maxine exited her cottage, "With your sister arriving today, I doubt you would be able to concentrate enough for it to be worth either of our time. So we should just go to the southern entrance since your sister and her husband will be arriving within the hour."


    "How do you know when they will arrive?" Maxine asked while narrowing her eyes in suspicion. I just found out yesterday the exact time of their arrival by talking to Orianna. I wasn''t sure she would be able contact me through our special link. In any case, I''m just happy I will get to see her again.


    "I was informed," Horatio Quay replied, "I had told the faculty nearly a month ago that I was taking on a student as a favor for an old friend and asked them to inform me when they were going to arrive."


    "And you didn''t tell me this earlier, because?" Maxine asked in irratation.


    "I didn''t see a point to and I thought you would simply know once she was close enough," Horatio Quay answered, "If I''m not mistaken, that is how the special link between twins typically works."


    "It isn''t. I''m only aware of where she is when I concentrate," Maxine answered calmly, "But I will instantly know if she gets injured."


    "Interesting," Horatio Quay said with a smile, "Well, we may as well go to the southern entrance and wait for them." He didn''t wait for Maxine''s reply before taking off. Maxine shrugged and quickly followed behind.


    Maxine felt a powerful urge to race towards the southern entrance at top speed, but she resisted that urge since she knew that it would still be some time before they arrived. It would''ve been a waste of energy. Still she felt anxious about seeing Orianna again and barely noticed when Ismena and Reina flew up beside her.


    "Maxine, are you okay?" Ismena asked.


    "Yeah, I''m just a bit anxious," Maxine admitted.


    "Is this about seeing your si... I mean, your master''s daughter?" Reina asked.


    "Yes, and just drop the pretense. Only idiots havn''t figured out out who I am at this point," Maxine complained angrily. She had noticed in the past week that everyone, including the dragon clan, started treating her with far more care than they used to. Afterall, everyone in the Alliance knows just how cruel her father could be to those that would dare to harm his family. Well, there goes the idea of picking a fight if I get particularly pissed off and need to vent.


    "I won''t apologize," Horatio Quay commented, "I''ve been doing this for your benefit. Your father''s enemies will eventually come for you and this way you know that they are coming. As for those that are too powerful for you to face, I will deal with them."


    "Thank you so much for that," Maxine said sarcastically.


    "You''re welcome," Horatio Quay replied with amusment. Asshole.


    They had to land next to the southern entrance. To anyone that didn''t know better, it may have seemed easier to simply fly over it, but that would''ve resulted in a very painful lesson. She discovered through Ismena and Reina that a special array had been placed within the academy walls that would violently force any being flying using energy to the ground before they could fly over it. She, like many others, had no desire to discover just how violently it performed it''s task.


    She saw a few other people waiting outside the southern entrance as she walked through it. Many of them were people that she saw when she first arrived. However this time, she knew why they were present. They were various representatives of groups within the academy to assess the newcomers. Hmm, now that I think about it, it seems odd that they didn''t approach me. Perhaps it was because Piras Long was with me.


    Maxine saw movement out of the corner of her eye and saw a pair of harpies walking forward. However, one of them had clawed hands along with pair wings spread out from her back. Some of them have arms along with wings?! I didn''t know that. I guess it makes sense in a way. There have to be a wider variety of flying beastkin considering the snake-type beastkin have several variations. But unlike the gorgons, harpies have men amongst their kind. It''s just that there are more females than males. They both looked at Maxine before nodding and facing foward.


    The remaining time until Orianna and Maxwell''s arrival seemed to pass within the blink of an eye. It wasn''t until she saw Horatio Quay look up towards the sky that she realized they had arrived. She followed his gaze and saw a small speck of silver that was gradually getting larger. It was a bullet shaped ship with small wings jutting out each of it''s sides and it''s landing gear was slowly being lowered.


    Once it landed, a door on the side of it opened up as a ramp slowly extended out of the ship. She saw Maxwell exit first. She made a mental note that he had gained some muscle since she last saw him.


    Unconsciously, Maxine glanced to the harpies and saw both of them straighten up and push out their chests. She glanced behind her to check on something and saw Ismena and Reina acting very shy. What''s going on? Whatever it is, they better stop before Orianna sees this shit. I do not need to deal with calming down my yandere sister.


    "You best push any thoughts of courting him out of your mind, ladies," Maxine announced, "His wife is VERY possessive."


    "How would you know that?" the claw handed harpy asked.


    "Because his wife is my twin sister," Maxine admitted. I don''t see any harm in announcing it now. My asshole of a teacher might as well have shouted it from the rooftops with how loose his lips are. They looked disappointed, but it didn''t stop them from looking at him longingly. I really need to figure out why they are all attracted to him. He didn''t cause this kind of stir on Earth. So what changed?


    When Maxwell was halfway down the ramp, Orianna made her appearance. Maxine was slightly surprised when she saw that Orianna''s hair was shorter than her own. It reached jupst past her shoulders. She had thought Orianna would share her preference of keeping long hair, but she understood why she wouldn''t. Long hair requires a lot of time and energy to keep groomed.  Regardless, she was still very happy to see her sister.


    "Revert your transformation," Horatio Quay said in reminder from behind Maxine, "You can''t exactly give her a hug with those quills and claws out."


    Maxine wasn''t paying much attention to him as she walked through the crowd. Thankfully, the crowd parted for her so she wouldn''t have to push her way through. At the moment that Orianna''s eyes locked onto her, she began to revert her transformation. However she didn''t stop at her shadow queen form. She continued until she returned to her base form. Now aside from Maxine having longer hair and it being a different color, the two of them looked identical.


    "Sister!" Orianna shouted joyfully as she rushed down the ramp and embraced Maxine just as Maxine breached the crowd, "I missed you so much!"


    "I missed you too," Maxine said happily as she returned her sister''s hug, but when she looked over Orianna''s shoulder, she went rigid. She saw Meagan, and Alice walking down the ramp with a man wearing heavy armor. She didn''t even need to think about it to know that the armored man was Patrick. What are they doing here? There were a couple dozen more men and women exiting the ship that wore an insignia on their shoulders. She saw the same insignia on Patrick''s shield. Oh, so he''s taken up the job of a mercenary. But why come here? Most of the jobs posted are taken up by the students.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "Oh, you noticed them?" Orianna asked as she released Maxine from the hug and she immediately looked irratated, "They are looking for work as mercenaries and insisted that they come with us. I told them not to bother since the students here usually claim most, if not all, contracts here."


    "You''re not wrong," Maxine agreed.


    "Do you have any need of them?" Orianna asked.


    "Not at the moment," Maxine replied, "But in any case, you''re here to take the entrance exam right?"


    "Yeah, but for someone like me, they said they would send a teacher to evaluate me," Orianna said, "But Maxwell has to go through some kind of test to be taught here. Do you know what it is?"


    "Yeah, I do," Maxine said and she turned to Maxwell, "Do you see that big circle over there with all the wierd symbols on it? That''s an illusion array that''s programmed with the martial entrance exam. Just a heads up, be prepared for a tough series of fights."


    During their conversation, Patrick, Meagan and Alice were all looking at Maxine as if she were a ghost. Maxine couldn''t blame them since from their persective she had been dead for more than five years. Meagan was the first of the trio to recover.


    "What the hell is going on? Aren''t you supposed to be dead?" Meagan asked.


    "I was dead," Maxine replied, "If my father hadn''t expended a mountain of precious resources, I would''ve remained that way. Even still I ended up suffering from temporary memory loss as a side-effect. So in other words, I didn''t know who I was until a short time ago when my memories started to slowly return."


    "It would''ve been better if you stayed dead," Meagan said coldly.


    "Meagan, that was uncalled for," Maxwell admonished Meagan.


    "I don''t care," Meagan snapped, "You were there with me at her funeral. You saw how much it hurt Patrick when she ''died.'' Her coming back is just another emotional trial on him!"


    "I can speak for myself," Patrick said interrupted in a calm voice, "And Meagan is right. It caused me a lot of pain when I heard that you died. It took me years to get over your death, and seeing you here, alive, is a bit of a shock. For everyone. So could you give us some time before we talk this out?"


    "I''m fine with talking with the others, but not you," Maxine said coldly and when Patrick had a look of confusion on his face, she added, "Don''t think I wasn''t aware of how you publicly denounced me once you found out about who my real father was. I havn''t forgotten about that. So stay away from me, Patrick." Maxine immediatley turned around and began to walk away.


    "Maxine, wait!" Orianna shouted out as she chased after Maxine and Maxine stopped to hear what her sister had to say, "Can you forgive him? Please?"


    "I don''t think I can, but I will try," Maxine said, "Sorry for making a scene."


    "It''s okay," Orianna said comfortingly, "You''ve got every right to be angry with him. But if you really want to make it up to me and Max, you can take us to the best restraunt you know and pay for everything."


    "Deal," Maxing said with a smile, "Alice can join us as well if the academy will allow her to come in."


    "They will," Horatio Quay chimed in, "In fact, they only restrict visitors from attending lessons or using the formation arrays. Otherwise they are free to roam about. How do you think clans are able to recruit unaffiliated talent from this place?"


    "That answers that question," Maxine said.


    "Just point us to the mercenary guild so we can get out of your hair," Patrick said and Maxine sent him the location of the mercenary guild via her spiritual sense, "Thanks. We''ll meet up later if you feel like talking." Without further interuptions, Meagan, Patrick and the rest of their mercenary band, excluding Alice, left for the mercenary guild.


    "This is awkward," Alice announced after a short silence.


    "How about we get out of here and find that restraunt?" Maxine offered and gestured towards the crowd that was entertaining themselves by watching the drama unfold, "I for one do not enjoy being stared at."


    "I second that," Alice agreed, "Lead on."


    "I believe you are forgetting that those two need to take their entrance exams," Horatio Quay said as he gestured towards Orianna and Maxwell, "Just walk into that formation array young man. As for you young lady, you''re examiner has just arrived and I made sure it was a woman ahead of time." As Horatio Quay was speaking, Maxine spotted the examiner, whom was a lamia. She had black hair and was wearing something similar to a summer dress.


    "Thank you," Orianna said with a sincere tone.


    "I''m Vellina Lucund. I''m here to test a young lady by the name of Orianna," the lamia examiner asked.


    "That''s me," Orianna stated, "So what do I need to do?"


    "Use your music to effect my mind and I will score you accordingly," Velina answered.


    "Alright," Orianna answered as a flute appeared in her hands and began to play it. Maxine had a hard time keeping her focus her thoughts as she listened. Oh, nice. I didn''t realize Orianna''s music could effect me to this degree and I''m not even her target. She forced herself to check on Maxwell, whom just walked into the illusion array meant to test his martial skills. She saw his blurry form moving with increasing speed while enveloped by a grey aura. Oh? It seems he''s pushing himself.


    "His footwork is garbage, but his blade skills show some promise," Horatio Quay commented, "He seems to want to kill his enemies in one hit every time through pure force. Such idiocy. He could get the same result with a little finesse and use far less of his stamina. And if I''m not mistaken he uses a technique very similar to yours."


    "He probably learned the same technique that I was taught," Maxine replied casually.


    "Undoubtedly," Horatio Quay complained, "He''s going to wear himself out at this rate."


    "What do you expect? He''s from a relatively peaceful world and he''s probably never been in a fight that left him completely exhausted before," Maxine explained.


    "He still shouldn''t waste so much of his energy," Horatio Quay complained, but a sadistic smile soon spread across his lips, "I will have to break him of all those bad habits. I wonder how long it will take." Poor Maxwell. He will find out how much of a hell it is to be under Horatio Quay''s tutelage. I should give him a heads up.


    "I have no idea, but he will learn to do better," Maxine said.


    "Yes, he will," Orianna chimed in, "I passed by the way. I''m supposed to attend Ms. Lucund''s classes tomorrow."


    "That''s great!" Maxine said happily, "Now all we have to do is wait on Max to finish up his test."


    "What are you guys talking about?" Maxwell asked inbetween pants as sweat covered his face. He had just exited the illusion array.


    "Oh, we were discussing your bad habits that showed up during your test and how our teacher intends to correct them," Maxine replied, "On a side note, I should warn you that his teaching methods are ... how do I put this? ... sadistically designed." Maxwell eyed Maxine with a disbelieving glare.


    "It can''t be that bad, can it?" Orianna asked.


    "It''s probably worse," Maxine said with a straight face. And Horatio Quay isn''t even denying it.


    "If you are done trying to scare the hell out of my brother, can we go get something to eat?" Alice asked in annoyance. I''m not trying to scare him. I''m trying to warn him, but if you don''t want to believe me, that''s fine. I did my part as his sister-in-law.


    "Certainly, Ms. Adams," Turan said out of nowhere. Both Alice and Maxwell jumped back and readied their weapons. Both of them were staring daggers at Turan.


    "What the shit!?" Alice and Maxwell yelled at the same time as they stared at Turan and Alice quickly added, "Where did he come from?"


    "Beats me," Maxine answered, "He just appears whenever he feels like it." Alice, Maxwell and Orianna gave Maxine a wierd look.


    "Whatever, but that prick is paying since he scared the hell out of us," Alice snapped as she put her bow away.


    "Agreed," Maxwell said as he put his blades into his dimensional pouch.


    "I don''t mind. I was going to pay for the meal anyways," Turan said in a matter-of-fact tone, "Shall we?"


    "Lead on, you pointy eared wierdo," Alice said harshly. Turan shrugged as he lead them to the restraunt that he took Maxine to before.


    After everyone was seated at a table, Maxine took note of the food that Orianna had ordered foods that were both salty and sweet. She narrowed her eyes slightly in suspicion and very carefully compared their figures in closer detail. We should be nearly identical physically, but she seems a little pudgy. And why do her breasts look slightly swollen? If it was just those two alone, I would say she''s just gained a little weight. But she isn''t someone that eats foods this salty or sweet. When I was around her, she prefered things that had a subtle taste. Is it possible that she''s pregnant? I mean they''ve been married for some time, but I better ask instead of assume.


    [Sis, are you pregnant?] Maxine asked Orianna via spiritual sense.


    [I don''t think so. Why do you ask?] Orianna asked in return.


    [You have some odd cravings and your breasts look a little swollen,] Maxine replied, [Can I scan you with my spiritual sense just in case?]


    [Go ahead,] Orianna said with a hint of anticipation.


    Maxine projected her spiritual sense towards Orianna''s womb and discovered a month old fetus growing within her. A smile spread across Maxine''s lips and looked straight at Maxwell as she said, "Congratualtions, you''re going to be a daddy."


    "What?" Maxwell asked reflexively as he gave her a look of pure surprise, but he swiftly looked to Orianna for confirmation. She simply nodded her head in affirmation and Maxwell showed a brilliant smile filled with joy before he hugged Orianna. Everyone else at the table immediately chimed in their own congratulations. Orianna and Maxwell were soaking it up.


    Maxine couldn''t have been happier for them and she wished she had more time to spend with them before Horatio Quay dragged her off for a mercenary contract. She just hoped that he didn''t include Maxwell in it. I doubt Horatio Quay could drag Maxwell away from Orianna anyways. If I know him, he insist on staying near her at least until Orianna''s baby is born. In any case, I have a week to spend with my sister and I intend to enjoy every minute of it. Still, I wonder what kind of mission my teacher will insist that we go on?

 Chapter 154

    Maxine smiled warmly as she walked with Alice and Orianna through the market square in search of maternal clothes, baby clothes and other items while Maxwell trailed behind them. She hadn''t seen Patrick or the others since she arrived, and she had no intention of looking for him either. She would much rather spend time with her sister.


    "Are you sure you''re fine with paying for everything?" Orianna asked for the fifth time.


    "Yes," Maxine replied, "How many more times do I have to say it before it sinks in?"


    "It just doesn''t feel right that you pay for everything," Orianna replied.


    "Sis, I''m a rich alchemist. I''ve got money to spare," Maxine reassured Orianna, "And I''m more than happy to pay for everything."


    "Which I''m grateful for," Maxwell chimed in from behind.


    "By the way, is there any way you could get an upgrade for my brother''s armor?" Alice asked, "He''ll want to go on missions later and he doesn''t exactly pay much attention to his defense."


    "I will see what I can find," Maxine said with a smirk. Regardless of Alice''s review of his skill, Maxwell indeed knew how to dodge. Maxine had seen that he could, but he always dodged by such narrow margins. It will definitely help if he miscalculates. It would turn a savage wound into a minor injury if he''s wearing the best he can get for his level.


    "Thanks," Maxwell said, but his tone became guarded when a few tigerkin stood in their path, "And you gentlemen are?"


    "Well, we are from the tiger-bear mercenary group and we couldn''t help but notice that you have three lovely companions," the leader of the trio remarked without disguising his intentions, "Don''t you think you are being unfair to the rest of the men here by keeping them to yourself?" This is so cliche'' that it''s not even funny.


    "My sister is his wife and that''s his sister," Maxine explained as she gestured towards Orianna and Alice, "And I''m a lesbian that has no interest in men. So explain to me how he''s hogging all of us to himself?"


    "He''s hogging you if I say he is!" the leader of the trio roared and he reached out for Maxine, "And for mouthing off, you get to come with me!" Maxine grabbed his wrist before he could touch her and spinned towards him to bend his arm backwards. His arm resounded with a snap as she brought his arm around her back and slammed her elbow against the base of his skull. He didn''t even have a chance to scream in pain before he was knocked unconscious.


    "What kind of idiot tries to grab ahold of a queen-class cultivator?" Maxine asked the remaining duo of tigerkin, whom were staring at her with a dumbstruck expression, but she didn''t care as she began yelling at them, "Because if you hadn''t noticed, I let you off easy, so the next time some idiot tries to touch me without my permission, I will rip their fucking dick off!"


    Both of the tigermen still standing immediately began sweating and one of them glanced down at her waist to see the gold alchemist badge at her hip. It was only partially visible, but it still should''ve been one of the first things they saw. How could they only now notice it?! Do they have shit for brains?!


    "By the maker, you''re her!" one of the tigerkin practically screamed fearfully, "I... I... I thought you were half shadow elf, not human."


    "It doesn''t matter if you knew it or not. You still should''ve noticed my alchemist badge before you approached," Maxine responded, "Now grab your idiot friend and get out of my sight."


    Maxine didn''t bother looking at them before turning around. She was confused for a moment when she didn''t immediately spot Orianna, but she saw Orianna in the next moment hiding behind Maxwell. So, she is still afraid of men. To be honest, it''s amazing the amount of progress that she''s made. She didn''t even react fearfully until they displayed some aggression.


    "Are you alright?" Maxine asked Orianna.


    "Yes, I.. I think I will be alright," Orianna said unsteadily.


    "We can go back to my cottage if you want," Maxine offered.


    "No, I''m fine," Orianna said firmly.


    "Alright then. Let''s start shopping!" Maxine exclaimed as she grabbed Orianna''s hand and pulled her directly into the nearest clothing store. To her surprise, it took her awhile to find maternity clothes for Orianna. She thought they would be more common since saw children from time to time playing in the streets. Finding newborn baby clothes on the other hand was far easier, but she made certain that all the outfits were unisex since it was too early to tell the gender of Orianna''s baby.


    With that out of the way, the four of them went looking for an armor set for Maxwell and managed to find a full-set of wyvern leather armor. Just as they were finishing up in the armory shop, Turan joined them. Thankfully, he greeted them as he entered the shop rather than his usual routine of popping into existence. He had already earned quite a few bruises from Alice and Maxwell the last time he did that.


    However as soon as they moved to leave the market square, a group of teachers surrounded the four of them and all of them were either half-step immortals or at the very peak of gold stage. Took them long enough to show up. We''ve been shopping for over two hours. It shouldn''t take them that long to find out someone broke the no fighting rule. Still, I acted in self-defense so even if they punish me, it will be a light punishment.


    "Fine, I admit it. I broke that prick''s arm," Maxine shouted loudly before the teachers could say anything, "But in my defense, he had this perverted look on his face and said he was going to take me with him. What was I supposed to do? Let some perverted tigerkin take me somewhere so he could molest me unhindered?!" The teachers surrounding her were stunned to silence and she could''ve sworn she heard someone laughing uproarously in the distance. However she wasn''t sure who it was.


    "We will have to confirm this, young lady," a muscular pantherkin male said calmly, but Maxine could see the fury in his eyes. Is that Marcus Quinn? I thought he didn''t like the tiger-bear mercenaries, but he must value the rules quite a bit. Afterall, he looks like he wants to skin that tigerkin asshole alive from the look in his eyes.


    "And how will you do that?" Maxine asked.


    "This is how," Marcus Quinn said as she put a truth stone in her hand, "Now explain what happened." Yeah, that would do it.


    "A tigerkin trio blocked our path and made some rant about how my sister''s husband was hogging all of the pretty girls to himself. I told him what was really going on and he got angry for no reason. Next, he tried to grab me while growling ''you get to come with me!'' As far as I''m concerned, he was intent on raping me after dragging me off somewhere, so he''s lucky that I only broke his arm," Maxine said calmly and the stone remained unchanged.


    "THAT WRETCH!" one of the two female teachers roared in rage.


    "Calm yourself, Elena," Marcus Quinn said calmly, "This is only what she believes is true, not what is true. We need to question everyone involved and that includes the injured party." He''s being professional about this without allowing his anger to cloud his judgement. He has my respect.


    "Regardless, just from that young man''s words, he intended to force this young woman to go with him. That merits some discipline," Elena growled angrily.


    "Agreed, but let''s continue questioning the others to find the extent at which he should be punished," Marcus Quinn said calmly.


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    "Um, could one of the female teachers question my sister?" Maxine asked with the truth stone still in her grasp, "She gets very uncomfortable around men with the exception of her husband."


    "That''s a reasonable request," Marcus Quinn replied as he retrieved the truth stone from Maxine, "Elena, can you question her?"


    "Of course," Elena said as she approached Orianna with a truth stone of her own. The teachers proceeded to question Orianna, Maxwell and Alice. They, more or less, gave a similar story to what Maxine had said.


    "You acted in self-defense," Marcus Quinn said, "But since you technically struck first, it still counts as a violation of academy rules, so whatever your plans are, cancel them. You are going on the highest risk mission available at the mercenary guild as penance." Huh? What happened to my light punishment? Not only did I defend myself, I''m a fucking gold-tier alchemist. He''s clearly giving me the maximum punishment for no god damn reason. I doubt he will even give me a chance to challenge him on his decision. I have a feeling he''s being paid off.


    "Alright. Are you going to inform my teacher or should I?" Maxine asked calmly, "He clearly stated that he wanted to accompany me on my first mercenary contract."


    "We will inform him," Marcus Quinn said bluntly before pulling out a datapad and searching through it a moment, "Cline, escort her to the spaceport and put her on the large transport heading to Orias Five."


    "But...," Cline interjected, but Marcus Quinn cut him off, "I''m following the precedent. She''s just unlucky." Well, fuck. This confirms my suspicion. I was set up and this fucking asshole was paid off. He''s just using the ''precedent'' as an excuse. Now I hate the lowlife. When I get back, I''m going to find out who paid him off and kill them both.


    "Well, it looks like we will have to cut our short vacation short," Maxine said apologetically to Orianna and looked to Maxwell as teacher Cline approached her, "Look after my sister while I''m gone."


    "So, just do what I''ve been doing?" Maxwell asked.


    "Yes, do that," Maxine said. When Cline reached out to grab her, Horatio Quay appeared and slapped his hand away.


    "I''m her teacher, and you will not touch her," Horatio Quay growled.


    "She needs to be taken to the spaceport," Cline stated.


    "And you''ve decided the punishement for my student before I was even informed that she had done something wrong," Horatio Quay growled.


    "That is a curtesy reserved for respectable teachers and you''ve proven time and time again that you don''t care for curtesy. So it wasn''t extended in this case," Marcus Quinn replied.


    "Fine, but I will file a complaint about the excessive punishement given to a gold-tier alchemist, whom could''ve given penance by making potions for the academy," Horatio Quay said before he turned to Maxine and gestured for her to follow as he took flight. Maxine followed behind him.


    "Be careful," Orianna called out to Maxine before she got out of earshot.


    [I will, Orianna and try not to stress out. It''s bad for the baby,] Maxine said to Orianna via spiritual sense.


    [I know. But I''ll still worry and so will mom and grandma,] Orianna replied.


    [Relax. If all else fails and I''m in deep trouble, I will just create a portal somewhere safe,] Maxine reassured Orianna, [And if I can''t get away, I will go with the nuclear option and fully transform. At that point, only powerful half-step immortals or immortals can deal with me and I don''t think they would lower themselves to deal with a peak silver stage like me, even if I have three cores. Their pride would prevent it.]


    "You do realize what just happened, right?" Horatio Quay asked angrily.


    "Yes, I do," Maxine replied.


    "Good. Take it as a learning experience if you survive this contract," Horatio Quay said, "He''s selected a nigh suicidal mission for you." Dick.


    "It''s a good thing that I''ve already prepared all of my potions and food, isn''t it?" Maxine asked calmly.


    "It is," Horatio Quay said in agreement as they landed infront of the spaceport.


    "So, what''s the mission anyways?" Maxine asked.


    "We have to help defend a planet besieged by goblins. A massive hord of goblins," Horatio Quay stated coldly, "The mission even dictates that they expect at least a 90% fatality rate." Going full hydra is looking like it''s the way to go.


    "What about the strength of the strongest fighters?" Maxine asked. Goblins are like the four-horned kanzils in the regards to their highest strength cultivators, but there are very few, comparitively speaking, silver stage and higher. Very few of them get much stronger than silver, but they make up for this lack with pure numbers. They breed faster than fucking rabbits on aphrodisiacs, so they can easily shoulder the losses.


    "Early gold stage is the best guess of the mercenary guild scouts," Horatio Quay answered as he looked around for a few moments before walking towards a particularly large ship, "So that means there is probably mid to high gold stage goblin hiding somewhere amongst that horde. Cowardly beasts always send their minions out to do battle rather than fighting themselves."


    "I know. I''ve read up on all races hostile to the Alliance during my free time after you said that you would be taking me along with you on a mercenary mission," Maxine replied.


    "Good," Horatio Quay said and he spoke to the man manning the ramp that lead into a large ship, "Is this the ship designated for mercenary contract H7GR15?"


    "That''s right. Get on board," the man replied, "We are leaving as soon the next mercenary group arrives."


    Horatio Quay nodded and beckoned Maxine to follow him. However she stopped and turned in disbelieve when she heard a familiar voice sound out behind her. "Oh? I didn''t realize you took on mercenary contracts, Maxine," Patrick shouted out to her.


    "What the hell are you doing here?" Maxine demanded.


    "I took up a job to go kill some goblins. Is that a problem?" Patrick asked innocently.


    "Only if you intend to bring Alice along," Maxine said angrily.


    "She''s not coming on this mission," Patrick said calmly, "She wants to spend time with her brother."


    "Oh, thank god," Maxine said in relief..


    Patrick sighed before he asked, "So you were only concerned about Alice? Do really not care what happens to me?"


    "I did, but now I don''t know," Maxine admitted and turned around before walking up the ramp. That''s a lie. I may be angry with you, but I don''t want you to die.


    After she got into the ship and was about to enter an empty room, Horatio Quay grabbed her arm and asked her, "Why did you treat that young man like that? He could''ve been a valueable ally in coming fighting."


    "He''s betrayed me once before. I won''t give him a chance to do it again," Maxine said angrily.


    "So that explains the remorse I saw in his eyes. I''m surprised you didn''t pick up on that," Horatio Quay said aand looked into her eyes for a momebt before he released her, "You''re letting your anger cloud your mind. Let it go or it will get you killed."


    "I don''t think I can," Maxine responded.


    "I understand that man betrayed you, but it isn''t healthy for your mind to hold this grudge," Horatio Quay stated, "I don''t know the specifics since your father neglected to provide me any information on this matter, but I doubt it is as bad as you believe it is."


    "It probably isn''t, but I still can''t forget what he did," Maxine said angrily.


    "I only said to let go of your anger. I never said anything about forgetting about his betrayal," Horatio Quay replied. I hate to admit it, but that''s some good advice. And he didn''t need to tell me that Patrick felt bad about betraying me. When he cried at my funeral, that was proof enough that he regretted it, but I still need time to completely forgive him. It didn''t help that Meagan acted like a bitch when she first saw me.


    "Fine," Maxine acquiesced, "I told my sister I would try to forgive him anyways."


    "Good," Horatio Quay said aprovingly, "Use the time until we arrive to stabilize your emotions."


    "Understood," Maxine replied before Horatio Quay took up residence in the room beside hers.


    Maxine entered her own room and sighed to herself since she forgot how small they were. However this room had a terminal built into the wall and she used that moment to look up the specifics of their mission. Once she keyed it up, she immediately paled.


    Horatio Quay was right in the fact that they were up against a horde of goblins. She thought it would''ve been something along the lines of a few million combatants. She was wrong. The goblins numbered in the hundreds of millions. This wasn''t just an invasion. These goblins were clearly intent on colonizing that planet after they wiped out the inhabitants with a force of that size. What''s worse is that the local forces didn''t even number one tenth of the invading force of goblins.


    Maxine shook her head and looked up how many silver and gold stage goblins were amongst their number in hopes that their numbers were lower than they should be. They weren''t. There were over fifty thousand silver stage and less than fifty gold stage goblins by mercenary guild''s estimate. But she knew that they hadn''t done a thorough analysis. With a force that large, it would''ve taken too long to do a thorough analysis, so the number of more powerful goblins could easily be double. Fuck. There has to be a reason that the mercenary guild would take this task. Wait, how many people have they hired for this mission?


    She quickly checked the recruitment numbers and felt some relief. Roughly 50 million mercenaries took this mission and the numbers were rapidly rising. Unfortunately, those that were joining were almost exclusively iron stage cultivators. Perhaps they are hoping to overwhelm quantity with quality, but even geniuses will fall when they are this absurdly outnumbered. Still, every little bit improves my chances slightly. Hell, if Horatio Quay really is the Blade Demon, he might be able to deal with that goblin horde on his own given enough time. But I have no such capability. Even if I summon every last single one of my constructs, it wouldn''t help much considering the difference in numbers.


    Maxine had a horrible thought and surprised herself when she glanced at the herbs within her dimensional ring. I can''t believe I''m even considering using poison. It''s cowardly, but against that many, I don''t think I have a choice. Fuck it. She retrieved the necessary herbs and gathered some of her venom before concocting the most lethal poisons that she could.

 Chapter 155

    Maxine was waiting in the cargo hold of the ship with the other mercenaries while wearing a veil on her face. Even though she spent most of her time cooped up in her room, she had gotten more than enough unwanted attention during the week long flight and she did not want anymore.


    Thankfully, all of that isolation in her room gave her plenty of time to read several books on goblin biology to make a more effective poison for them. She had devised five different kinds of poisons during that time. Four types, which she made a lot of, were debilitating in nature, but she only made a single vial of the last one. It was a deadly masterpiece that she called Plaguebringer and like it''s namesake, it creates a plague based off of the being in comes into contact with by causing their own natural bacteria to mutate into something lethal. Scarier still, it became deadlier the stronger the being that she poisoned it with, but it won''t infect other races besides the one. It was so nasty that she couldn''t believe what she had made and nearly destroyed it. Still, she kept it just in case everything got fucked beyond all recovery.


    Maxine''s attention was quickly brought to her surroundings when she slapped away another hand from trying to grab her ass. She was tempted to beat the culprit half to death as well as the previous two that tried the same thing, but restrained herself since those idiots might actually be useful in the upcoming fight. Even if they were useless, they would be a sufficient meat shield for someone else. This was especially important since they were being dropped directly to the frontlines. Even if there are fifty such idiots, it won''t be a problem. There has to be thousands of mercenaries on this ship alone and from what I heard from the other mercenaries, there are hundreds of these ships enroute as well. This definitely increases my overall chance of survival. Goblins are not known for being competent fighters. Hell, they are mostly known for their cowardice and disgusting eating habits. Beyond that, their phsycal appearance isn''t much to look at either. They are inbetween three and four feet tall, green, have long hooked noses, oversized pointed ears and tiny horns on their foreheads. At least their cowardice ensures that they will stay in one large group.


    Idly, she glanced around the cargo hold and saw Patrick with his mercenaries a dozen feet to her left. She debated again if she should help them in some way. Even after everything he had done, she still viewed Patrick as a brother, albeit a brother she was angry with.


    She took one deep breath and gave in to her desire to help them before walking towards them. As she walked up to them, she created a few constructs with a particular purpose, but sadly they wouldn''t last as long as she would like.


    "Take these and give them to your people," Maxine told Patrick as she held out a handful of silver crystaline shards. Patrick looked at her for a moment with confusion.


    "What are those things?" Patrick asked suspiciously.


    "Warp stones," Maxine replied calmly, "Break one and it will warp you back to the academy. And before you ask, it''s the only place that I can safely sent you guys to." And with the way I made them and the amount of energy I put into them, they should last for a few months. Hopefully, this mission will be finished before then.


    "Why though?" Patrick asked and she saw Meagan behind him with an expression that was asking the same thing.


    "Because, no matter how furious I am with you, I don''t want to see you dead," Maxine replied, "Now I need to go make my final preparations for the coming battle. So if you are going to take them, do it now."


    "Thank you," Patrick said as he took the silver crystaline shards away from Maxine and began to hand them out ot his people.


    "You''re welcome," Maxine said before walking back to stand beside Horatio Quay.


    "Good. That was an excellent way to gain an ally," Horatio Quay stated, "And a means to mend your relationship with that young man."


    "I''m still angry with him," Maxine said coldly and looked up as a countdown timer of five minutes appeared over the cargo hold doors. She took this time to double check that she had enough of her specialized healing potions, food and drink for the following months. And when the countdown timer reached thirty seconds, she transformed into her battleform and retrieved both of her blades. She made sure her Shadow''s Embrace armor covered her sufficiently before forming the mask of her essence armor over her veiled face.


    As a result of her transformation, the surrounding mercenaries took a collective step away from her. She even saw the three men that had tried to grab her ass start to sweat nervously. However Maxine didn''t pay them any mind since the countdown timer had just reached five seconds.


    Maxine readied herself to launch out of the cargo hold doors as soon as they opened, but she had no intention of being among the first group to leave the ship. There were several dozens of such idiots eager to meet the goblins in battle. Thankfully, none of Patrick''s mercenaries were that stupid. Most of them were hanging back in the middle of the gathered mercenaries.


    As soon as the cargo doors opened, Maxine instantly heard heavy fighting and the more inexperienced mercenaries jumped out of the ship in rapid succession. Within moments, it was clear enough for Maxine to fly out of the ship. She only gazed at the battlefield for a moment to orient herself before charging at a group of silver stage fighters in the air that were in desperate need of reinforcement.


    She rapidly unleashed a flurry of strikes to either maim or kill the goblins as she flew amongst them. A few of them managed to take notice of her before she struck them, but it didn''t do them much good. She was much faster than them and they were incapable of dealing with her speed. Due to this, it only took her a handful of seconds to thin the goblins out enough so that this group of defenders were able to overwhelm the remaining goblins on their own. I''m so glad that I spent time to look up goblin physiology. It makes it much easier to land a deadly blow with minimal effort. Still, I can''t help but wonder why none of these goblins are peak silver stage and I don''t even sense the gold stage ones. Maybe goblins are more fearful than I thought. Or they are up to something. I just don''t know what it is.


    "Thank you," the leader of this group of defenders said gratefully. Maxine looked at the defenders and she noted that each of them were suffering from various injuries ranging from minor to severe. Three of which looked as if they had no right to be even capable of flight and needed immediate medical attention.


    "Here have those three drink these," Maxine said as she shoved three of her normal healing potions into their leader''s hands and scanned around for another group that needed help, "I would stick around, but it looks like other groups need assistance. You can thank me later." She didn''t even give the man answer before she flew towards another group that looked like it was about to be overwhelmed.


    Like before she swiftly dispatched the goblins and rendered any aide that she could to the most critically injured before moving on to the next group. When she ran out of potions, she used her energies to heal them just enough so they wouldn''t die before being able to reach the medical tents. She continued to follow this routine for several hours before she recieved a broadcasted message via spiritual sense, [Fall back to the city and recover as soon as the relief troops arrive.] At this point, Maxine had nearly depleted her energies and was thinking about falling back anyways. Great timing. I don''t imagine they will have me rest for more than a few hours before sending me and the others back out.


    Maxine waited until a group of fresh soldiers arrived before she returned her weapons to her dimensional ring and flew behind the battle lines towards the command tent. Just as she landed, nearly all of the soldiers within five hundred feet hastily drew weapons. "I''m a mercenary under the employ of the Republic of Calistant," Maxine stated calmly and put her right hip before asking, "Do you boys and girls know where the food is served?"


    She saw a few of the soldiers look at her uncertainly before someone stepped out of the tent and addressed her, "I''m colonel Price and I''m incharge of the mercenaries."


    "Hello, colonel. If I''m not mistaken, you''re the one that notified me to return to base," Maxine said calmly, "So if you would be so kind, can you tell me where I can get something to eat?"


    "It should be that way," Colonel Price said as he pointed to his right, "You have three hours to recooperate and I expect you to return to the front lines at that time."


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    "Understood," Maxine said in affirmation before walking towards the food tent.


    However before she could walk far, Colonel Price added, "Thank you for treating our wounded soldiers. Without your aide, only a handful of them would''ve been able to get to our healers in time to save them."


    "Don''t mention it," Maxine replied, "Afterall, if I didn''t patch them up, there would be fewer people to watch my back. I''m not fond of fighting a large number of opponents by myself."


    "I see," Colonel Price said, "By the way, how did you procure so many of those high quality potions? We''ve seen those particular potions on the market only a handful of times, but we''ve never managed to get more than a few dozen."


    "I know the alchemist that makes them," Maxine replied.


    "Oh? Can you arrange an introduction?" Colonel Price asked, "We desperately need that alchemist''s potions for our elite soldiers."


    "I''ll see what she thinks about the whole thing, but no promises," Maxine replied. I have no intention of mass producing my potions. It would take up too much of my time to do it and I need a lot of my time for training. I only make potions for myself or to make a little extra money.


    "Thank you," Colonel Price said.


    Maxine nodded to him before she made her way to the food tent. What they had available made Maxine feel disappointed. They had a nutritional paste and a small selection of fruit. There wasn''t a single piece of meat to be seen. Damn it. I guess it''s a good thing that I bought so much meat in advance. I can''t risk going feral amongst so many people. She shrugged as she grabbed a couple tubes of meat flavored paste and heaped on a bunch of fruit onto her plate.


    She found a empty spot nearby at a small table and removed her essence armor mask before digging in. Halfway through, she felt a small vibration from her dimensional ring. With a flick of her wrist, her communication disk landed on the table and recieved the call. An image of a female alchemist appeared hovering over it.


    "Alchemist Maxine, this is a follow up on a complaint towards the Stardust Acadmy teachers, specifically Marcus Quinn," the female alchemist said, "It was stated in the complaint that you were summarily forced to go on a highly dangerous mission when you defended yourself from being molested, correct?"


    "That''s right," Maxine replied. I don''t recall filing a complaint. Even so, if someone complained, why did it take them so long to contact me? It''s been a week.


    "We''ve reviewed your case and found that Marcus Quinn has indeed violated two terms in our agreement with the Stardust Academy," the female alchemist explained, "First being that he didn''t inform you of the alternative punishment in which you could simply provide the Academy with potions up to a certain value. Second, he sent you on a nearly suicidal mission. If we go by the precedent, he was only allowed to send you on a mission with no more than a 30% fatality rate. Because of this, you''ll be paid in the full amount for taking on this contract due ot Marcus Quinn''s misconduct and that''s assuming that you don''t cancel it."


    "What''s his punishment going to be for his misconduct?" Maxine asked.


    "That''s up to you. You are the injured party in this instance," the female alchemist said, "Although it is considered normal to demand a form of recompense for such actions."


    "I want you to find out who forced him to do that," Maxine said calmly, "It''s highly unlikely that a man of his stature and reputation would initiate something like this. I''m guessing he has a relative being held hostage and the peopel that took sed relative are forcing him to behave like this. When you find out who it is, inform me. I want it to be the real culprits to pay for this crime, not another victim."


    "Understood," the female alchemist replied with an approving smile and her communication disk when silent.


    Maxine continued to eat, and a young man from Patricks mercenary troop sat down infront of her. He had almost raven black hair and she saw a gentleness in his green eyes. She didn''t see any weapons on him. However she spotted a small dimensional pouch at his hip that could easily store any weapons he carried.


    "Hi there," he greeted Maxine, "I saw you fighting out there and I have to tell you that you are amazing. I''ve never seen anyone move that fast before. Oh! Where are my manners? I''m Jason. Jason Markham." He extended his hand out in greeting.


    "Thank you. I would shake your hand, but I don''t want to hurt you by accident," Maxine replied politely, and held up her clawed hand to show why she wouldn''t shake his hand, "I''m Maxine by the way."


    "I know. I heard Patrick call you that," Jason Markham said and he scratched the back of his head, "I just wanted to see if any of the stories about you were true."


    "Stories? Such as?" Maxine asked.


    "Well, a few stories depict you as a malicious monster of a person that tortures people for fun," Jason Markham explained, "Honestly I don''t see where they got those stories from. I literately saw you save dozens of people out there and you killed those goblins so fast that I doubt they felt a thing."


    "I''m not as good of a person as you think I am," Maxine admitted as her mind drifted towards the vile of Plaguebringer in her dimensional ring.


    "Bullshit," Jason Markham said firmly, "I know what I saw."


    "Believe what you want," Maxine said and she looked up from her meal to get a better look at him. She was half expecting him to be admiring her figure, but no. His gaze was on her face and she couldn''t see any sign of lust or ulterior motives in his eyes either.


    "Is there something on my face?" Jason Markham asked cautiously while his left hand reached up to check his face and Maxine realized that she was staring.


    Maxine quickly divereted her gaze back to her food and said, "There is nothing on your face."


    "Then why were you staring at me?" Jason Markham asked.


    "I zoned out," Maxine lied as her tail twitched back and forth in irratation. How do I tell him that I was only staring because I wanted to see if he had any other intentions? It''s obvious now that he doesn''t. I''ve gotten used to everyone trying to screw me over in some way.


    "If you say so," Jason Markham said offhandedly, "Well, I best head back to my troop and recooperate. We only have a few hours to rest before we are sent back out there."


    "I''ll be doing the same as soon as I finish eating," Maxine replied, "Farewell."


    "See you later then," Jason Markham said.


    Maxine finished up her meal before putting her essence mask back on and Horatio Quay appeared beside her as she started to look for the place designated for mercenaries to recooperate. It didn''t take them long to find the area where the other mecenaries were recovering. Almost all of them were covered in small nicks and scrapes.


    Unfortunately, it was so densely packed that she had to revert to her base form to avoid poisoning anyone by accident while she navigated through them. She eventually found a spot amongst some female mercenaries. Most of them looked pissed off. It only took Maxine a moment to figure out it was because the men around them kept offering them money for sex. Assholes. I''m sure the people in charge would happily find you some fucking prostitutes. Why the fuck do are you idiots pissing off people that might be watching your back later?


    Maxine nodded to the female mercenaries and ignored the men propositioning her as she found an empty spot amongst these female mercenaries. A few of them scooted to the side to give her some room as she sat down to meditate. She was more or less left alone for nearly three hours until Colonel Price approached them. He didn''t even need to speak before Maxine and the other Mercenaries got to their feet.


    "I need all of you to reinforce the northeastern line," Colonel Price announced and he pointed directly at Maxine, "And you report to the command tent. You''re being given a special assignment. Any questions that you have will have to be discussed with the general."


    "Understood," Maxine said before she headed to the command tent.


    Once she was there, an officer gestured for her to enter. She saw a few men and women discussing strategy. Maxine politely waited for them to finish. While she waited, seven others arrived one after the other and none of them were below gold rank 3. Maxine was the odd one out at silver rank 9, but unlike the others, she was the only one among them that had multiple cores. A few moments after the last one walked in, the older woman of the group turned to face Maxine and the others.


    "So, you are the gifted mercenary that Colonel Price mentioned. I didn''t expect you to be quite so young," the older woman said as she looked at Maxine and redirected her gaze at the others, "In fact all of you have shown exemplary capabilities in the short time you''ve been here. Which is also the reason that I''ve called all of you here. The eight of you will be performing a surgical strike against the leadership of the enemy force. From what I''ve been lead to believe, these creatures are cowardly and selfish by nature. Without their leadership pushing them to attack, I believe they will be much less inclined to attack us so aggressively until new leader takes charge." So this is the general. But why did she add that extra information at the end? Is she trying to give me an incentive to kill them?


    "Where are our targets, ma''am?" a blonde haired soldier asked.


    "Your target is a peak gold goblin. His last known sighting was near the rear of the goblin forces, but it''s highly possible that he''s moved locations since then. Your mission is both to locate him and find a way to kill him. Any updates on his whereabouts will be found on this datapad. Any questions before you head out?" the female general asked.


    "No, ma''am," the blonde haired soldier replied almost immediately and he turned to the rest of them to yell, "Grab whatever gear you need. We are moving out ASAP!" He didn''t even give anyone else a chance to say anything. I might as well see what our mission is.


    Maxine checked the datapad using her spiritual sense as the blonde haired soldier started to read it over and she sighed in frustration. Their main target was riding on a tamed earth dragon with large dorsal plates protuding from it''s back. To top it off, the goblin leader had a dozen bodyguards ranging from gold 6 to gold 8. It was a nightmarish scenario. Their only chance was a sneak attack.


    She knew that she could pull it off if she was doing this mission alone, but with one glance at the rest of the group, she tossed that idea out. Their group leader looked as if he wanted all the credit for this mission for himself. There was no way he would let her perform this task alone and steal all of his glory. Well, shit. I just hope this idiot doesn''t try something suicidal like a frontal assault. If he tries that, I''m going full stealth mode before he can begin his charge.

 Chapter 156

    Maxine has been running ever since they left camp nearly an hour through dense forests to avoid being seen and she had only learned the name of the blonde haired soldier three minutes ago when one of the other soldiers called him ''Captian Bronsk.'' He hadn''t even shared any details of the mission with Maxine or her other fellow mercenaries. He clearly held Maxine and the other two with distain and intended to blame them if the mission failed. The mercenaries, on the other hand, politely introduced themselves as they ran beside her and had been talking to her for little while.


    The mercenary to her right was a woman with short black hair, but from her build, you wouldn''t guess that she was a woman. She is at least six feet tall, has shoulders as wide as a man''s and has bulging muscles. She even had a very masculine face. If she hadn''t introduced herself as Lira in a feminine voice, Maxine would''ve never believe that she was a woman.


    As for the other mecenary, he introduced himself as Leeroy. He was about Maxine''s height and thin. However she could easily tell that he was built for speed. She had no idea what he looked like since he kept his face and head completely concealed with a hood and mask. She knew he was a scout since as soon as they hit the forest, he put on a guillie suite to better camouflage himself.


    [So, who thinks this Captain Bronsk will use us as a distraction while he completes the mission?] Maxine asked the other two.


    [Distraction? That''s a nice way of saying he''s going to throw us to the wolves,] Lira complained, [Still, I have to admit it''s looking like they will do just that. We ARE an ''expendable'' resource.]


    [I agree,] Leeroy said, [It''s like they think we are dumb enough to charge into a group of goblins screaming our own names as a battlecry.]


    [OH! So, you have seen that gaming video from Earth,] Lira commented in amusement.


    [I feel ashamed that I share my given name with such a fool as ''Leeroy Jenkins,''] Leeroy said sadly, [And I only watched it because of your constant urging.]


    [Still, you have to admit it''s rather hilarious,] Maxine said.


    [I admit it is rather amusing how foolish he was and it''s also a lesson,] Leeroy said, [Only a fool charges into battle without a plan.]


    [Agreed,] Maxine said, [And on that note, I could probably perform this mission by myself.]


    [Braggart,] Lira said harshly.


    [I''m not bragging,] Maxine said and activated her stealth technique and masked her energies for a few moments, [As you two can see, I''m quite talented when it comes to stealth and I have a wide variety of poisons at my disposal.]


    [That stealth technique of yours is quite impressive,] Leeroy agreed, [However there is still a slight distortion around you when you move. An attentive sentry may still be able to spot you.]


    [That''s true,] Maxine agreed and noticed that the soldiers were finally slowing down, [We might as well see what Captain Bronsk has planned.] She heard the other two grunt in agreement as they all slowed to a stop.


    "We are nearing the most likely location of our target," Captain Bronsk announced and he turned to Maxine and the other two mercenaries, "I need a scout to forge ahead and confirm his location before we begin our attack. Which one of you is the best suited for that task?" Is he serious?


    "I''m a scout," Leeroy announced.


    "Our target should be near or riding atop mid gold earth dragon. I want to know the situation around him if he''s there," Captain Bronsk explained, "And don''t get spotted. It will compound the difficulty of our mission." So he''s not an idiot. That''s good. Or perhaps the good general was the one that arranged for Leeroy to join us since she knew he''s a skill scout.


    "I''m not a novice," Leeroy said coldly, "They won''t know I''m even there." Without any warning, Leeroy ran off to the right soundlessly and disappeared from sight. Maxine didn''t even see him disturb the nearby shrubbery when he left.


    "What are we going to do while we wait?" one of the other soldiers asked.


    "We won''t be doing anything," Captain Bronsk said, "And the next time that you speak that loudly again, I will personally cut out your tongue. Now hide your energies. The mercs have been hiding their energies for quite awhile already." The soldiers looked ashamed of themselves as they masked their energies.


    [You''re a battle medic, right?] Captain Bronsk asked via spiritual sense, [What''s the worst injury you''ve ever treated?]


    [I saved a young woman with multiple damaged organs and bone fractures,] Maxine replied, [She would''ve died within minutes had I not treated her.]


    [I see,] Captain Bronsk said, [Hopefully, none of us will suffer injuries that severe.]


    [As do I,] Maxine replied, [If anyone gets wounded, it will slow us down as a group.]


    [I''m aware,] Captain Bronsk said, [What do you think our chances of success are?]


    [Of killing the goblin leader? I would say about forty to fifty percent, but that''s dependant on us catching him off guard,] Maxine replied honestly, [As for surviving, I would say that me and the other mercenaries are fucked. You and the other soldiers have a decent chance of getting away.]


    [Why the different chances of survival?] Captain Bronsk asked.


    [It''s only logical that you leave the ''hired thugs'' to die while you make your escape,] Maxine replied coldly, [That is what you had in mind, isn''t it? Otherwise, you would''ve discussed a means of retreat before sending Leeroy off.]


    [That wasn''t my intention at all,] Captain Bronsk replied defensively, [It would reflect poorly on me to have any troops assigned under me to die and as for your concerns about retreating, I''ve known a lot of mercenaries. And the ones that I''ve known always have an escape plan. Unlike us, you are only here for the money and put your own lives first. We are here to fight for our homes.] Maxine was baffled when she heard him. Mostly because she sensed no deception in his words. What now? This is new. This guy is actually behaving like a competent soldier.


    [Fair enough,] Maxine replied and felt a very slight breeze as Leeroy returned.


    "Report," Captain Bronsk whispered his order.


    "I found the target. He''s riding on the earth dragon right now and both the goblin and dragon are on the outside edge of the army," Leeroy reported in a whisper, "But when I looked closer, I saw twelve goblins acting as bodyguards on it''s back and there are a few hundred peak silver stage goblins trying to hide amongst the thousands of weaker ones surrounding the earth dragon. I do not recommend a direct assault."


    "Well, shit. We''re still going for it anyways, right?" Lira asked.


    "Yes, my people desperately need more time and killing that goblin will buy us at least a few days worth of it," Captain Bronsk stated.


    "Hold up," Maxine interrupted, "I know it seems like suicide, but what if one or two of us could draw those gold stage goblin bodyguards away? Wouldn''t that increase the odds of the others succeeding in the mission?"


    "It could, but whoever acts as bait in that instance is as good as dead," Captain Bronsk replied.


    "Then who acts as bait?" Lira asked, "Because I get good pay from this job, but there is no amount that you could give me to run a suicide mission."


    "I''m in agreement with Lira," Leeroy chimed in.


    "I wasn''t going to order you to do something like that," Captain Bronsk snapped.


    "Sir. I volun-," one of the soldiers spoke up, but Maxine cut him off, "Five minutes."


    "What do you mean by ''five minutes?''" Captain Bronsk asked.


    "That''s the longest I can keep them occupied," Maxine explained.


    "But how? You''re the weakest one here," one of the soldiers pointed out.


    "Yeah, my cultivation is the lowest here, but I have three cores. So technically, I''m the most powerful one here," Maxine answered, "And I have the ability to teleport short distances. It should allow me both to avoid getting killed while distracting them and to run away when your time is up." It also gives me a great time to sharpen my blade skills, and I could hit the strongest goblin bodyguard with my Plaguebringer poison too. But for some reason, that just feels wrong. For all I know, there is a peaceful community of goblins hiding out on this planet from the rest of their race and by poisoning these assholes, I could kill the peaceful ones along with the evil ones. I don''t want to take that risk, no matter how small.


    "But how will you lure the bodyguards away?" Captain Bronsk asked, "They won''t just chase you because you taunt them."


    "I will make an attempt on the goblin leader''s life. I don''t know if I will be able to kill him outright, but I know I can wound him. Maybe poison him with something nasty while I''m at it," Maxine explained, "And like most bodyguards, the goblins will feel enraged that I got past them and will chase after me without thinking."


    "Perhaps, but some of them could still remain behind," Captain Bronsk said.


    "But even so, your odds of success will be much higher compared to charging in," Maxine pointed out.


    "She''s got you there," Leeroy agreed.


    "Fine, but if you can''t keep them busy, just run," Captain Bronsk said, "We''ll just have to find another way to complete our mission." Maxine was a bit surprised at his order.


    "Alright, but like I said, I''m fairly confident that I can keep them occupied," Maxine stated once more, "So, where should we regroup after the mission?"


    "Do you recall the waterfall we passed on the way here?" Captain Bronsk asked, "We will rendevous there, but if we don''t meet up there after sundown, head back to base."


    "Understood. I will need a few minutes to prepare a few things before I head out," Maxine stated as she rapidly transformed into her battleform and began creating a couple dozen serpentine constructs. Next, she milked her claws of venom and implanted that venom into the fangs of her constructs. There now all I need to do is place these along the route that I''m going to lure those goblin bodyguards into. But I will have to give my constructs very specific instructions so they don''t all attack the same goblin. Otherwise planting these serpents is pointless. So two per gold stage goblin should do the trick, but I doubt that all the goblins will get poisoned. If even one of them gets poisoned this way, it will be worth the effort. With a thought, she began to give her constructs very specific instructions.


    "I''m not even going to ask," Lira said, "And don''t you guys either."


    "Alright, I''ll head off. You guys just need to wait for me to make my move and just a warning, I may take a bit of time to sneak up close enough to their leader to make this attempt on his life believeable," Maxine told them before running off towards the goblin horde. And if I''m really lucky, I can kill him outright without risking the lives of anyone else.


    However, she didn''t immediately begin to lure the goblins. She only glanced at them for a moment to confirm their position before she ran into the forest away from her team mates and began to plant her serpent constructs along her intended route. It only took her a handful of minutes before she returned to the edge of the forest closest to the goblins.


    She gave them a closer look to plan out her aproach. The goblins on the ground were densely packed. There was barely space for the to slip in between them and they moved chaotically. That made sneaking past them near impossible. Thankfully, there were some trees scattered amongst the goblins and the earth dragon was stationary. I can jump from tree to tree, but when I land, the rustling of the leaves will give me away. How do I aproach then? I wonder. Is it possible for me to move within their shadows? My constructs can do it. So why can''t I? The only problem is that I will have to stay in shadows capable of containing my body. It''ll be challenging, but I think I can pull it off. Hmm? Is it my imagination or is that earth dragon way bigger than it''s supposed to be? And why are it''s dorsal plates are leaf-shaped? They are normally diamond-shaped on earth dragons. Don''t tell me this is a new species of earth dragon.


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    Maxine took a careful breath and attempted to sink into the shadows on the ground without creating a portal in it. Unfortunately, her first attempt failed. Thus she tried a different way only for it to fail again. She kept trying and after five minutes, she finally sank into the shadows on the ground, albeit slowly. I should''ve known that I can''t enter my own shadow like that. I had to specify the tree''s shadow in order to do it.


    When she was finally submerged into the shadows, she could see out of the shadow as if looking through tinted glass and her surroundings had the same limits as the size of the shadows. These spaces were much like bottomless trenches with tinted glass sitting on top of it and she realized that this technique had two flaws. The first being that there was no air in the shadows. The second was true for her as for her constructs. If someone was perceptive enough, they would see her traversing through their shadows. I can hold my breath for an hour if I''m physically active, so this shouldn''t be a big problem as long as I don''t take too long. But, I have to be careful to keep an eye on the goblins above me to make sure that I can move out of there to avoid being seen.


    Maxine didn''t waste any more of her time and slowly moved through these tunnels. Eventually she reached the goblins and felt a headache come on. Their shadows were constantly shifting and were making it virtually impossible to travel through their shadows. Still, she persevered and eventually reached the earth dragon. She cursed mentally when she realized there were no connecting shadows to where the goblin leader was on the earth dragon''s back and slowly made her way to the earth dragon''s tail. Why couldn''t there have been some clouds today? There isn''t a single one in the sky. It would''ve been so much easier if there had been at least one.


    After making sure there were no goblins nearby, she activated her stealth techniques and surfaced out of the shadow. Okay, now the risky part. I hope this beast doesn''t notice the extra weight on it''s tail. Wait a second. This thing is way bigger than I thought it was. Fuck me running. Please, god, don''t let this thing notice me. Why the hell did I talk myself into doing this shit? No use complaining now. Here goes nothing.


    Gingerly, she stepped onto the earth dragon''s tail and paid close attention to the earth dragon''s behavior as she slowly put her weight onto it. She waited for a few seconds before she put her other foot onto it''s tail and she paused again. Once it was clear the earth dragon wasn''t going to do anything, she very slowly climbed up the massive tail while stepping around it''s gradually enlarging dorsal plates.


    Maxine''s heart was thundering in her ears and her back was coated with sweat due to nerves. The only mercy she had while slowly stalking up the earth dragon''s back was that there were no goblins along her path. She thought that was odd that she hadn''t spotted a goblin bodyguard yet and kept a careful eye out for them.


    She finally spotted the six of goblin bodyguards directly ahead of her sitting on the ground playing a dice game about twenty feet away from the goblin leader. She guessed that there were six more on the other side. They must be expecting a stealthy assasination attempt. No one would be dumb enough to charge straight at this damn earth dragon. With one mistake, they could be pulverized by a single swipe of the earth dragon tail. Not to mention those dorsal plates extend a dozen feet into the air. Any attacker would have to either go over or around them. That would give his bodyguards ample time to get in position and retaliate.


    Maxine very slowly skirted around the goblin bodyguards and kept a careful eye on them. When one of their heads raised up, she froze in place. The goblin bodyguard looked straight at her for a moment and Maxine felt as if her heart stopped. But the goblin turned his head down the path she came after a few seconds of staring and got back to his game.


    Maxine mentally sighed in relief and continued to stalk towards the goblin leader. She could sense his cultivation without even having to probe him as she took one step after another. When she was roughly twenty feet from him, his head whipped up and stared right at her. SHIT! I got spotted!


    Without any hesitation, Maxine pounced at him and swiped both of her clawed hands at him. He swiftly raised up a well made short sword and managed to block one of Maxine''s attacks. But he failed to even see the second one before it stabbed into his side. She emptied what little venom she had left into him before pulling her arm back and kicking the earth dragon''s back to hurl herself into the air.


    In the next instant, Maxine swiftly kicked the air to create a sonic boom to propel towards her serpentine constructs with desperate abandon. A moment later, a swift and powerful wind flew past her feet while the earth dragon released an earthshattering roar. Holy shit, that was close! I didn''t think it''s reaction speed was that fast! This only encouraged her to flee faster.


    Fear had driven her so fiercely that she only looked back over her shoulder when she landed at a run near the edge of the forest. The closest goblin bodyguard was roughly one hundred feet away and only he was able to gain on her. The others were further back and were struggling to keep up with her. The earth dragon on the other hand was staring daggers at her, but otherwise hadn''t moved. Thank god! That''s one worry off my mind.


    She sprinted into the forest towards where her serpentine constructs lie in wait and spread her spiritual sense behind her. None of them had landed on the ground, and were flying just above the tree tops. With a thought, Maxine redirected her serpentine constructs to the tops of the trees and silently hoped that her constructs would get there in time.


    As she passed the first pair of her constructs, she felt that she was back into a familiar situation as her heart beat slowed to a more relaxed pace. If it wasn''t for Horatio Quay forcing her to fight in all kinds of scenarios in his illusion arrays, her heart would still be racing. The only difference was she couldn''t take any chances since this wasn''t an illusion.


    Thus while she ran, she retrieved a vial of poison from her dimensional rign and carried it using her tail. That particular poison caused any goblin to experience horrifying hallucinations. They would either flee in terror or attack whomever was closest. Now, I just have to make sure to get as many of those goblins poisoned with my venom as I can.


    She began to hear startled cries behind and above her as her serpentine constructs started their attack. Maxine immediately turned around and kicked the ground to launch herself at the closest goblin as she brought her blades out from her dimensional ring.


    Her sudden action caught the goblin by complete surprise and she raised her right blade to cleave him in two. The goblin raised his spear to parry the blow, but as he did, Maxine''s other weapon swiped across his waist. She didn''t bother with that goblin any further after that and proceeded to charge at the other goblins. It turned around to chase after her, but it''s lower half of it''s body fell to the ground. It screamed in pain and horror before following it''s bottom half towards the ground. While I am buying time, that doesn''t mean I can''t thin out the strongest of the goblin horde.


    Six goblins were clustered together directly infront of her and all of them had small snake bite wounds. However, all she saw as a big target for her poison and with a flick of her tail, she hurled the halucinogenic poison at them. It exploded into a mist that surrounded them entirely. Next, Maxine directed her attention at the other five. Only one of them were injured by her serpentine constructs.


    At this point, Maxine heard more draconic roars and hoped the others didn''t get hit by that earth dragon''s tail. However, even if they failed, her venom would have a fifty percent chance of killing the goblin leader anyways due to how much she pumped into him and any additional injuries that they inflicted would only increase his odds of his death. Unfortunately, she didn''t have time to think about it as the five goblins surrounded her and began to rush at her at the same time.


    Maxine in turn charged at the goblin wielding a flanged mace directly infront of her and slashed vertically from right shoulder to left hip. A sheild appeared in the goblins hand and he deflected the attack with his mace while blocking Maxine''s stab with his shield. Can''t expect that trick to work more than once anyways, but I bet he won''t see the next attack coming. Her tail whipped up between her legs and into the groin of the goblin infront of her. He groaned in pain as he appeared to be stunned, and Maxine capitalized on this as she raked his thigh with her left foot claws. She immediately kicked him away with her other leg and quickly spun around with a wild slash to fend off the goblins that were attacking her from behind.


    The four goblins were forced to retreat to avoid getting injured, but they still moved to surround her. Maxine shifted her stance to better prepare for their attacks as they moved into position. However before they could completely get into position, the goblin with the flanged mace and shield retreated and that caused the remaining goblin bodyguards to look at each other uncertainly. It seemed they were unwilling to attack her, but also weren''t willing to let her leave. However, she mentally noted that all of them looked as if they would attack out of fear, if nothing else, in the instant that she did anything.


    Maxine risked a quick glance to the goblin bodyguards that she poisoned with the halucinogenic poison. Four of them were missing and the two remaining ones were viciously attacking one another. So, there are brave goblins. They are just in the minority. That''s good for me. These four looking at me are probably used to attacking others with at least five on one advantage. Otherwise they would simply rush me. Still, I have a feeling they will throw their weapons at me if I try anything, but I still need to keep them occupied until the others finish their mission. Well, as long as we are not fighting, I don''t mind just floating mid-air.


    They floated in the air for two whole minutes when Maxine noticed that the earth dragon''s roars were moving. She smiled to herself and extended out her spiritual sense in every direction to the limit. She didn''t find the others fleeing, but that didn''t matter. She was going to head to the rendevous point. When she found a good spot to shadow step to, she released a burst of her energies in all directions to create a cloud of smoke and she felt a sharp pain in her lower back as a spear head erupted out of the right side of her stomach. She sensed several more thrown weapons hurtling towards her before she was able to shadow step to safety and when she landed under the shade of a tree dozens of miles away, she screamed in pain. She had gained a dozen more small wounds due to the thrown weapons, but none of them were as serious as the spear lodged in her abdomen.


    She quickly wrapped her tail around the haft of the spear and broke it off as close to the wound as she could to avoid it snagging on anything while she moved. Pulling it out now would only lead to rapid bloodloss and she still needed to move before the goblins tracked her down.


    Maxine extended out her spiritual sense and shadow stepped until she reached the waterfall. She hid in some nearby bushes while she waited for her team mates to arrive and in the meanwhile, she intended to patch herself up.


    She retrieved a purple healing potion and drank it swiftly before reaching back to feel a small piece of the broken spear sticking out of her lower back. She checked out her internal injuries and cursed. Her right kidney had been pierced through and if she hadn''t taken her potion, she would be bleeding internally. What''s worse is that she couldn''t remove it. She would bleed too heavily if she did and would loose consciousness. That would be no different from a death sentence this close to the goblin horde. I should just return to the base camp to treat my wounds, but I can''t without the others. There is a claus in the contract prohibiting that shit. Although, it might not apply to me since I''m badly injured, but it''s best not to risk it. My potion was able to stop my bleeding and partially repair my kidney. But it won''t be able to do much more with this spear lodged in my side and that will have to wait for once I''m back at the base camp.


    Regardless of her own thoughts, Maxine sat up against a tree while being careful not to jostle the broken spear shaft sticking out of her back. She waited for ten minutes before she heard a group of people approaching.


    "We need to find her fast," Lira shouted as she arrived at the clearing beside the waterfall, "You heard her scream just as well as I did, Leeroy. If she survived that shit, she should be here."


    "I know, but we don''t have much time. Those goblins won''t be far behind us. Wait, do you smell that?" Leeroy asked and Maxine heard him sniff the air, "She''s here and she''s hurt. Follow me." Within seconds, Leeroy and Lira found her and she saw the concern in their eyes as they reached down to help her up.


    "Don''t touch me!" Maxine yelled at him and slapped their hands away with her tail, "My blood is an acidic poison. I''ll get up on my own." She attempted to stand, but a sharp pain in her side took her legs out from under her. Fuck, I forgot. All that fighting got my adrenalin going and now that it''s gone, nothing is dulling the pain from this fucking spearhead in my gut.


    "We don''t have time for this shit," Lira complained as she grabbed Maxine by her upper arm, the only place without any of her blood, and began running while dragging Maxine behind her. Leeroy grabbed her other side and helped Lira drag Maxine. And there goes my idea of shadow stepping back to base. I can''t do it when you are holding me so damn tight.


    "Can you guys fly instead of running?" Maxine asked through gritted teeth, "All of this bouncing around isn''t doing my wound any favors."


    "We can''t do anything about that now. Our persuers are flying over head and I do not want to be turned into target practice," Lira answered, "But if you could do something about that tail of yours, we could move faster."


    "That I can do," Maxine replied as she reverted to her base form, but she nearly passed out due to pain from the shifting of her muscles around the spear head. She hadn''t realized how much her lower back muscles shifted to acomodate her tail when she transformed. Thankfully, the spearhead wasn''t cutting her, but having her torn back muscles stretched around it was no picnic.


    "Don''t pass out on us," Lira admonished Maxine, "Stay awake. It won''t be much longer until we get you to the medics. They should be able to safely patch you up." Just shut up and run faster.


    When they finally reached the base camp, Maxine could hear Captain Bronsk yell, "MEDIC!" The next few minutes invovled Maxine being dragged to the medical tents.


    When she was laid down on a surgery table, she reluctantly withdrew her Shadow''s Embrace armor back into her body. Moments later the medics walked in wearing hazmat suits and cut apart the mid-section of her tank top to get easier access to her wound. One of the nurses injected Maxine with something for pain, but she knew that it wouldn''t work on her.


    One of the medics pulled out a pair of pliars and used them to grasp onto the spear head sticking out of her back. "Try your best not to move too much while I remove this damn thing," the medic told Maxine before he began pulling it out of her. Maxine was able to withstand the pain of it being removed for a few seconds before she passed out.


    By the time she woke up, it was all over and she was put in the recovery room. Her wound was thoroughly banadaged. Unfortunately she was still wearing the remains of the clothes she always wore under her Shadow''s Embrace armor. Her blood had partially dissolved her tank top before the medics chose to cut it up, and her pants weren''t in much better shape. I''m glad I packed lots of spare clothes. Although, if I get injured every couple days, they won''t last very long.


    "Wow. Why the hell do you hide your face when you look like that?" Captain Bronsk asked as he walked in. Maxine was confused as she reached up and touched her face. Both her mask and veil were gone. I guess I can''t blame someone for removing my veil while I was unconscious, but still, I must be pretty out of it to not notice it was missing right away.


    "I don''t like the attention that my appearance brings," Maxine replied as she reformed the mask of her essence armor, "You would be surprised how many rape attempts that I''ve fended off. By hiding my face, they''re less tempted to try."


    "I see. I''m sorry for mentioning it," Captain Bronsk said apologetically and changed the subject, "I''ve petitioned to my superiors for you to get a bonus. It was the least I could do and it was your plan and bravery that lead to the success of our mission. It''s too bad that you will probably be in that bed for the rest of this invasion. Your wound is rather severe."


    "I doubt that," Maxine retorted, "I heal extremely fast and I have special healing potions that greatly increase my rate of healing. I should be on my feet in two to three days."


    "Remarkable," Captain Bronsk commented, "Well, I''ve used up the last of my free time. I hope to see you again on the battlefield. I need you there to watch my back."


    "Same to you," Maxine replied honestly before he left the medical tent. He is completely different than I thought he would be from my first impression of him and I''m glad that he proved me wrong. Still, I''m surprised that I havn''t been debriefed yet. Perhaps they''re waiting for me to recover for a couple days before they do or Captain Bronsk''s debrief was enough. Either way, I will find out later. Time to get some shut eye.

 Chapter 157

    It had been three days since Maxine was laying in a recovery bed and she couldn''t take it any longer as she snuck out of the medical tents. It wasn''t because she was getting restless though or from the countless scans and tests the scientists were performing on her. It was her hydra instincts to feed. Even though she was only in her base form, the smell of blood in the air made it increasingly difficult to keep herself from leaping out of the bed, transforming, and devouring everyone in sight. She had to keep chanting in her head that they were her allies and were not to be eaten.


    She was actually grateful for the distraction when the general showed up to debrief her. Still, from the general''s attitude, the debriefing had almost seemed like an afterthought. That attitude had left Maxine unsettled, even now as she scanned the area outside of the medical tents before walking outside with a relaxed gait towards the food tents.


    "The mighty warrior princess flees from her suitors," Horatio Quay joked just as Maxine escaped the medical tents and she spun around to glare at him. He''s not wrong. More than one of the injured mercenaries tried to flirt with me. But it''s so infuriating when he says it like that.


    "Not funny," Maxine said coldly to Horatio Quay, "And where have you been? I''ve been laid up for three days. You could''ve at least checked on me once during that time."


    "We both know that a wound like that wasn''t life threating for someone with your biology. Now if there was a wound near your heart, that would be a cause for concern," Horatio Quay answered calmly, "I had more pressing concerns while you were recovering. Twelve immortals have took up orbit around this planet since your injury and I doubt it''s to only watch this war. I havn''t sense any malice from them thus far, but I''m almost positive they are enemies of your father." Oh, joy. Well, at least, I don''t have to worry about them attacking me. They would''ve done it by now if they were going to. Afterall, the difference in our strength is ludicrisly vast. It would utterly ruin their reputation. It would be like a muscular man beating a newborn infant.


    "Maybe they''re waiting to see if I get killed in this conflict?" Maxine offered, "I can easily see how they would show daddy a recording of my death over and over again to torment him."


    "Perhaps," Horatio Quay said, "But why would they leave it to chance?" What now? How would they do that?


    "What are you talking about?" Maxine asked.


    "They could hire the goblins to target you specifically," Horatio Quay answered, "It wouldn''t be that hard for them to buy off the goblins to do their bidding. Any random cultivation resource at their level would be a prize beyond anything what they could get on their own." If that''s the case, the difficulty of this contract just went up, but Horatio Quay doesn''t seem to be all that concerned. And since the general has been acting oddly, it almost guarantees she knows something about what''s going on and wants to stay keep her people out of it. I don''t even blame her if that''s the case.


    "But you''re not worried, are you?" Maxine asked.


    "I''m not worried in the least. The goblins that pose a threat to you are frightened of you and the rest are hardly a threat," Horatio Quay answered, "This is an excellent scenario for you to sharpen your skills. Those enemies of your father are only helping you in this instance. So let them scheme."


    "Alright," Maxine said calmly, "Have you heard any word about Patrick and his troop?"


    "They''re doing fine. Only a few of their members have been injured and none of them have died," Horatio Quay answered, "Also, Patrick Mason and that young man called Jason Markham were quite incensed when they discovered you had been injured and took it out on the goblin forces." I can see Patrick reacting like that, but why did Jason Markham? I only just met him. Or have I? I think I remember someone that sort of looks like him from middle school, but that was before the rats attacked. Maybe I''m over thinking it.


    "I think I should head back to the front lines to show them I''m alright," Maxine said.


    "That would be best," Horatio Quay replied, "I''ll keep an eye on those immortals. Just in case they decide that it''s worth the hit to their reputation to deal with you personally."


    Maxine gave him a wierd look before she went looking for Patrick. She found him eating at a table in the food distribution tent and his armor looked like it had seen a lot of use since she last saw him. Looks like he''s been taking most of the hits for his team. He always was like that.


    Maxine went to get a tray of food for herself before sitting down infront of him. "You look like shit," Maxine commented before she took off her essence armor mask and began to eat. Thankfully, she had a replacement veil already on. She didn''t like the incesant attention her beauty often brought.


    "Should you be walking around?" Patrick asked in a tone laced with concern, "I heard you got stabbed in the back with a spear."


    "Just to clarify, that spear was thrown into my back and I''ll be fine," Maxine replied, "And I''m fine to walk around. Although I''m not fully healed just yet." Her kidney hadn''t regenerated completely yet. It still needed another week or two for that to happen.


    "It''s good that you''re getting better," Patrick said, "Just take it easy."


    "No arguement here," Maxine replied. However an awkward silence followed. It made Maxine uncomfortable and she could tell Patrick was in a similar situation. She started to eat faster to have an excuse to get out of there sooner.


    "Hey, Maxine. I''m glad to see you up and about!" Jason Markham said as he sat down next to Maxine.


    "Hello, Jason," Maxine replied politely, "I see you''ve stayed safe. I can''t even see a single scuff on your armor."


    "I would be surprised if he had any," Patrick said, "He''s one of the archers in my troop and tends to stay in the rear."


    "Seriously?" Maxine asked as she glanced at Jason Markham''s hands, "He doesn''t have the calluses of an archer."


    "I recently took it up," Jason Markham replied, "I didn''t even know I had a knack for it until a few months ago when my sword broke and there was just this bow with a pile of arrows beside it. Next thing I know I''m shooting it like a pro."


    "I have no doubt you are good," Maxine said, "But you should see elven archers compete. They are the best."


    "How do you know that? And just how good are they?" Jason Markham asked.


    "I spent some time with a group of forest elves. The best archer amongst them could put the tip of their arrow through the eye of a small needle that''s ten miles away while jumping from tree branch to tree branch at high speed," Maxine replied.


    "That''s insane!" Jason Markham exclaimed, "I''ll never be able to shoot like that."


    "Don''t be too hard on yourself," Maxine replied, "Most of those elven archers were well over seven hundred years old. Although by elven standards, they are still quite young." And he was silver stage. He could easily live a few thousand years old even if he didn''t cultivate any more. It''s completely unfair how long they can live. Although, I''ve got some elven and hydra blood in me. Does that mean I will live longer as well? That''s a question that I need to get answered later.


    "Jesus," Patrick said, "But that explains why they are so good."


    "That it does," Maxine agreed.


    "Heads up. Colonel Price just showed up," Patrick notified everyone.


    "Congratulations. You''ve all done a remarkable job and as far as I''m concerned, you''re worth the cost," Colonel Price announced, "Because of exemplary performance, certain mercenaries and their groups will be receiving bonus pay, but that doesn''t mean you get out of your shift on the front lines. I still expect every one of you to be there. Any questions?"


    "Who got the bonus pay?" one of the mercenaries asked.


    "Those that got bonus pay already know who they are," Colonel Price replied, "Any thing else?"


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    "I got nothing. What about you guys?" the same mercenary asked.


    "Good. With that out of the way, I will leave you all back to your meals," Colonel Price said and walked towards Maxine, "What are you doing out of the medical tents? Have your injuries fully healed already?"


    "I couldn''t stand all of those doctors poking and proding me. It was slowing down my recovery," Maxine replied, "And I admit that my injuries havn''t fully healed, but it won''t reduce my combat effectiveness by that much."


    "In that case, head to the eastern front with the Crystal Knight mercenary group in ten minutes," Colonel Price ordered, "We will notify you once your shift is over."


    "Understood, Colonel," Maxine said and returned to her meal. I still wish they put more meat on the menu, but I can always suppliment it with some of the jerky in my dimensional ring. I have enough to last me six months. Although it can get a little boring to eat only jerky for that long. Perhaps, the cooks will let me make a stew .


    "You got your wish, Jason," Patrick said just after he ate the last of his meal, "Maxine will be joining us on the eastern front."


    "Is that so?" Maxine asked as she raised an eyebrow at Jason Markham and saw that it made him uncomfortable.


    "He''s had a crush on you since middle school," Patrick announced.


    "Oh? Was he that quiet guy that always stared at me out of the corner of his eye?" Maxine asked and saw that Jason Markham''s ears had turned red, "He was much skinnier then and definitely not as outgoing. It''s not a bad change."


    "Thanks, I think," Jason Markham said uncertainly.


    "You''re welcome," Maxine replied, "But you should already know I have next to no interest in men."


    "Yeah, I know," Jason Markham said in a downcast tone, "But you can''t blame me for hoping, can you?"


    "No, I can''t, but you should look for someone else," Maxine said firmly, "Anyways, how is the war front looking?"


    "Rough. The regular soldiers are taking heavy casualties," Patrick replied, "Seven of my people have taken heavy injuries that took them out of the fight. You wouldn''t happen to have any potions that could speed up their recovery, do you?"


    "No, but I can make some later," Maxine answered honestly, "But you better pay me for them. It''s not easy to make those things. And that reminds me. I need to talk to Colonel Price about reimbursement for those potions I used on his troops." If he doesn''t, it will nearly confirm my suspicions that they know something is going on and this is one of those times I wish to be proven wrong.


    "I''ll do my best, but we''re not that wealthy," Patrick said, "I doubt many of my guys can afford one of your high end potions."


    "I''m only asking for the normal price for a healing potion," Maxine replied, "Anyways, it''s time for us to head to the front lines."


    "Agreed. Let''s move out everyone!" Patrick announced and mercenaris from Earth took up positions behind Patrick before they took flight.


    Just as they arrived, Maxine saw something out of place. It looked like a small hill on the horizon, but it was moving. "What the hell is that thing?" Jason Markham asked.


    "I''m not sure, but it could be the Earth Dragon that the goblin leader was riding," Maxine replied, "It shouldn''t be a problem as long as it stays over there, though." Why the hell hasn''t that thing left yet? I know earth dragons are dumb, but I havn''t heard of them ever hanging around other races unless someone has forced it to do so.


    "It must be huge for us to see it from this distance," Patrick remarked.


    "Yeah, it''s big alright," Maxine agreed, "I saw it up close. That damn thing is easily two hundred feet long without it''s tail."


    "Let''s stay clear of that thing then," Patrick said out loud before he looked around, "Alright, men. Let''s get to work." Patrick lead his mercenaries towards an area that looked like it needed reinforcement.


    Meanwhile Maxine scanned the area to find anyone that needed help, but she didn''t see any groups that needed her help. I can definitely tell the fighting has let up considerably. Regardless, she swiftly flew towards a portion of the battle lines that appeared to be having a harder time than others.


    However for some reason, she was becoming increasingly aggitated and felt a strong urge to rush to a specific point to the north. She had a similar feeling when she heard an infant or small child crying. Only it was many times stronger. It caused her to be far more swift and brutal in killing goblins than she would have been otherwise.


    When she was notified that her shift was over, she practically fled from the batttlefield at full speed. She barely noticed that several goblins took notes as she left. Shit, I don''t know what''s going on! But whatever it is the goblins are fucking involved.


    Maxine quickly flew back to the base camp to look for Horatio Quay and waved to Patrick and his mercenary troops as she passed them. She needed answered, and whatever was causing her aggitation was quickly fading as she left the battlefield.


    "I see something has you riled up," Horatio Quay commented as Maxine landed next to him.


    "No shit," Maxine snapped, "I think I''m being watched and not just by those goblins."


    "That''s odd," Horatio Quay said, "You shouldn''t be able to sense the gazes of those immortals. Whomever is watching you is much closer."


    "That''s what I was thinking," Maxine answered, "Do you think that earth dragon is holding a grudge."


    "For what? Killing it''s master?" Horatio Quay asked with a small smile, "If anything, it should be grateful to you for freeing it."


    "Really? But I saw it on the horizon when I was on the front lines," Maxine commented.


    "Are you sure?" Horatio Quay asked with a hint of concern.


    "Yeah, why?" Maxine asked, but Horatio Quay looked towards the front lines for a moment before he answered.


    "I know that earth dragon," Horatio Quay said, "But I don''t understand why it''s here. It''s owner has no quarrel with your father or myself."


    "Could it''s owner have been hired to come after me?" Maxine asked.


    "Possibly, but if he''s here for you, it''s not to kill you," Horatio Quay answered, "Kelgar specializes in the capture and transport of highly dangerous beings. But I don''t understand why he would risk angering Guan by capturing you. He''s normally very careful about choosing his jobs and he certainly wouldn''t take a job to capture Poison Emperor Guan''s daughter. He enjoys being amongst the living far too much to do something so foolish." Perhaps that''s why I saw his earth dragon. He''s trying to warn me. Someone of that caliber wouldn''t allow his ''favorite'' pet to be seen so obviously. It would be too big of an identifier. It also means that the earth dragon let me escape. Shit, I could''ve been splattered.


    "So, it''s almost guaranteed that someone is going to make an attempt to capture me and this ''Kelgar'' is most certainly being coerced into doing it," Maxine stated while doing her best to keep the nervousness out of her voice after her revelation.


    "That''s most likely correct," Horatio Quay answered, "But he should only make his move when he''s certain that he can successfully capture you and escape without injury. My guess is that he''s waiting for the perfect opportunity."


    "Or he''s waiting for someone to show up that can pin you down long enough for him to make his escape with his prize," Maxine said.


    "That''s possible. But he would need at least fifty peak immortals to keep me occupied long enough for you to be captured without too many of them dying," Horatio Quay replied, "It''s far more likely that he might try to use some sort of bait to lure you out. Regardless, the mere fact that they were able to acquire his services suggest that they possess both great wealth and influence. That greatly limits the number of people that could be responsible for all of this mess."


    "That hardly narrows it down," Maxine complained.


    "That''s where you are wrong," Horatio Quay said with a smile, "The mere fact they want to capture you suggests that they want something from you or want to ransom you for what they want from your father." But daddy doesn''t have a lot of material wealth. Most of it was spent resurrecting mom. Wait a second. God damn it. They''re after daddy''s alchemy notes. It would explain Marcus Quinn''s behavior and why so much damn effort was put into making sure I got to this planet. Now that I''m away from the academy, the only one protecting me is Horatio Quay.


    "So, a high ranking alchemist is pulling some strings," Maxine stated calmly.


    "Precisely," Horatio Quay said, "And it makes for an excellent opportunity."


    "WHAT?!" Maxine exclaimed angrily.


    "You heard me. With so many powerful beings trying to capture you, it will be an excellent opportunity to improve your ability to both dodge and fight with your blades," Horatio Quay answered calmly, "Fighting a large number of weaker opponents stimulates only a small amount of improvement. But fighting superior warriors that come at you in numbers will definitely improve your skills rather nicely."


    "Assuming I survive," Maxine commented while glaring daggers at Horatio Quay.


    "Isn''t the chance of death the best part?" Horatio Quay said while revealing an excited smile, "Do or die fights are always the most enjoyable. And I seem to recall that you enjoyed yourself in the Kavros clan''s junior tournament." For fuck''s sake. Not only is this asshole a sadist, he''s a fucking battle junkie on top of that. AND he thinks I''m a battle junkie too!


    Maxine rolled her eyes and went to the rest area for the mercenaries. She had a lot on her mind to think about. Whoever the alchemist is that wants daddy''s notes must have some major connections within the Alchemist Association and they have to have a great deal of wealth. That means a high ranking alchemist and that''s probably why the Alchemist Association is so damn slow about updating me on Marcus Quinn. That narrows it down to a few dozen immortal tier alchemists and their descendants. I feel like banging my head against a wall.


    When she reached the mercenary rest area, Maxine sat down and attempted to calm herself with breathing exercises. At this rate, I will have a heart attack before those fuckers make their move. Perhaps it''s their plan to exhaust me both mentally by keeping me on edge and physically by keeping me constantly fighting. It would make it easier for them to capture me if I was in that state. So, the best thing I can do now is to relax. There is no point in getting excited until they actually come after me. She felt the nervousness ease out of her system, but for some reason, she started feeling rage. It seems my bloodline is getting stimulated by all of this bullshit. But there isn''t a whole lot I can do about it right now. All I can do is cultivate while I wait.


    She was only cultivating for a short time when it felt like her progress had slammed face first into a wall. What the fuck?! She repeated her previous steps more carefully, but the result was the same. But instead of getting angry, she got excited. This restriction was a sign she was on the verge of a breakthrough into gold stage. This is great! I''ll be able to breakthrough earlier than I thought! But Horatio Quay told me hold off on that for at least two more months. I wonder why. The easiest way to find out is just to ask him. Ugh, I should''ve thought to ask him that earlier. Oh well. However before she could go find him, she experienced that same sensation coming from the north again.

 Chapter 158

    Damn it! Whatever it is to the north is driving me absolutely insane! It''s like listening to an infant cry and not being able to do anything about it. Maxine grumbled angrily under her breath as she frantically searched for Horatio Quay. He hadn''t been where she had last seen him. She had nearly given up when she finally spotted him. However before she could say anything to him, he rushed up to her and felt her forehead.


    "Are you alright?" Horatio Quay asked with deep concern as he looked at her eyes, "You''re sweating and your heart is beating far too swiftly."


    "I''m fine. I''m just stressed," Maxine replied.


    "You were not anywhere near this stressed when you were injured," Horatio Quay stated, "What''s bothering you?"


    "I don''t know!" Maxine yelled, "All I know is the source of it is to the north and it''s outside the range of my spiritual sense." Horatio Quay turned his head slightly to the north just as Maxine finished speaking.


    "It''s nothing you need to worry yourself about. Just focus on remaining calm," Horatio Quay said very firmly, "I will go deal with it in a few moments. Now is there anything else that you need from me before I go?" So there is something to the north and he doesn''t want me to know what it is.


    "Yeah, I was wondering why you told me not to advance to gold stage," Maxine stated while trying to remain calm.


    "Oh, I never mentioned why, did I? It''s easy enough to answer," Horatio Quay said calmly, "It''s because that''s how long I estimated that it would take for you to gain control over your bloodline. It would be suicide to face the lightning tribulation with an untamed bloodline."


    "A what?!" Maxine exclaimed.


    "You''ve never heard of the lightning tribulation? What has Guan been teaching you?" Horatio Quay asked in confusion.


    "Alchemy," Maxine answered with a straight face, "And not much else."


    "I should''ve known," Horatio Quay complained as he ran his hand over his face, "For starters, an event takes place when you breakthrough to gold stage. It''s a test of both your body and strength of will. If you fail one of them, you fail both and you will die if that happens. Not even your father can change that." Well, shit. I guess those cultivation novels have something right afterall.


    "I understand the physical part. What''s the strength of will?" Maxine asked, "Does it have something to do with the amount of pain I can tolerate or something?"


    "I can''t say," Horatio Quay answered, "Everyone''s will is tested in different ways, but I have no doubt that you will successfully pass it once your bloodline has been tamed. Oh and one more thing. Your test will be harder due to the fact that you have multiple cores and a powerful body. But not as bad as it should be since your battle form appears to be rather weak considering your bloodline."


    "What do you mean by that?" Maxine asked angrily. Shit, that damn feeling is still bothering the hell out of me.


    "There''s no need to be hostile. I''m just making an observation based on the increase in physical abilities that the teachers at the academy demonstrate when they transform," Horatio Quay answered calmly, "Before you ask, I have no idea why."


    "That figures and I''m sorry for being hostile. It''s just that thing to the north is REALLY bothering me," Maxine admitted.


    "It''s fine. I understand why it would bother you considering how strong your maternal instincts are," Horatio Quay said in an understanding tone. Wait, did he imply what I think he just did? Is there a really kid being tormented to the north?! But, I shouldn''t be able sense it. Unless... it''s an infant hydra. Is someone torturing an infant hydra?! Those mother fuckers!


    "So, when are you going to deal with it?" Maxine asked with obvious urgency.


    "I will go right this moment, if you don''t have any other questions," Horatio Quay answered.


    "I don''t," Maxine said, "Now please go take care of it."


    "I''ll be right back," Horatio Quay said, "And don''t under any circumstances leave the base camp until I return." Maxine tilted her head slightly in confusion before Horatio Quay vanished.


    However, she whipped her head to the north in sudden alarm. She could''ve sworn her heard a small child cry out for help, but the scream also sounded like it had a slight serpentine hiss. What the fuck is going on?! There are no children in the base camp and it''s obvious no one else heard it either. Wait a second, where is everyone?


    Maxine looked around and didn''t see a single person within five hundred feet of her. Oh, shit! She immediately sprinted forward as she transformed into her battleform and narrowly avoided six peak gold stage cultivators pouncing on her. Unfortunately, they were not the only ones after her. She had only run a few dozen feet before a net appeared three feet infront of her and considering how fast she was going, it was too close for her to dodge it. If I can''t dodge, I will cut through it!


    Maxine slashed her claws at the net while lining her claws with blade energy. They cut through it almost as if it wasn''t even there and she ran between the two pieces of it. Unforuntately she realized too late the net was just a distraction to allow two of the peak gold stage cultivators to get close to her enough to her to slam their fists into her gut. She screamed in pain when the shockwave of their attacks reached her still healing kidney. The force of their combined attack threw backwards into the arms of six peak gold stage cultivators. Fuck! I should''ve seen that coming! They wasted no time in moving to restrain her.


    She tried get away from them before they could lock down her limbs, but she failed. They moved too quickly and were moving perfectly in sync with each other. Which resulted in her arms and legs being restrained in moments, but they weren''t able to restrain her tail before she was able to slap a few of them around with it.


    She bucked and kicked for all she was worth, but she couldn''t free herself. She opened her mouth to spray acid at the ones to her left, but as soon as she began to open her mouth, one of them threw an orb at her face. It exploded on impact with the lower half of her face and formed a paste of some kind that immediately hardened. Thankfully, it hadn''t blocked her nose off so she could still breathe. Shit, these guys are way too prepared. They know about nearly all of my abilities. Shit, Horatio Quay warned me that shit like this might happen. Although, I doubt they know about one of my more recent discoveries.


    "Quickly, put the manacles on her," one of them said, "Our lure won''t keep her master occupied for long."


    However before they could do anything to her, an arrow slammed into that man''s side and Maxine heard Jason Markham roaring, "Get your fucking hands off of her!" More arrows followed, but they were easily deflected away. The one he injured threw out a wave of force that blasted Jason Markham into the rest of the mercenaries from Patricks group that were rushing to her aid. They blown away like leaves in the wind.


    Still, they caused enough of a distraction for Maxine to free one of her hands and claw one of her wouldbe captors across the face before they could restrain her arm again. She got punched in the gut for her efforts and yelped in pain since it jarred her injured kidney again.


    In seconds, manacles were attached on her wrists, ankles and several places along the length of her tail, but oddly she didn''t see any chains connecting them. However when they let go of her, she used this opportunity to escape, but she was only able to take a step before her manacled limbs flew behind her. The manacles painfully slammed into a circular object behind her. She tried to struggle against it, but she couldn''t get enough leverage to free herself.


    She felt herself being lifted off the ground and looked around wildly to see seven peak gold stage experts hauling their own ''Maxine'' away using a heavy rope. With a sudden jerk, she was being dragged through the air at terrifying speeds.


    She used her spiritual sense to look at the device restraining her and attempted to disengage it using her energies. To her shock and horror, she couldn''t use her energies. She couldn''t even use the essence from her constructs. Fuck, I guess I will have to do that and I can''t use it on the machine. My tail is in the way and I don''t think that I can launch my quills with enough force to pierce through my tail.


    This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    She angled her head to present her quills in the direction of her captor. God, I hate having to resort to using this move. But it''s either getting taken somewhere to have god knows what done to me or having a bald spot on my head until my hair grows back. I''m only going to get away with using this move one time before my captor knocks me out, so I hope Horatio Quay is paying attention.


    Maxine clenched her teeth in reluctance and twitched a set of muscles in the back of her head that she didn''t know she had two weeks ago. Six quills launched out of the back of her head. Four of which were headed for her captor''s head and the other two for the hand that was holding onto a rope that was attached to the device restraining her.


    Her quills hit his hand first, but instead of dropping her like she expected, his grip tightened as her quills lodged deeply into his hand. With practiced grace, he turned around and swatted the remaining quills out of the air. She saw the fury in his eyes as he glared at her, but he didn''t move to against her. Instead, his eyes widened in surprise before he hacked his own hand with the quills sticking out of it and grabbed the rope with his other hand.


    "No one told me your quills could be fired like that or that they were laced with such deadly venom," the man complained as he continued to drag her through the air, but he didn''t get far before Horatio Quay appeared beside him, "Fuck." He dropped Maxine as vanished just before Horatio Quay''s blade could cleave him in two. However in that one instant that Horatio Quay unleashed his attack, Maxine felt his overwhelming cultivation. Due to the difference in strength between them, she couldn''t even make a guess at his cultivation level.


    "I thought I told you to stay in the base camp," Horatio Quay said as Maxine felt herself hurtling towards the horizon due to the momentum she had built up while being dragged through the air. He still managed to keep up with her and she glared at him before she saw a series of flashes. She immediately felt her energies return to her and rapidly arrested her forward momentum. Without skipping a beat, she angrily tore the hardened paste off of her face and unfortunately it took some skine and scales with it. FUCK! That hurts!


    "There were eight peak gold stage cultivators What did you expect to happen?" Maxine roared at Horatio Quay in anger, but she saw a smile slowly forming on his lips, "You asshole!" He knew I would be ambushed!


    "There were twelve of them and I expected you to last a little longer before they could capture you," Horatio Quay answered with a straight face, "But their preparations were far more thorough than I had ancipated, but they didn''t seem to be aware that your quills could be thrown like that." Maxine was about to yell at Horatio Quay more, but stopped herself when she noticed that the strange sensation bothering her was gone.


    "What was to the north?" Maxine asked to change the subject. However just as she finished speaking, she heard a faint whimper coming from behind Horatio Quay and saw a pale green tail hanging between his legs. And she finally noticed the harness that Horatio Quay was wearing as he gave her a complicated look.


    She flew around him and saw a small pale green, naked and unconscious beastkin boy with heavy bruising all over his body strapped to Horatio Quay''s back. He looked no older than eleven. What the hell?! What species is he? I know he''s a type of dragon just based on the shape of his scales, but what specifically, I have no idea. I don''t see any horns. That limits what he could be, but figuring out what he is doesn''t matter right now. He''s hurt!


    "We need to take him back to the base camp. I can''t treat him here," Maxine announced.


    "Are you sure about taking him back to the base camp?" Horatio Quay asked.


    "Yes, why?" Maxine asked in return, "Wait. Do you know what he is?"


    "He''s a hydra," Horatio Quay said.


    "But there are no hydra beastkin," Maxine said reflexively.


    "That''s because whoever arranged this forced him into this form through alchemy," Horatio Quay growled.


    "Those bastards," Maxine growled in rage. She had heard about such a potion and with one exception, it always resulted in death within a couple months of consumption. But she was also confused. The potion shouldn''t have even worked on a hydra since it acted much like a poison.


    "Calm down," Horatio Quay said, "We will worry about that later. This little one needs medical attention."


    "You''re right," Maxine complained angrily and quickly took the hydrakin boy out of the harness. Once he was in her arms, she surrounded herself in an orb of her energies and created an identical orb back at the base camp before teleporting herself to it.


    Maxine completely ignored the surprised reactions of everyone around her as she gently placed the hydrakin boy on the ground and covered him with one of her shirts before using her spiritual sense to examine his injuries. He had extensive bruising and several simple fractures, but none of it was life threatening. However, his immune system wasn''t functioning the way it was supposed to. Instead of attacking bacteria and other harmful microbes, it was attacking healthy cells and to make matters worse, it was doing so in an extremely aggressive fashion. She could only deduce this was caused by his forced metamorphisis. His rapid regeneration was slowing the process, but if nothing was done, he would die within 3 months at the latest. Those bastards can go to hell! Don''t they know there is no cure for an auto-immune disease that appears in a cultivator! No, I need to remain calm. The first thing I need to do is treat his current injuries and I will try to think of a way to cure his illness later. Perhaps daddy can think of a way to cure him. Anyways, time to heal this little guy. I think he can eat a purple snake fruit without any ill effect. I don''t dare give him one of my specialized healing potions. Those things are meant for cultivators that are at least silver stage.


    She quickly retrieved a purple snake fruit and created a small knife using her energies. She cut it up into small bite sized pieces and looked back to the hydrakin boy. Unfortunately, he was still unconscious. Thus, she opened his mouth slightly and squeezed a few drops of the snake skin fruit into his mouth. The result was immediate as the hydrakin boy''s external wounds healed slightly and after a few seconds, he awoke.


    Maxine smiled and brought a piece of the purple snake fruit to his lips. He savagely bit down on it and nearly got Maxine''s fingers in the process. Woah, that was close. I guess he''s still feral. Someone will need to teach him how to behave later. She continued to feed him the rest of the purple snake fruit with a bit more caution. After he finished eating it, his wounds had visibly improved, but he still wasn''t in any shape to move around. He seemed to be of the same mind as he laid there motionless while staring at her.


    She stroked his short black hair to soothe him and it was clearly working since he started to drift off to sleep within moments. When he was finally asleep, she took stock of her surroundings and found that Patrick''s people were keeping everyone ten feet away.


    "How is the little guy?" Meagan asked with concern as she walked closer to Maxine. She''s just like she was in the previous timeline. No matter what kind of grudge she has, she will ignore it when children are involved. Although, I didn''t think it included beastkin children.


    "His injuries will take some time to heal," Maxine answered.


    "And what about you?" Jason Markham asked as he placed his hand on her shoulder, "Those pricks were not gentle with you when they took you captive."


    "I''ve got sore shoulders, some skin abrasions and a few bruises. But it''s nothing I can''t heal from," Maxine replied, "I''m more concerned about this little guy. His current form isn''t natural. The potion they used to force this form on him is killing him and I don''t know how to stop it. The most I can do right now is to make sure he''s comfortable."


    "Who would do that to him?" Meagan asked angrily.


    "I don''t know for certain, but I intend to find out," Maxine declared as she checked over the hydrakin boy again with her spiritual sense, but this time she wasn''t looking for injuries. Instead, she was looking for any evidence of who captured and tortured him. Unfortunately, even after scanning him down to his very genetic code, she couldn''t find a single thing. It was a long shot, but I had to check. I was hoping the alchemist''s pride in his or her work might compel them to leave a mark of some kind.


    "Alright. Let me know if you need help punishing those pricks," Jason Markham said firmly and pointed off to the side as he continued, "Anyways, we have a tent set up for you two over there."


    "Thanks," Maxine said as she gently picked up the hydrakin boy in her arms and carried him to the tent. She gently laid him down on a small cot and covered him with one of the provided sheets. I need to find him something to wear. He can''t run around naked.


    "I interrogated a few of your would-be kidnappers," Horatio Quay said as he walked into the tent, "They didn''t know much. Only one of them gave me something we can work with. An insignia that their employer wore." He promptly handed Maxine a sheet of paper.


    She saw two crescent moons facing away from each other with three lines connecting their backs together at the top, bottom and middle. This isn''t a coat of arms. It''s an alchemist''s sigil! I just need to look up this mark in the Alchemist Association''s database.


    "I''ll find out who sent them after we get back to the academy," Maxine said. But I better not move right away. I can''t compltely rule out that someone is setting this guy up. I managed to get this piece of information far too easily for it to be believed. Especially considering how thorough they were in the attempt to kidnap me.


    "Good. I''ll be waiting nearby in case they make another attempt and if they do, try to last longer," Horatio Quay said and he frowned for a moment as she felt his spiritual sense scan the area, "I''ll be waiting just outside." He walked out of the tent, but Maxine still felt his spiritual sense sweeping past her repeatedly. Something has him on edge. That does not bode well. No point in worrying about it. I can always open a portal and leave with this hydrakin boy if it looks like he can''t handle it.


    Maxine looked back at the sleeping hydrakin boy and checked him over again with her spiritual sense. However something was different from before, but she couldn''t quite put her finger on it. She scanned him more carefully and it finally hit her. His auto-immune disease isn''t as aggressive as it was before! At this rate, he will last more than six months and he seems to be constantly improving. This is amazing! But what triggered this change?


    However before Maxine can contemplate that question, she feels a large, heavily callused hand rest on her shoulder and sees another such hand grasped the hydrakin boy''s wrist. "I''m sorry," a man with a very deep man''s voice said before she felt his spiritual sense jolt her mind as she lost consciousness.

 Chapter 159

    Maxine woke up with a jolt and hissed in pain. A familiar searing pain was eminating from her left hand. She looked at her hand and saw her smallest finger had been cut off. Motherfuckers! They cut off my finger! They could''ve at least used a sharp knife and I have no idea how long it will take for it to grow back. I had my dimensional ring on that finger too! However in the next instant, she saw her dimensional ring on her middle finger. It almost made her forget about the pain. Huh? I thought grandpa Boreas said they couldn''t remove that ring without my consent. So, how did it switch fingers? Could it be similar to mom when her soul was within that bracelet and have a mind of it''s own? Or does it move to another finger automatically in the event that someone tries cut off the finger it''s on? Either way, grandpa went all out.


    "I was wondering when you would awaken," a mature sounding woman said from behind Maxine, "You can call me Alyssa." Maxine whirled around, but didn''t see the woman identifying herself as Alyssa anywhere, or anything else for that matter aside from the interior of her cage. It was a ten by ten cube with two beds. One of which was already occupied by hydrakin boy with a sheet draped over him. However she didn''t see any bars, but she could smell ozone in the air. A forcefield? It has to be a high-end one for my captors to think they can use it to keep me contained and considering how thorough they''ve been so far, it undoubtedly can. But that didn''t concern her as much as the lack of shadows within her cell. There weren''t even any in under her feet. It appeared as if every surface in her cage was made from some kind of material that glowed. I shouldn''t be surprised that this woman took that precaution. They clearly know I need a shadow to create a portal.


    "I have to give you my compliments. It''s not every day that one of Kelgar''s capture plans fail. He had other plans to capture you, but discarded them after seeing how you easily evaded capture," Alyssa said, "Thus why he moved personally to capture you. He was quite angry with me for putting him in that situation and I doubt he will ever perform another task for me again. And I''m sorry about your finger. I truly had no intention of harming you, but it was the only way to let your father know I actually had you. You see it''s too easy to replicate any other form of proof with technology. Is there anything I can get you for the pain?" Nothing she has would work on me anyways, so why did she bother asking at all? But still, I''m surprised she''s being this nice. I was expecting her to gloat or something.


    After several minutes of not recieving an answer, Alyssa continued to speak, "You have every reason to keep your silence. I''ve kidnapped you and used your maternal instincts as both a woman and those of your bloodline against you. But I wanted you to know that I didn''t kidnap you out of malice or greed, but desperation. My son, my baby boy, is extremely ill. I''ve requested countless healers and alchemists to heal him, but they couldn''t even identify what he had, let alone treat it. After their failure, I tried to get your father to look at him multiple times through both official and unofficial channels, but he ignored me every time. I even tried getting in contact with him through your sister''s husband and your father still turned me away. I was left with little choice but to hold you captive so he would heal my son." Okay, she''s not a complete idiot. Instead I have to deal with a desperate mother that won''t take no for an answer. Still, she could''ve asked me to look at him. I have the same knowledge as daddy. Although, I''m no where near as profficient as he is in alchemy, but I could still point her in the right direction for a cure.


    Maxine turned her around to the hydrakin boy to check on the status of his health. He was still unconscious, but she found a new bruise on his forehead as if someone had punched him. Maxine unconsciously growled in rage before she could stop herself. Those fuckers must''ve hit him. I can only assume it happened while they were moving us and he woke up mid-transport. Why did they have to hurt him when they could''ve easily knocked him out with their spiritual sense?


    "The one who beat the boy is the same man that you clawed across the face," Alyssa said, "While I don''t condone his action of beating that poor child, he has served my family faithfully for centuries and is like a grandfather to me. And now he has been poisoned by the venom on your claws. If you have an antidote for it, can please I have it?" There is no real antidote to give. Still, he should live as long as he gets proper medical care.


    Maxine didn''t pay Alyssa any mind as she extended her spiritual sense to continue her examination. She sighed in relief when she didn''t find any sign of swelling around his brain, but her anger intensified once she noticed just how much bruising he had spread over his whole body. She wasn''t joking when she said that prick beat him. Fucking asshole.


    However, she was still calm enough to check on the status of his autoimmune disease. His anitibodies were now only attacking specific cells without any discernable pattern that she could percieve. It''s almost as if his body is relearning what cells belong and don''t belong in his body. This is phenomenal. If the doctors on Earth could study this, they might be able to figure out how to reprogram a person''s immune system and possibly develope a cure-all for autoimmune diseases.


    "Amazing isn''t it?" Alyssa remarked, "Hydras have one of the most sofisticated, yet simple, immune systems in the known universe. They are able to fend of literately any illness or disease with little to no effort, even one induced by the side-effects of a potion. Although I wasn''t certain it would work in this scenario, but I''m glad that it did." ~Okay, that''s too many times in a row that she''s guessed what I''m thinking. She''s either extremely gifted at reading people, an actually fucking telepath or reading my thoughts covertly through spiritual sense. But it doesn''t matter. I just have to wait until Horatio Quay finds me and I won''t have to put up with this bullshit anymore.


    "I wouldn''t count on that," Alyssa said in amusement, "Kelgar is giving him a merry chase through the cosmos. He only had to knock you out and place teleport beacons on you two. After that it was child''s play for him to create false images for him to carry as he fled. By the time, your teacher figures out that he''s been played, there will be no way to track you down." That''s getting creepy. Don''t you know it''s rather rude to read other people''s thoughts without their permission? I could be thinking about tentacle porn for all you know.


    "What''s tentacle porn?" Alyssa asked and Maxine smiled devilishly as she created a mental image of it, "ACK! That''s disgusting! What kind of vile miscreants came up with such.. filth! I mean who would even ... ugh. And how did they get a greldzian to do that to a young woman?! No! I don''t want to know! Just, please, stop thinking about that!" If you don''t like it, stop reading my thoughts.


    "Fine! I will stop so long as you talk to me," the Alyssa yelled in frustration.


    "Then return the curtesy and show yourself," Maxine said coldly, and as soon as her those words left her mouth, she felt a pinch near the end of her tail. She looked behind her and saw the hydrakin boy was the culprit. He was trying, and failing, to bite through her scales. It looks like he''s hungry again, but I really need to teach him how to properly behave. At least, someone thought to put a pair of shorts on him.


    "That''s adorable," Alyssa said as she walked close enough for Maxine to see her. She looked to be in her thirties and had very long brown hair and green eyes. Her breasts were at least two cup sizes bigger than Maxine''s, but it was hard to tell her exact size due to the baggy grey dress she wore. Maxine also spied a ring with the same insignia on it as the one on the sheet of paper that Horatio Quay showed her earlier.


    Maxine took her eyes off of the mature woman and tried to retrieve some jerky from her dimensional ring. However, she wasn''t able to. Her dimensional ring had been sealed. "He''s just letting me know he''s hungry," Maxine said, "Do you mind undoing this seal so I can feed him?"


    "Sorry, but I can''t do that," Alyssa replied calmly, "You could have a device that could interfer with the function of your cage within it or have a means to teleport yourself to another location."


    "He still needs to be fed," Maxine asserted, "Or do you want him to go berserk? That happens to me when I go for too long without eating."


    "Very well," Alyssa said, "I''ll have something brought up."


    "Make sure it''s meat and get me something as well," Maxine added, "Hydras are carnivores afterall."


    "Fine, fine," Alyssa said before disappearing into the shadows. While she was gone, Maxine attempted to manipulate the shadows beyond the forcefield, but her energies were stopped by the forcefield. It was worth a try.


    Maxine looked back to the hydrakin boy that was trying to savage her tail with his teeth. Now what do I call you, my little tail biter? Perhaps, I should give you an elvish name? Or would a draconic one be more appropriate? I''m the worst at picking out names. Emily criticized me more than once about my name choices for Kerrigan and Silky. Maybe I can contact her through my constructs and get her feedback. She quickly tried to contact her construct within Emily''s shadow, but for some reason, she wasn''t able to. That''s strange. Next, she tried to expand her spiritual sense beyond the shield, but to her surprise, her spiritual sense only spread within the confines of her cage. That''s not good. Immediately, Maxine scanned herself with her spriitual sense, but didn''t find anything. Shit, they''ve made one hell of a cage to hold me if it can block my spiritual sense without special materials. I can''t imagine how much it cost to make this thing. There goes any chance of escape without help. On the positive side, at least, this gives me plenty of time to figure out what to call this little guy. And now that I think about it, he isn''t biting me nearly as hard as he could. Is he perhaps trying to play with me?


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    She tested out her theory by gently swishing her tail back and forth. The hydrakin boy grabbed onto her tail with both clawed hands and held on tight. She saw a twinkle of enjoyment in his eyes as he hung on. So, he is trying to play. He has a real wierd way of doing it. Maybe this is his way of learning how to hunt. I remember digging my claws into beasts and holding on until it collapsed from either my venom or exhaustion.


    She accidentally swished her tail too hard and dislodge him, but she lowered herself into a playful stance as soon as the hydrakin boy got to his feet. He tackled her and began wrestling with her. She was very gentle with him as she wrestled back, but he still insisted on play biting her. She didn''t want to accidentally hurt him. However, their play session was cut short when a pedestal rose up from the floor with a rather large covered tray on top of it. And there is the food that was promised.


    "There you go," Alyssa said.


    "Thanks," Maxine said casually as she took the metallic cover off of the tray. It was heaped with raw meat. Ugh, I would''ve prefered it if it was cooked, but screw it. I''m hungry and so is this little guy. Without ceremony, she and the hydrakin boy began to eat the meat. Although at first, it looked like the hydrakin boy was sneaking food off of the platter rather than eat it openly. But after a handful of seconds, he began to eat in earnest once it was clear to him that Maxine didn''t care if he ate the presented meat or not.


    After Maxine ate her fill, there was still quite a bit of meat left and she put the tray on the ground to let the hydrakin boy finish it off. However she spied a datapad on the pedestal. It apparently had been underneith the tray the whole time. She picked it up and activated it. It contained a very thorough medical examination of an eight year old boy and he had been sick for nearly six months.


    Maxine glanced to the side and saw that Alyssa was seated in a chair that hadn''t been there before with a hopeful look in her eyes. So, she was reading my mind at that time. Well, I might as well take a look since I have it on hand. It''s not like I have anything else I can do in here. While she looked through the medical records, she sat down, but she was distracted when the hydrakin boy put his head on her thigh before taking a nap. This little guy is almost acting as if he believes I''m his real mother. Although, I doubt that''s actually the case, but I need to make sure. I think a small peek at his thoughts wouldn''t hurt.


    However when she peeked at his thoughts with her spiritual sense, she nearly laughed out loud. The hydrakin boy was under the impression that he was taking advantage of Maxine''s misconception that he was her child and was going continue to do so as long as he could get away with it. That cunning little shit! At least, I don''t have to worry about him lacking intelligence due to his forced transformation.


    She simply shook her head as she stroked his head before going back to the datapad. It took her roughly an hour before she discovered the little boy''s name and what he was afflicted with. Little Eliot had been infected with an engineered virus that was highly resistant to all forms of known treatment. But when she looked at it''s genetic structure, she was extremely confused. Who would go to the effort to engineer a virus of this degree and not make it lethal. It''s like a heavily improved version of the common fucking cold with a few added symptoms to make it appear nasty. Not only that, it isn''t contageous in any form and it''s got this built in self-destruct timer. It will last at most another year. Who would even make something like this? And why?


    "Judging by your expression, you can''t figure out how to cure my son either," Alyssa said sadly.


    "It''s not that I can''t. I just don''t see a point to it," Maxine replied, "That virus was engineered to burn itself out after say a year after infection and it would take me the same amount of time it has left to burn itself out to develop a cure. But I''m surprised the others didn''t catch onto that. Or they knew about it, but didn''t tell you for some reason."


    "Those healers wouldn''t dare. It would ruin their reputations to do such a thing, if it ever got out," the mature woman retorted.


    Without warning, the hydrakin boy''s head shot straight up and began looking around fearfully as he clung to Maxine''s side. She was confused for a few seconds until she felt as if a great predator had locked it''s gaze on her. The sensation wasn''t that strong, but it was very slowly getting stronger. Shit, it looks like someone is on their way to silence everyone, except for possibly me.


    "Does anyone know where we are?" Maxine asked while trying to keep the fear out of her voice.


    "We are currently on board my starship and we are surveying a planet for an anomynous individual as a form of cover. Why?" Alyssa asked.


    "We need to leave orbit now," Maxine said with urgency as it only took Maxine an instant to figure out what''s going on. FUCK! Someone is planning on using this woman as a scapegoat and went so far as to bribe the healers and alchemists involved. And they knew to strike when both Kelgar and Horatio Quay were too far away to make it in time. Whoever planned all of this is smarter than I am. They knew exactly how Alyssa would react to her son being afflicted with an unknown illness and it was just to bring me out into a place where they could capture me without leaving any trails to them. Clearly, this person is an enemy of daddy''s or wants his alchemical knowledge without getting murdered by him. So, I need to get out of here before they get here and from the feel of it, I don''t have more than a handful of minutes before they arrive. At this point, the hydrakin boy was trembling in absolute terror.


    "What is wrong with-," Alyssa began to say, but was cut off when the whole ship shuddered. Shit, they are way faster than I thought. No, that powerful being is still a ways off. This might be his advanced forces. If I just had access to the contents of my dimensional ring, I could just use one of the two warp stones in it. Although I don''t remember exactly where they both go, but I know I can create a portal back to the academy within minutes of arriving. I guess my memory isn''t as flawless as I thought it was.


    "Ma''am, five warships have decloaked around us and were able disabled our engines before we could raise the shields," a gruff man''s voice said, "We deployed the decoy signals of Guan''s daughter in random directions to buy us some time, but it won''t be long before they figure out they''re fakes. What are you orders?"


    "Initiate plan five," Alyssa ordered, "I will head to the emergency escape ship momentarily."


    "Understood," the man replied, before Maxine began to hear a hum.


    "What''s plan five?" Maxine asked.


    "Plan five is to jettison your containment pod towards the planet''s surface as soon as I leave this room," Alyssa replied and waved her hand in Maxine''s direction, "I''ve undone the seal on your dimensional ring and I suggest you use your portal ability as soon as you leave the ship. That containment pod will release an energy signal identical to your own for up to an hour even after you leave it. I hope you manage to escape before whoever planned all of this arrives."


    The forcefield glowed a vibrant blue as Alyssa turned around and left. A few moments later, the cage she was in jerked violently downward and she saw a metallic surface for a few moments before she saw the face of a planet. It looks so much like Earth. No! I can''t get distracted. I need to escape with this little guy immediately. Whoever is causing my instincts to go wild is almost here!


    Maxine swiftly withdrew one of the two warp stones left in her dimensional ring and wrapped arms around the hydrakin boy. But she hesitated for a moment. This thing is meant to transport only one person. I have no idea what it might do by transporting two people at once. It might make the previously safe warp into a dangerous one or make my exit vector random. Fuck it. There are cultivators way bigger than me that use these things and with this little guy''s mass added in, we should still be under the maximum limit. Even if it sends us to a random location, I can still just create a portal back to the academy. She still coated the both of them in a layer of her energies just in case, but made sure the one around the hydrakin boy was three times as dense as the one surrounding herself.


    However as Maxine crushed the warp stone, she saw someone rushing at them out of the corner of her eye. It was a man with grey hair wearing a blue Alchemist Association badge. A blue badge?! He''s a mid-level immortal tier alchemist! That explains a few things. Unfortunately, she didn''t get a clear look at his face before space twisted around her and both, she and the hydrakin boy, were warped away.


    Seconds later, she landed on her back in a cavern of some kind that had a few glowing blue crystals. She spread out her spiritual sense to scan her surroundings and to find an exit to this cave. The closest thing to an exit was to the cavern wall that her tail was pointed at and she had to dig through six feet of granite to get to a tunnel. But she immediately noticed another problem. The mana levels in the air were far too low to be her intended destination. I guess I was sent to different planet than was intended. Damn, I lucked out to have ended up on a habitable planet. I could''ve ended up in space, on a volcanic planet or on the surface of a fucking star. On the plus side, if I don''t know where I am, chances are that asshole alchemist doesn''t either. Now all I have to do is get out of this place and figure out how to use my mana to create a portal back to the academy to say goodbye to Ismena and Reina. After that, I''m going home and spending time with my family. I''ve just had enough of this scheming bullshit for a good while and if anyone doesn''t like it, they can eat shit.

 Chapter 160

    Maxine dug through the granite and managed to reach the tunnel in less than five hours. But she didn''t leave the cavern. She only dug to the tunnel to increase her air supply to give herself more time to practice using mana. While she did that, another part of her mind had an epiphany. I''ve been too lenient with others. They feel like they can stab me in the back without any real consequences and they''ve grown brazen because of it. There mere fact that the Alchemist Association covering for one of their high ranking members and the Stardust Academy sending me to that to be captured is proof enough of that. So, I need to respond to this betrayal in kind, but I don''t want to commit mass murder like daddy would. That would harm those that had nothing to do with what happened to me. Regardless, what I have in mind should be sufficiently vicious to discourage any scheming in the future. Afterall, there are far worse fates than death. I just have to come up with a couple.


    It took her nearly twelve hourse before she was able to manipulate her energies sufficiently for her to safely create a portal back to the academy. However, she didn''t open it right away. I need to prepare a few things before I show up at the academy. Now that I think about it, Horatio Quay doesn''t know that I''ve escaped does he?


    Maxine retrieved her communication disk from her dimensional ring and contacted Horatio Quay. Within moments, he answered, "Maxine, where are you? How did you escape?"


    "They let me go once they realized they''d been tricked and as for where I am, I havn''t the slightest idea," Maxine replied, "Are you at the academy right now?"


    "Not at the moment," Horatio Quay answered, "But I can return there with a warp stone. Why?"


    "First off, go to Colonel Price and tell him our contract is canceled. He should understand why without having to be told," Maxine explained, "After that, I would like it if you looked after my sister and brother-in-law. Don''t worry about me. I will return to the academy in a couple hours."


    "Very well," Horatio Quay replied and his holographic image studied Maxine''s face before an excited smile spread across his face, "You''re planning on doing something violent, arn''t you?"


    "Yes," Maxine replied simply.


    "I was wondering when your patience would run out. Your overdeveloped sense of mercy has been a liability," Horatio Quay said. Maxine turned off her communication disk without replying to him.


    Next, she reached out to her clone to see if her mom was nearby. Thankfully, she was and Maxine contacted her via spiritual sense, [Mom, can you look after a little boy for me?]


    [Maxine? Of course, I can,] Hellen replied, [Is he your baby?]


    [Sorry, but no,] Maxine answered, [But I think daddy will like to meet him.] He should anyways. That hydrakin boy is the first of his kind as far as I know.


    [Alright, just send him on over,] Hellen answered, [And I wish you would spend your free time with me and your father. You know it''s not that hard to control one of your clones remotely.] Shit, why didn''t I think of that?


    [I''m sorry, it never occured to me to do that,] Maxine replied.


    [It''s alright. We have literately centuries to spend time together,] Hellen replied, [And is everything alright? Your clones are radiating intense killing intent.] Oops. I must be doing that unconsciously.


    [Several people have thoroughly pissed me off and I don''t want the little boy I''m taking care of to get caught up in it,] Maxine replied.


    [I understand. Just don''t over do it,] Hellen cautioned Maxine.


    [I know. I''m not going to massacre their families, mom,] Maxine replied.


    [Good,] Hellen said, [Now send this little boy over. I''m standing next to your clone now.]


    [Will do,] Maxine answered and she walked over to the napping hydrakin boy. She gently woke him and send a message into his mind to let him know that she''s sending him somewhere safe. She wasn''t sure he understood it, but she figured her mother was powerful enough to handle him regardless. So she created a portal to her clone and pushed him into it. Now, with his safety seen to, I can finally prepare a few things.


    Maxine pulled out various poisonous ingredients, the venom in her claws and some acid from the glands in the back of her mouth and began to concoct two separate poisons. The acidic one she made specifically for Marcus Quinn. She no longer cared if he was being blackmailed since it was clear that someone in the Alchemist Association was covering for him. The other poison she crafted was in the form of a mist and placed into a glass sphere that was roughly the size of a grapefruit. It wouldn''t kill anyone, but it would make them wish they had. It would make them feel as if their skin was melting for three days and would prevent them from loosing consciousness. These two should do nicely, but I should prepare for the eventuallity that a teacher with immortal stage cultivation will try to stop me.


    She summoned four of her shadow wolf constructs and had them become part of her Shadow''s Embrace armor. However, they were not active, so they wouldn''t be boosting her strength. However she had them in place just in case. I think I''m all set. Now, I need to find out where Marcus Quinn is the moment I arrive at the academy and I believe I''ve given Horatio Quay enough time to get into position as well. And now to secure an escape route to a place no one knows about in case all else fails.


    Maxine picked up a rock on the ground and placed a spiritual mark on it. As she tossed it back onto the cavern floor, she glanced up at the source of the blue light filling the room. There were dozens of walnut sized crystals giving off the blue light. On a whim, she plucked one of them and stashed it in her dimensional ring. Now, it''s time to enact my plans.


    With a thought, she contacted Ismena through the shadow wolf hiding in her shadow, [Ismena, I''m sorry about contacting you like this, but could you make your way to my cottage?]


    [Certainly, is there something wrong?] Ismena asked, [You''re not scheduled to be back for at least another month.]


    [Certain events beyond my control forced me to return,] Maxine answered calmly, [And you might want to bring Reina along with you. It will be safer that way.] Safer for both of you and me.


    [It won''t take us very long to get there,] Ismena answered, [This is about teacher Marcus Quinn, isn''t it?]


    [In part,] Maxine answered and waited for Ismena and Reina to reach her cottage within the academy. Once they were there, Maxine created a portal and jumped into it.


    "Do either of you know where Marcus Quinn is?" Maxine asked.


    "He should be finishing up a class on hand to hand combat at the northern training court, since his turn as a displinary member ended recently," Reina answered.


    "Good. Now both of you stay here until I get back," Maxine said as she moved to leave the cottage, "I have a few things to take care of. I should be back before too long."


    "We will," Ismena said nervously.


    As Maxine left her cottage, she saw Horatio Quay off to the side with Orianna beside him. Maxwell was in a formation array and Orianna was too engrossed in watching him to notice Maxine. Horatio Quay, on the other hand, noticed her immediately and simply nodded at her. She nodded back and immediately took flight as she headed towards the northern training courtyard.


    However as she flew towards it, she made no effort to contain her killing intent and consciously released dragon fear. Those that she flew past scattered and looked towards her fearfully. It only took a few moments before she arrived at the northern training courtyard and Marcus Quinn had just finished his lesson. His gaze locked onto Maxine just as she slammed down into the ground infront of him. A cloud of dust was thrown up around the both of them as a result of her collision. He''s an immortal cultivator, so I''m outclassed in every way. That''s alright though. It just means I have to fight dirty.


    Before the cloud could disperse, Maxine created a portal at her feet and another just above Marcus Quinn''s head. At the same time, she retrieved a vial of her acidic poison and began pouring it into the portal at her feet. I''m glad that I kept the secret that I can create portals mid-air. It makes for a nasty sneak attack and I doubt he expected me to attack anyways. This is inside the academy afterall.


    However, Marcus Quinn still dodged it, but only partially. The acidic poison coated his left arm and it began to give off steam as it ate into his flesh, even though it was clear he was trying to throw it off using his energies. As the dust cloud cleared, Marcus Quinn fell to his knees and he grit his teeth in obvious pain. She didn''t blame him in the least for his reaction. The skin on his left arm was literately melting off to reveal his muscle, nerve endings, blood vessels and tendons of his arm. Shit, I missed. I was aiming for his head, but this works too.


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    "You foolish child! You''ve attacked a teacher! You know the rules regarding that!" Marcus Quinn roared. Loosing a couple limbs is the punishment for that I believe. But I thought he would be grateful that I didn''t make a killing poison. He simply has no idea how hard it was to come up with that acidic poison so it would only destroy his skin and eat through his defensive energies without killing him. But I imagine he will hate me quite a bit when he tries to heal it. That will trigger its secondary effect of multiplying the sensitivity of his pain receptors to make him feel as if he is literately being burned alive for a day or so. And it will trigger each time he uses a healing potion or pill in the future. Eat shit and die asshole.


    "They won''t lay a hand on me," Maxine said firmly.


    "And why do you think that?" a teacher said as a group of them landed to surround Maxine. She noticed that none of them were elven or possessed a snake-type bloodline.


    "Because I either get to do whatever I want to him, or I make this entire planet a class four hazard zone," Maxine replied coldly as she retrieved the vial of plaguebringer out of her dimensional ring, "Choose."


    "You won''t do that. You''ll die along with us," the teacher that spoke up earlier said as he approached Maxine.


    "Think again, asshole," Maxine said as she used one of her claws to crack the outer layer of the vial and all of them froze, "The benefits of a hydra bloodline is that I don''t get sick and I''m almost completely immune to poisons."


    "Fine," the teacher growled reluctantly, "But he''s the only one!"


    "You don''t get to dictate whom I will punish," Maxine said forcefully, "Only I get to do that. Or did you forget whose daughter I am? Did you honestly think that I would just let him get away with sending me off to get captured by my father''s enemies? Be grateful that I don''t turn this whole fucking academy into an example of why you shouldn''t test my patience!" As she finished, she created a dozen tendrils in his shadow to rapidly wrap around Marcus Quinn''s legs and charged at him. Surprisingly, none of the teachers moved to stop her.


    She retrieved another vial of her acidic poison from her dimensional ring and flung the contents at Marcus Quinn once she was less than five feet away from him. He brought up his arms to shield his face, but that wasn''t where she was aiming. She aimed most of the poison at his abdomen. More steam erupted off of him as his skin melted. He finally collapsed onto the ground screaming. However Maxine wasn''t done yet.


    She calmly retrieved couple more vials of acidic poison and poured one of them on his head. She poured the other one along the length of his legs. Although she found it a bit hard since he kicked his legs free of her shadow tendrils and was rolling all over the place to avoid her efforts. I''ve finished making an example out of him. Now it''s time for the local branch of the Alchemist Association.


    Maxine took flight and flew towards the Alchemist Association branch within the academy. But she stopped about half a mile away from her destination and hovered a few hundred feet off the ground. She glanced behind her and saw that the teachers had followed her.


    With a thought, she retrieved three glass orbs filled with a gaseous poison. She opened a portal on her stomach, which was in shadow, to the interior of the Alchemist Association and shoved the orbs into it. Within a couple seconds, a purple and blue cloud blasted out of the windows and doors of the Alchemist Association branch.


    A cruel smile appeared on her lips as she heard the screams of agony coming from within it. I feel bad for anyone that got caught in that poison cloud. It''s a pain inducing poison that clings and feeds off of the trace amounts of medicinal ingredients within the bodies of whomever it effects. Those idiots have no idea how much of that stuff their bodies absorb it while they concoct potions and/or pills. The more of them that they''ve made, the longer their suffering will be and since their alchemists, they''ve probably avoided fighting. So, their pain tolerance won''t be that high. I can''t even imagine how much they will suffer and as an added fuck you, I made it so that it won''t leave their bodies. That is unless they are willing to grovel at my feet with the head of that asshole alchemist that tried this scheming bullshit and present it to me on a silver fucking platter.


    Maxine violently shook her head to dispell the sadistic thoughts plaguing her mind. No, I can''t enjoy this. I won''t enjoy this. They pushed me too far. I just wish that I knew who specifically within that place fucked me over. Otherwise I wouldn''t have used this method. Still, she was satisfied that she hadn''t killed anyone.


    "What have you done?" Piras Long asked quietly in horror as she arrived.


    "I''ve claimed my vengeance," Maxine replied coldly, "Don''t get in my way or you''re next."


    "You''re insane," Piras Long stated fearfully as she retreated dozens of feet away from Maxine.


    "Perhaps," Maxine replied, "But this aspect of my personality only comes out when I''ve been pushed too far."


    "They provoked you? How? And why?" Piras Long asked in shocked disbelief.


    "You just need to know that they''ve thoroughly infuriated me," Maxine replied, "If you want details, ask my teacher."


    "The Alchemist Association will retaliate," Piras Long said coldly.


    "They''re free to do so, but I wouldn''t recommend it. I have enough of that poison to hit a few dozen of their branch offices or hit their headquarters directly," Maxine said calmly, "And if they''re wondering why I''m so pissed, they should check on the tracking beacons that I know are inside of these badges they hand out. In particular, a person with a blue alchemist badge that came within a few thousand miles of me within the last twelve hours. Oh, and if they want the antidote, they should bring me that asshole''s severed head."


    "Why would they bother? They can make the antidote as well," Piras Long countered.


    "Believe what you will, but they will come to me for it," Maxine replied, "And please remind them to leave my family alone. As you can see, I''m quite adept at infiltration when I put my mind to it." Maxine finished, she changed her external appearance a dozen different times using her energies without emitting any sign that she was wearing a disguise. Actually, I''m more concerned about what would happen if those idiots were to severely injure or kill Maxwell. I can''t even imagine the horrors Orianna would unleash on them in that event. But to be fair, they should know better than to trigger a fucking yandere.


    "How did you do that?" Piras Long asked, "I couldn''t sense that you used your energies at all. Nor could I tell that it was fake."


    "That''s my secret and I only intend to teach it to either my children or my sister''s children," Maxine said and sensed several people rapidly approaching, "And I think I''ve spent more than enough time chatting with you and please return this to the Alchemist Association. I don''t need it anymore." As she finished speaking, she tossed Piras Long the gold alchemist''s badge and flew towards the ground at top speed. Before she reached it though, she opened a portal just beneith her that led to a spot just outside of her cottage.


    She launched out of the other end of her portal and contacted Ismena and Reina via spiritual sense, [It''s safe to come out now. I suggest you two lay low for a while until things calm down. I would stay, but I doubt that they would tolerate my presence here at the academy any longer.]


    [What did you do?] Ismena asked.


    [You will find out shortly. Just let them the truth. You know what I was going to do before I acted. That should keep you safe from the reprecussions of my actions, but it might be a good idea to act as my sister''s attendants. That way you can remain under Horatio Quay''s protection,] Maxine told them and sensed that the people persuing her had located her via spiritual sense, [Well, I gotta go now. I hope to see you again.] I shouldn''t have to say anything to Horatio Quay. He already knew I would probably be leaving after I caused some havoc.


    Maxine created a new portal to the room that housed her clones and jumped into it. She closed it the instant that she was on the other side of it and was somewhat surprised at the scene that greeted her.


    The hydrakin boy was napping with his head on Hellen''s lap while she stroked his hair. She had expected many different things, but not this. How the hell did mom pull that off? I was half expecting her clothes to be shredded and her swatting his ass.


    "Children are always the cutest when their sleeping," Hellen commented as she looked up at Maxine.


    "That they are," Maxine said.


    "Now, do you mind telling me his name?" Hellen asked.


    "Uh, I don''t think he has one," Maxine said and quickly explained further once she saw Hellen''s glare, "I''ve literately known him less than a day and he was forced into being a beastkin. I don''t think he even knows how to speak."


    "That''s unfortunate," Hellen lamented, "I guess I''ll name him then. How does Lucas sound?"


    "That sounds wonderful," Maxine said as she nodded her head in agreement. That''s definitely better than anything that I can come up with.


    "Maxine? What are you doing here? You''re supposed to be at the Stardust Academy," Guan said as he walked in, but stopped in his tracks when his eyes locked onto her finger, "Who did that?" I can''t tell if he''s angry or not. But I have a feeling his anger is the calm and absolutely terrifying type.


    "A woman named Alyssa," Maxine replied.


    "Husband, let it go. You know as well as I do that she will regrow her finger within a week," Hellen reprimanded Guan, "And I have a feeling that Maxine came home so that we could protect her from something."


    "Mom''s right. That academy is full of scheming pricks," Maxine complained, "So, I lost my patience with them and did something excessive."


    "Explain what happened and leave nothing out," Guan told Maxine and she quickly relayed what happened in detail. After she finished, Guan sighed in relief and said, "I know that man. He wouldn''t have harmed you from fear that I placed a special array on your bones that would let me know if anyone severely injured you. And before you ask, yes, I did, but it only activates when you recieve a life threatening wound. And I know full well who this Alyssa is and I don''t intend to act against her. That mid-tier immortal alchemist has likely dealt with her already. But more importantly, I''m relieved to know that I no longer need to watch over you. Your actions at the academy will no doubt resound within the Alliance. Very few people will be willing to cross you now that they know you''re just as skilled of a poisoner as I am. And once they realize how much more vicious you are than I am, those few will be extremely reluctant to do so."


    "But I let them live," Maxine countered.


    "Yes, but you took away their ability to practice their trade," Guan explained, "To them, that''s a fate far worse than death. For many alchemists, their craft is also their greatest passion."


    "That''s why I''m offering the antidote if they kill that prick that set this complicated scheme to kidnap me," Maxine replied, "I know they won''t give him up though, but that doesn''t mean one of those alchemists that I poisoned won''t tell me where he''s hiding."


    "Very true," Guan said and he gazed at the sleeping hydrakin boy, "Now, what do you intend to do with this boy?"


    "I was thinking of raising him," Maxine said, "He''s quite intelligent."


    "I don''t have any problems with that," Guan said, "What about you, Hellen?"


    "I don''t mind having another adopted grandchild," Hellen said calmly, "But, I insist that you have a few babies of your own before you adopt another one and I''m not taking no for an answer."


    "Alright, mom. I promise," Maxine said, "But I may have to wait until I breakthrough into gold stage first."


    "That''s fine," Hellen said, "Master Quay told me you''d be able to that within a few weeks. Now with that out of the way, don''t you think you''ve made me wait for a hug long enough, young lady?"


    Maxine smiled to herself as she walked over to Hellen and hugged her tightly while Hellen stroked Maxine''s quills very carefully. Now this is nice. I wonder how things have changed on Earth since I''ve last been here. I will find out tomorrow when I go to visit Emily and the others. I wonder how she will react to my missing finger.

 Chapter 161

    Maxine felt annoyed as handled the controls of her her ship while it slowly descended to Earth. Ugh, I hate this bullshit. I understand why the governments of Earth insisted that cultivators register with their respective departments. But why do I have to return to Earth on a ship!? Daddy insisted on it since it would explain why no one could find me on Earth. I hate having to go through this kind of hassle. Still, I''m surprised daddy managed to recover the four-horned kanzil ship that I abandoned. How he knew where find it is beyond me, but I''m not going to complain about that.


    [Maxine, remember to visit the registration office as soon as you arrive. The local government will get quite upset if you try to avoid it,] Hellen reminded Maxine via spiritual sense, [And don''t worry about little Lucas. We will look after him while you are on Earth.]


    [Thank you again, mom,] Maxine replied, [I just can''t take the risk that he will hurt someone. I will make sure to visit you guys daily from now on, even if it''s only through one of my clones.]


    [I''ll hold you to that,] Hellen said happily, [Now concentrate on flying that ship. I don''t want you to crash it after your father went to the trouble of finding it.]


    [Alright, mom. Talk to you later,] Maxine said as she devoted her concentration to the controls as she entered Earth''s atomasphere.


    Maxine held the control stick steady as she used her other hand to adjust the thruster controls to ensure her descent was a smooth one. After a few minutes, her efforts paid off as she found herself near St Louis. A small space port had been built as far away from the international airport as possible while still remaining within the city limits and designated one mile around it as a no fly zone for airplanes to ensure that no accidents happened.


    "Ground control. This is the ''Quilled Maiden.'' I''m on approach and request a landing site," Maxine said while the communications array was active. I''m still not happy that daddy gave my ship that name. It''s just another thing that''s irratating me today.


    "This is St. Louis Ground Control. You''re clear to touchdown on landing pad 5," a woman responded to Maxine''s query, "Please, take the designated flight path. It should show up on your nav systems now."


    "Roger that. Proceeding to landing pad 5," Maxine said and manuevered her ship towards landing pad 5. It was nearly impossible to miss it since it had a huge number 5 printed on it using the arabic and alliance numberal systems.


    As soon as she touched down, she took a look at her clothes and sighed. She was wearing a white tank top and a pair of modified denim shorts to accomodate her tail. Remaining in my transformed state is severely limiting my outfit choices. It''s just so hard to find a shirt that can accomadate these quills without being torn to pieces. And since my Shadow''s Embrace armor was nearing it''s damage threshold, I have to let it regenerate before I can use it again. At least, it''s warm enough for me to get away with wearing this stuff.


    She made her way to the hatch of her ship and was surprised to find a set of mobile stairs had been pushed up to the exit hatch of her ship. How thoughtful. As she walked down the steps, she saw a group of the space port''s personnel approaching her. However, they stopped to gawk at her for several seconds while she slowly descended the stairs.


    "I plan on staying here for awhile. How much do you guys charge for the rental space in a hangar?" Maxine asked them in english when she got within earshot.


    The one in the middle, a middle aged man, quickly shook his head and spoke up, "Your hangar fees for the next six months have been paid in advance. I simply need you to give your signature for our records." After he finished speaking, he held out a datapad for her to sign, but there was no writing utensil.


    "You wouldn''t have something to write with, would you?" Maxine asked as she grabbed the data pad, "My claws are extremely sharp and I''m afraid that I will destroy this thing by accident if I were to try to use my finger to sign my name."


    "Here you go and thank you for taking that into consideration," the middle-aged man said with a smile as he handed her a small ball point pen.


    "Think nothing of it," Maxine replied as she deftly signed her name and handed the datapad with the pen on top of it back to him, "Now, where is this ''cultivator registration center''? I heard that I needed to go there if I intend to stay for any length of time."


    "We have a registration office in the space port for the convenience of our guests," the middle age man replied, "I can escort you there if you like."


    "I would appreciate it," Maxine said and followed the man around. It was a short walk into the facility and to the cultivator registration office within the spaceport. It was rather busy so she had to wait for a short while before it was her turn to register. However, when she walked to the counter she felt herself being scanned. Of course, they''re logging an imprint of my energies. It''s more accurate than scanning my finger print.


    "Huh?" the clerk said with a stunned expression. Maxine spied a name tag over her left breast with the name ''Darcie'' in plain text, but thankfully Darcie snapped out of it to continue speaking, "It says you''ve already been registered, but that can''t be right. Your cultivation is off the charts and I''m sure we would know about you if you were a local. This will just take a second to sort this out." I know damn sure that daddy didn''t set that up. Don''t tell me that they''re using my profile from when I was helping the military. It would make sense for them to include me. I know I gained two more cores, but the overall energy signature will be the same. But why did they keep me on public files after my supposed death? Maybe they put them back in after Emily revealed that I was still alive somewhere offworld?


    "No, this has to be wrong. It''s saying that your a 22 year old human female by the name of Maxine Levings," Darcie said, "You''re clearly not her."


    "Yes, I am," Maxine said, "My birthday was quite literately two weeks ago."


    "You''re not even the right species, so don''t even try to trick me," Darcie said in warning.


    "Just bring up the photo that you have on file and see if it matches my face," Maxine said in exasperation, "If that isn''t enough, just contact a member of the Kavros Clan. I''m their young miss and quite a few of them have seen me in this state."


    "Or you could always have them call your uncle," a very familiar voice called out from behind her. She turned around as a smile spread across her lips.


    "Uncle Zeph!" Maxine shouted happily as she hugged him while being mindful of her claws and quills, "What are you doing here?" Oh, he''s wearing a blue vest. He''s still wearing black pants though, but it''s better than his edge lord appearance from before.


    "They need someone to oversee our clan members, so they sent me," Zephyr said with a smile and he gently pushed Maxine out of their embrace, "Now, young lady, if you check the attached photographs of her file, you will find pictures of my neice in her current form." Wait, is he the one that updated my file? It would make sense.


    "Uhh, sure," Darcie answered as she quickly performed a few commands on her computer, "It is indeed her. But can I ask why she has quills instead of normal hair?"


    "That''s a question regarding her special bloodline and if I''m not mistaken, you''re not allowed to ask about that sort of thing, miss Darcie," Zephyr warned her gently.


    "Oh, yes. You''re right. I''m terribly sorry," Darcie apologized.


    "It''s alright," Maxine said, "I can''t blame you for being curious. Do you need anything else from me?"


    "Yes, I do. Can you relay what kind of jobs that you can perform?" Darcie asked, "It''s for our files, but you don''t have to give any specifics."


    "Alchemist, blademaster and healer," Maxine replied and she saw Darcie''s jaw drop.


    "You''re an alchemist?!" Darcie asked incredulously, "As in you''re registered with the Alchemist Association? Can I see your badge to confirm this?"


    "Sadly, I no longer have it. I had a bit of a disagreement with the association and returned the badge," Maxine replied, "However I was rated as a gold-teir alchemist before we parted ways if that helps." As she finished speaking, she saw the people waiting turn to look at her in surprise.


    "I''m sorry, but I can''t list it as one of your occupations without proof," Darcie said apologetically, "But the other jobs you mentioned are already in your file. I was just confirming it. Give me a few moments and I will get your temporary registration card printed out. Do you have an address that we can send your permnament one to?"


    "Just send it to my place," Zephyr said, "I''m sure you''re aware of where that is."


    "Understood, sir," Darcie replied and after a few moments, she handed Maxine a sheet of paper, "Here''s your temporary card. The permnament one should arrive at Kavros compound within a week. Is there anything else I can help you with?"


    "No, you covered everything. Thanks," Maxine said as she left the desk and walked beside Zephyr, "So, how have you been?"


    "Busy," Zephyr replied, "This world''s governments are not easy to deal with. But right now, I''m more concerned about what happened to your hand. Hellen didn''t mention anything about you missing a finger when we talked last night."


    "I doubt she would have," Maxine commented, "She didn''t notice that my finger was missing until I was eating and it took both me and daddy nearly an hour to calm her down enough to explain that my finger would grow back."


    "What about that hydrakin child that you brought back with you? Why didn''t you bring him with you?" Zephyr asked, "I would''ve liked to meet him. He is the first of his kind afterall."


    "I doubt you would''ve enjoyed the encounter. He''s almost completely feral," Maxine replied, "I just couldn''t take the risk he would see the ordinary people as prey and attack them."


    "I can see how that could be a problem," Zephyr agreed, "Now, I suppose you want to see Emily and Silky, right?"


    "You guess it," Maxine said, "Do you know where they are?"


    "Silky is working at a guild as an outfiter, so she will most likely be busy until this evening. And Emily is most likely at the cultivator''s hospital. She''s quite the gifted healer," Zephyr answered, "But I recomend that you visit Claudia, your birth mother, first. I know you don''t want to meet Jonathan Levings, so now would be the best time to see her since that man is currently working."


    "Thanks for the tip," Maxine said gratefully, "But I don''t intend to visit that place at least for now. I don''t want to make things any harder for mother by showing up looking like this. She''s already suffered enough for simply being known for birthing and raising me." She gestured towards the quills on her head and her tail. I don''t want to give her a heart attack.


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    "I understand, but still she wants to see you," Zephyr said, "Just remember that she worries about you and at the very least, deserves to know that you are alright."


    "I''ll see her later," Maxine said and turned towards the cultivator''s hospital, "Now I best be off to see Emily."


    "Alright, take care," Zephyr said before Maxine took flight towards the cultivator''s hospital. She spread her spiritual sense ahead and all around her to avoid any collisions. She landed gently infront of the hospital.


    She walked inside of it and looked around. There were injured humans and beastkin waiting to be treated in the waiting area, but their injuries were no more severe than a broken bone or laceration. However she spotted a young boy standing beside his mother, whom was yelling at the receptionist.


    "We''ve been here for over half an hour. What''s taking so long?" the woman asked angrily.


    "I''m sorry, but a large hunting party arrived with their injured just before you did," the receptionist said apologetically, "We will see you when we can."


    "My family gave a large donation to this hospital just so we could come in and be treated by cultivators," the woman growled and eyed the beastkin in the waiting area with suspicion, "I demand to see one of them to look at my son this instant." God damn it. She''s one of those people, but that kid shouldn''t suffer for this. I might as well offer to take a look at him.


    Maxine approached them and said, "I can take a look at him." The woman looked at Maxine and recoiled before pushing her son behind her.


    "Stay back!" the woman yelled and Maxine stood in place.


    "Despite how I look, I''m an excellent healer," Maxine reassured the woman, "And if it will make you feel better, I will only touch the little guy with the tip of my tail."


    "I said stay back," the woman said firmly and Maxine finally saw raw hatred in the woman''s eyes, "And keep your ''tail'' to yourself." Oh, great. She''s also a xenophobe. I tried.


    "Whatever you say, lady. I only offered because I hate seeing children in pain," Maxine said as she turned to the receptionist, "Is Emily Herst busy at the moment?"


    "Yes, she is currently giving emergency treatment to four different hunters," the receptionist said, "If you''re willing to wait a little while, you can take a seat in the lobby. Can you give me your name so I can let her know you''re here?"


    "Sure, it''s Maxine Cinderson," Maxine said.


    "Alright, I''ll let her know as soon as she''s free," the receptionist said.


    "Thanks a bunch," Maxine said and turned around to face a catkin. He had black tail to match his equally black hair, but she knew he wasn''t a pantherkin. The shape of his ears and tail were wrong.


    "You''re a healer right?" he asked Maxine, "Can you look at my mate?"


    "Of course, I can," Maxine said with a smile, "But I can''t guarantee that I can heal her. I normally heal battle injuries."


    "That''s fine. She''s right over there," he pointed to a catkin woman with the ears and tail the exact same shape as his. However the young woman was in very clear pain as she held her stomach. Cultivators normally don''t get stomach aches and only a handful of illnesses that cultivators can get cause that. It most likely internal bleeding from an injury she suffered.


    Maxine walked over to her and carefully scanned the catkin woman''s belly. Maxine immediately noticed that the beastkin woman had severe bruising on her abdomen. When she scanned deeper, she found the beaskin woman''s internal organs had taken a massive hit and her liver had ruptured. The only reason she wasn''t dead was due to her immense vitality as an iron rank 5 cultivator. This catkin woman didn''t have the time to wait for a healer to get to her, so Maxine immediately moved the catkin woman''s hands out of the way before pressing her palm gently against her stomach.


    "Hold her hands. I don''t want her scratching my face off," Maxine told the catkin man and channeled her energies to close up the wound as she explained the catkin woman''s condition, "Your mate has a ruptured liver and has some internal bleeding. She should''ve been seen as soon as she walked in with this kind of wound. It may not have killed her before she was seen, but she would''ve suffered a lot in the meantime."


    "Thank you for treating her," the catkin man said, "Will we be able to go home today?"


    "She should be able to walk out of here after I''m done, but make sure she takes it easy for a few days," Maxine said, "What I''m doing isn''t much more than putting her flesh back where it belongs and healing it just enough that she can heal on her own. Any undue stress could cause her to end up having to come back here for further treatment."


    "I understand," the catkin man said, "Thank you, again."


    "Don''t mention it and don''t worry about paying me," Maxine said with a smile just as she finished.


    "But..," the catkin man said, but Maxine cut him off, "No buts. I''m doing this for free. Just think of it as my good deed for the day." Maxine pat him on the shoulder and found an empty chair to sit down in. Every waiting was looking at her with curious gazes, but she didn''t care. She was here to see Emily, and this was where Emily worked. So, Maxine wasn''t going to cause any trouble here. Not that I would anyways. This is a hospital. People don''t come here to pick fights.


    After nearly an hour of being stared at, Emily came to the front desk. She wasn''t wearing a doctors coat, but she still exuded the aura of a nuturing healer. Maxine immediately stood up and started walking towars her. However, Emily didn''t see her and turned to talk to the receptionist.


    "I got your message. Where is she?" Emily asked and the receptionist simply pointed at Maxine.


    "You''re looking good as always," Maxine said just as Emily turned around to face Maxine.


    "Maxine?!" Emily exclaimed before she moved in to hug Maxine, "What''s up with your hair? I''ve seen your transformation before, but you had hair, not quills. And why are you in that state? You''re not going to fight anyone are you?" Huh? I don''t remember her seeing me in my transformed state. Hmm, she must''ve seen a picture or holovideo of it.


    "My bloodline has been causing me to be more tempermental lately, even when I''m not transformed and by staying in this state, I''m learning to better master it so that it effects my emotions less," Maxine replied, "And as for my quills, they just sort of appeared after... an event I rather not talk about." Emily backed out of their hug and gave Maxine a wierd look.


    "That bad?" Emily asked with concern.


    "I have nightmares about it," Maxine answered sorrowfully while avoiding looking Emily in the eye, "If you really want to know about it, I''ll tell you, but not here. It''s not something that I want others to know about."


    "I understand," Emily said gently and Maxine felt as if there was some sort of misunderstanding going on.


    "Anyways, when do you get off work?" Maxine siad with a more cheerful tone.


    "At around five in the afternoon," Emily answered. That''s another six hours. I will just have to find something else to do until she''s done. She''s probably using part of her lunch break to talk to me.


    "And with this crowd, you are definitely going to have your hands full," Maxine remarked, "Do you need me to give a hand?"


    "No, the hospital doesn''t like it when outside healers help out," Emily explained, "It''s so the outside healers don''t get into trouble if they mess things up."


    "Alright, I guess I will let you get back to work and come by around five," Maxine said, "I''ll go check on Silky."


    "I''ll see you later," Emily said and gave Maxine a quick kiss on the cheek.


    "Later," Maxine said as she turned around to leave, but before Maxine walked more than a couple steps, she felt Emily grab her left hand before bringing it to her face.


    "What happened to your hand?!" Emily demanded.


    "One of my fingers was cut off two days ago," Maxine answered honestly, "Some wouldbe kidnappers thought to blackmail Guan into doing something by holding me and wanted to use my finger as proof that they had me." Emily looked at Maxine with disbelief for a few moments before becoming angry.


    "What did you do to them?" Emily asked with a bizarre calm which scared Maxine a little.


    "I didn''t kill them, if that''s what your asking, but considering the events that lead up to my escape, the main culprit''s chances of survival is pretty dismal," Maxine replied.


    "I see, but you''re going to tell me what''s happened these past six months in detail," Emily said forcefully. Maxine was surprised. She had never seen Emily behaving this forcefully.


    "I fully intend to," Maxine said and saw middle-aged woman staring at them, "Now, you better get back to work before your boss gets cranky. She''s been staring at us since you grabbed my hand."


    Emily glanced over her shoulder and visibly relaxed, "Oh, that''s Maggie. She isn''t my boss. She''s one of the senior nurses that works under me."


    "Oh, alright. That doesn''t explain why she''s watching us though," Maxine said.


    "She is very portective of everyone that works here," Emily said, "And she''s not very trusting of beastkin. I don''t think it''s easy for her to adapt to this whole situation." Oh, I can''t fault her for that. Things have changed a lot lately.


    "I see. Well, I best get going before I make her any more nervous than I already have," Maxine said and gave Emily a gentle kiss.


    "I''ll see you after work like we discussed," Emily said while smiling, "And don''t be late."


    "I wouldn''t dare be late," Maxine said before watching Emily walk back and through a door. She stared at the door for a few moments before she left the hospital. Now if I remember correctly, Mom told me that Silky has been hired as an outfitter for Amanda and Chris'' school. She should be there now. I hope I''m lucky and she''s not busy when I get there.


    She decided to walk and she felt various people staring at her. Most of them were looking at her with a combination of caution and curiosity, but there were a small number of people that looked at her with hatred and disgust. Yeah, there will always be racist pricks no matter where you go. At least, most people are not afraid of me and that''s a good thing.


    She eventually made it to Amanda and Chris'' school, but the name above the doors had changed from what she remembered. It was now called the ''Ice and Fire Guild Headquarters.'' Huh? I wonder what brought about that. Maybe it''s due to some beaucratic bullshit. I wouldn''t put it past those pencil pushing pricks.


    She walked in through a set of glass doors and walked towards a reception desk. "Hello, I''m looking for Silky. Is she in?" Maxine asked.


    "Do you have an appointment?" the female receptionist with the name tag Meagan Tresse said. I''m impressed. She didn''t even flinch when she noticed me.


    "No, do I need one?" Maxine asked.


    "It''s recommended, but if you''re very lucky, she might not be busy," Megan Tresse replied, "Silky''s workplace is just down the hall to your left on the right side of the hall way near the end."


    "Thanks for the help," Maxine said as she followed the directions and walked through a pair of glass double doors into a large room with all sorts of clothes on display. All of which were made of arachne silk. But the thing that caught Maxine''s eye the most was Silky in her full arachne form with her back to Maxine. No wonder the receptionist didn''t flinch. She gets to see Silky walk around like that every day.


    "I''ll be with you in a minute. I just have to put on the finishing touches to this thing," Silky said calmly, but in the next moment, she froze before turning around slowly, "Mom? MOM!" Silky charged at Maxine and Maxine instantly put an extra thick layer of her energies around her claws and quills to avoid accidentally poisoning Silky before she hug tackled Maxine. I know arachne are extremely affectionate to their kin, but was it really necessary for her to hug tackle me?


    "I missed you too," Maxine said happily as she hugged Silky back, "And I''m happy to see you''ve taken a safe job."


    "So was Lan," Silky said as she released Maxine, "I also instruct on the proper use of whips. It''s too bad that not many people like using them. I have only like two students."


    "That''s better than none," Maxine said, "Now, have you two obeyed my wishes since we saw each other last?"


    "Yes, we have," Silky responded grumpily, "Grandma Hellen made sure of it."


    "I bet she did," Maxine said with a knowing smirk before Silky took a look at what Maxine was wearing.


    "Mom, why are you wearing those clothes?" Silky asked with confusion, "They''re out of style and the craftmanship on those shorts is terrible. It looks like someone literately used the back pockets of those shorts to make a sleeve for your tail. At least they had the sense to include a zipper to make it easier to put on."


    "Actually, that''s my handy work," Maxine admitted in embarassment, "I didn''t have much else to work with."


    "I can tell," Silky said, "I''ll make something more comfortable for you right away. My other orders can wait."


    "Are you sure about that?" Maxine asked, "It won''t lower your reputation will it?"


    "I''m ahead of schedule on all of my orders, so I have plenty of time to make you something to wear," Silky said confidently, "Anyways, I''m the only local that makes arachne silk garments."


    "What about the other local arachne?" Maxine asked. I know a few spider-type beasts must''ve evolved into arachne by now. I just don''t know how many.


    "They sort of decided to work for me," Silky said with an complex expression, "They''re shy."


    "I can see why. Recent pop culture has turned them into dominatrixes," Maxine said jokingly. God damn anime.


    "You have no idea," Silky said while putting her hand on her forehead, "Anyways, can you hang out with me for awhile? I would really like to spend some time with you and I think Lan will be back in another half hour or so. It will be a big surprise for him."


    "I don''t see why not," Maxine replied, "And you can take my measurements while I''m here. Oh! And I''m going to meet Emily at around 5. So I have to leave a little before that."


    "That''s fine," Silky said with a smile as she walked around Maxine slowly, "And don''t forget to see grandma Claudia."


    "I don''t want to give her a heart attack when she sees me like this," Maxine replied.


    "She sort of already knows. I told her about your transformations," Silky said as she finished walking around Maxine and wrote a few things down on a sheet of paper.


    "Well, there is that," Maxine said, "Um, are you going to take my measurements?"


    "I already did," Silky said, "I''ve got a knack for finding out someone''s exact measurements just by looking them over."


    "That''s nifty," Maxine said, "So, any way I can help out while we wait for Lan?"


    "Yes, can you fold some of those outfits over there and put them in boxes?" Silky asked, "The names on the labels will let you know which box to put them in."


    "Of course, I can," Maxine said as she moved to the stack of finished arachne silk clothes and began packing them into small flat boxex. I do not look forward to seeing Jonathan Levings. He''s the father that raised me in this life, but I''m worried how I will react to seeing him again. I guess I will find out later. Hopefully I can control myself.

 Chapter 162

    It took a lot less than half an hour before Maxine heard Lanitherin approaching. However it was clear just from how the way he walked that his blade skills had improved yet again. But by how much, she had no idea.


    "Silky, I may enjoy the view, but most people find arachne a bit unnerving," Lanitherin said with a loving expression and he glanced at Maxine as he approached Silky, "Oh, who''s your friend? She''s kind of cute."


    "Friend?" Silky asked in confusion as she turned around, "That''s my mom."


    "That''s teacher?!" Lanitherin said in incredulity as he turned to face her and bowed, "I''m so sorry for not recognizing you!"


    "So, I''m kind of cute?" Maxine asked with a raised eyebrow and smiled when she saw him get nervous, "Relax. I''m just teasing you. But I am curious about how much you''ve improved since I last saw you. Would you like to spar later?"


    "I would love to. Do you mind if some members of the guild spectate?" Lanitherin asked as he straightened up, "Some of them need to see what it''s like for skilled combatants to face each other."


    "That''s fine with me," Maxine said with a smirk, "But be warned, my skill has improved vastly since we last sparred."


    "I''m confident that I can, not only, keep up with you, but also defeat you," Lanitherin said confidently.


    "We shall see," Maxine said, "Go set up this sparring session and make sure the place that we do it has a lot of space and outside. Even when sparring, the shockwaves of two cultivators at silver stage fighting can and will shake buildings apart."


    "I know," Lanitherin replied, "We managed to get an array master to create a training ground for us behind the guild."


    "I''m surprised you could get an arrray master to do that for you," Maxine commented, "And the resources required to operate them can drain your wealth rather quickly."


    "I believe they use beast cores to power it and it was a local that set it up," Lanitherin said and gave Silky a smile before he turned to leave, "I''m off to talk to Amanda about the sparring match. I''ll be back shortly."


    Once Lanitherin was well out of earshot range, Silky turned to Maxine and asked, "Please, take it easy on him, mom. If he looses too badly, it will lower how many students he can get and in turn, it will reduce how much he can make."


    "I''ll be fighting at the same level as him, so you don''t have to worry. I can tell how much he''s improved since we last had a match," Maxine said while feeling some pride in Lanitherin, "I have no doubt he will give me some difficulty in our spar." Even after training under Horatio Quay, my blade energy has only matched Lanitherin''s blade energy in quality from six months ago and that kid improves at a scary rate. I have no doubt he will be able to cut through my blade energy. The real factor will be how much he''s improved his skill. In any case, if I think too much about it, I won''t have as much fun sparring with him.


    "You really think so?" Silky asked.


    "Yes, I do," Maxine said before she turned back to folding and packing the arachne silk equipment.


    After a few minutes, Lanitherin returned and gestured for Maxine to follow. She followed him around the building and left it out of the rear entrance. She saw a rather large grassy field, but she could sense the formation array. It absorbed shockwaves from impacts, and hardened the soil. However, she didn''t detect any formation arrays responsible for preventing injuries or short range teleportation to save anyone that got injured. What''s more is that neither of them could withstand the forces generated by a gold stage cultivator. Bare minimum training grounds. That explains how they could afford to have it set up. Those two arrays could be set up by a student rather than a real master.


    "You''re lucky that I was already intending on restricting my cultivation," Maxine said calmly, "Because those two arrays won''t be able to withstand it if I were to use my full strength."


    "Yeah, I know," Lanitherin said as he scratched the back of his head, "It''s all we could afford at the time."


    "I know. The better formation arrays are quite expensive," Maxine commented, "Now, let''s get in position. I hope you have a training blade handy."


    Instead of answering, Lanitherin simply grabbed a wooden training blade and walked to the center of the formation array. Maxine shrugged as she formed two blades with blunted edges out of her essence before joining him.


    They stood twenty feet from each other before taking a stance. Maxine carefully studied Lanitherin''s stance. He''s using a two-handed grip like he did in the past, but his stance is slightly wider than before. I don''t see any obvious openings, and I don''t see any tension in his muscles. Good, that means he will be able to perform at his best. Now, I wonder if his patience has improved.


    Maxine continued to observe Lanitherin for a few minutes before she saw a glimmer of impatience in his eyes. However, he didn''t attack first. She understood that he was waiting for her to strike first. Well, if you insist, I might as well accept. She rushed forward and slashed horizontally at Lanitherin with her left blade. Instead of parrying, he lowered his blade and leaned backwards, so her blade narrowly missed him. Next he twisted his grip and rapidly brought his blade up.


    Maxine stomped on the ground to throw herself backwards and watched as the wooden blade passed a scant milimeter infront of her nose. "Nice counter!" Maxine praised Lanitherin and before he could perform his follow up attack, she used her tail to bash him into his unguarded ribs, "But there was too much delay on your follow up. It leaves you wide open." He retreated seveal steps while holding his blade between himself and Maxine.


    "Thank you for the instruction," Lanitherin said through grit teeth and she saw how he was favoring that side. I didn''t feel any of his ribs break. Oh! That''s right. His liver is on that side. No wonder he looks a little sick.


    "Remember your movements must flow smoothly like water," Maxine reminded Lanitherin before she rushed at him again, but this time she attacked from two different angles with her blades. Lanitherin parried her left blade as he stepped to her left to avoid her second strick, and when she lashed out with her tail, he swat her tail away with his wooden blade. He even followed it up by diagnally slashing down from left to right.


    Maxine kicked the ground and dodged again. However she was half a step too slow and felt the blade brush against her shoulder. "Very good," Maxine complimented him, "You managed to defend against my tail and counter attack in the same movement."


    "Thank you," Lanitherin said with a proud smile. Don''t get overconfident. I noticed you havn''t been using your spiritual sense.


    "But~," Maxine said just as she used her tail to throw dirt in his eyes and rushed forward to slam the pommel of her left blade in his gut before placing her right blade against his throat, "You rely too much on your eyes. I''ve told you dozens of times to expand your spiritual sense around yourself when you fight." I might as well go into full teaching mode. It will lessen the hit to his reputation if they believe that I''m his teacher. Afterall, I''m supposed to be better than him if that''s the case.


    Lanitherin coughed a few times as he blinked the dirt out of his eyes before he said, "But you rely on your eyes as well."


    "Of course, I do. Humaniods have excellent eyesight. It''s only natural that we take advantage of it, but if I were to suddenly loose my eyesight with my spiritua sense active, I could still fight without any delay," Maxine responded, "Being blinded for even a fraction of a second will get you killed in a fight."


    "I know, but it''s hard to concentrate on two things at once," Lanitherin complained.


    Maxine swiftly slapped him upside the head with her palm. "Use your spiritual sense all the fucking time then," Maxine yelled at him, "When it become second nature to you, it won''t be a burden to use it during a fight. You should already know this. Don''t tell me you''ve gotten lazy in training it since you''ve come to Earth? Or is it that you''ve spent most of your time flirting with Silky?"


    "Well, I... Uh..," Lanitherin sputtered guiltily.


    "Just shut your trap and get into position," Maxine growled, "It looks like I will have to teach you to use your spiritual sense the hard way. Now we spar with our eyes closed. You better learn fast if you don''t want to get a beating." She, immediately closed her eyes while staring right at him.


    Lanitherin took a combat stance and proceeded to close his eyes. Moments later she felt his spiritual sense expand out. She waited a moment for him to get used to using only his spiritual sense to see before she charged at him again. This time she did hacked down at his head. Unfortunately, it was clear he hadn''t practiced fighting like this at all since she last saw him and his reaction speed was significantly slower as he deflected the blow. It delayed him enough that she shoved her other blade roughly into his gut before he could counter attack.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    The next twenty minutes of their sparring session revovled around Maxine beating Lanitherin until he learned to clash with her at least five times before loosing. It was a massive improvement, but she was still angry with him for slacking off so much. Hence why she gave him multiple bruises to remind him that training is an ever present necessity.


    "I think that''s enough for now," Maxine stated as she walked away from a barely standing Lanitherin, "I expect you to keep up with your training at all times." By this time, she knew every member of his guild present was glaring at her hatefully. Silky in particular was giving Maxine a very angry look.


    "Mom, how could you?!" Silky yelled at Maxine, "I thought you were going to take it easy on him!" Maxine glanced to the side and saw several of the guild members mouth the word ''mom'' while looking confused. They are just now figuring that out?


    "I was taking it easy on him," Maxine replied, "To be honest, his skill level is almost on the same level as mine, but he lacks the experience to properly use it. And if we were using blade energy, I would probably be on the loosing side of every clash. His only real flaw is that he refuses to use his spiritual sense." She saw all of the observers look at her in disbelief.


    "If that was taking it easy, I''d hate to see you fighting seriously," one of the members of the Ice and Fire Guild said offhandedly.


    "I''ve fought my way out of an encirclement of hundreds," Maxine replied honestly.


    "Bullshit," the same person said.


    "I don''t care if you believe me or not," Maxine replied calmly, "Because quite frankly, your belief won''t change the fact that I''m far more powerful and skillful than anyone here."


    "Does that mean you''re a gold stage cultivator?" Silky asked hopefully.


    "Peak silver for now," Maxine replied, "Give me another month and I should be ready to breakthrough to gold. Unfortunately, I can''t let many people watch. I''ve heard the weather will go nuts when ordinary cultivators breakthrough to gold. I can''t imagine the havok I will cause when all three of my cores breakthrough at once."


    "That sounds like it will be cataclysmic," Silky remarked.


    "That''s why I intend to breakthrough in the middle of a large desert or over the ocean. There isn''t much in those places to get torn up," Maxine said.


    "Thank you for that consideration," Amanda Maze said as she walked towards them, "Although, I wish you hadn''t beaten our blade instructor so badly infront of his students."


    "It''s his own fault for slacking off," Maxine said calmly, "I didn''t put the effort into teaching him just so he could get lazy. He needs to be the best to protect my daughter. I will not tolerate anything less."


    "I can understand that," Amanda Maze said with a smile, "But you could''ve sparred with him privately."


    "I wasn''t the one that wanted to make this sparring match public," Maxine said with a smile and gestured to Lanitherin, whom was still recovering, "He did. I think he''s regretting that decision now."


    "I bet," Amanda said while shaking her head and suddenly had a thoughtful look on her face, "Do you have any plans on teaching here?"


    "No, I''m better at one on one instruction," Maxine said, "I won''t baby someone that can''t keep up with everyone else."


    "That''s harsh," Amanda remarked.


    "Well this universe that we live in is harsh," Maxine said, "And if treating my students harshly ensures that they survive, I will do it without a single sliver of remorse."


    "What happened to you?" Amanda asked with concern, "You used to be much more forgiving and kind."


    "Too much," Maxine replied honestly, "Far too much." Amanda seemed to hesitate for a moment before moving to give her a hug. With a thought, Maxine thickened the layer of energies over her quills to prevent Amanda from getting poisoned as she hugged her back.


    "You don''t have to worry about anyone trying to make a move on you here," Amanda said comfortingly and withdrew from the hug, "Your ''daddy'' would wipe them out from existence if they tried."


    "Yeah, he does have a reputation for doing just that," Maxine said with a knowing smile.


    "Don''t remind me," Amanda said with a hint of fear, "I keep hearing horror stories about him from our otherworldly visitors."


    "I''m not even going to ask which stories you heard," Maxine said, "Anyways, let''s talk about something other than that depressing topic. How''s little Sarah doing?"


    "She''s happy and full of energy," Amanda said happily.


    "That''s awesome," Maxine said, "I can only imagine how much Chris has been spoiling her."


    "Not as much as you would think, but I will admit he''s a bit over-protective of her," Amanda said, "At least, we both agreed that we should give her a few chores to do around the house." I can definitely see him being an over protective dad. I can''t wait to see how he reacts to her having her first boyfriend.


    "I can''t imagine that went over too well," Maxine commented as she remembered how she reacted in both her lives to being assigned chores.


    "Believe it or not, she actually enjoys doing them," Amanda said in amusement.


    "There has to be something wrong with that child," Maxine said more to herself than anything else.


    "That''s exactly what Howard said," Amanda said while smiling.


    "I bet he did," Maxine said while nodding her head, "So, do you have any plans for the next few days?"


    "Sadly, I do," Amanda said apologetically, "I''m supposed to greet a russian ambassador tomorrow. I believe his name is Andrevich." Maxine felt rage bubbling up inside of her at the mention of that name. However she kept that emotion off of her face.


    "Oh? What was his background before he became an ambassador?" Maxine asked.


    "I''m not sure, but I think he was part of a special branch of their military," Amanda answered. Is it really him? It''s possible that it''s him, or it could be someone else. The only way to be sure is to see him for myself. Thankfully, I still have that man''s face etched into my mind. I didn''t use that soul searching technique on that russian kidnapper for no reason. But even if it is him, I can''t make a move on him right away. It will effect Amanda if her ''old friend'' were to suddenly and inexplicably murder a foreign ambassador out of nowhere.


    "I see," Maxine said and quickly changed the subject, "Well, I have a bunch of time on my hands before I meet up with Emily. Do you guys need to be restocked on potions?"


    "Yes, we desperately need them." Amanda said, "How much do you charge for bronze and iron tier potions? And don''t tell me you won''t charge us for it. I don''t want to owe you a favor."


    "Alright, alright. We can talk about my fee inside. We''ve drawn quite a crowd," Maxine said as she gestured to the members of Amanda''s guild that were watching them.


    "I understand. Men still make you uncomfortable, don''t they?" Amanda asked as they walked inside the building.


    "Yes, but it''s not nearly as bad as it was before," Maxine admitted, "It only becomes a problem if they get too close."


    "Good," Amanda said and a few moments later, they entered a small office, "Now, how much do you charge?"


    "Well, it depends," Maxine answered and instantly decided to give Amanda a huge discount due to their friendship, "If you can provide me the materials, I''ll only charge you $150 or a bronze per potion below silver-tier. A silver-teir potion will cost you ten times as much." I doubt she realizes just how much I''m severely undercharging her. I should be asking for at least five times as much considering how much potions cost off of Earth and that''s not considering how much more mine sell for.


    "We have a lot of medicinal ingredients on hand," Amanda said, "I saw the need to make preparations in advance in the event that an alchemist came to town."


    "Great, just take me to them and tell me how many you need," Maxine said cheerfully.


    "We need as many as you can make," Amanda said.


    "Understood. Where do you have those medicinal ingredients?" Maxine asked.


    "It''s in the basement. I''ll have my secretary take you there," Amanda said, "I would take you myself, but I have a lot of paperwork that needs to be done before I see the ambassador tomorrow."


    "Not a problem," Maxine said.


    Amanda quickly made a phone call and a young woman arrived to show Maxine to the basement. It took only a few minutes to arrive and Maxine whistled at the large array of medicinal ingredients. Wow, I can make at least 500 bronze-tier, 200 iron-tier and maybe 50 silver-tier potions with what''s here. And that''s just healing potions. I''ll be very busy. Well, I best get to it.


    Maxine created elven shadow clones and began gathering the medicinal ingredients before she and her shadow clones began concocting bronze-tier potions. She could make these potions like this only because of how low tiered they were. She wouldn''t be able to do the same thing with the iron and silver-tiered potions.


    She kept making potions like this for three hours and contacted Amanda via spiritual sense to gave her an update on her progress, [I''ve managed to make 512 bronze and 12 iron tier potions. I''ve color coded them to make it easier for you guys.]


    [Thanks again for doing this,] Amanda said, [But I''m surprised you could make so many that fast.]


    [I just made a bunch of shadow clones to speed up the process, but don''t expect this kind of speed for the iron and silver-tiered potions,] Maxine replied, [Anyways, I should start to head out. I''ll be back tomorrow to finish the rest.]


    [We should have your payment by tomorrow anyways. See you then,] Amanda answered calmly, [And if you can, stay for dinner. Sarah has always wanted to meet you ever since Chris told her about you.]


    [I''ll see what I can do,] Maxine answered before she made her way out of the building and glanced at the wall mounted clock before she left the building. Good, I have half an hour to reach the hospital. Even if I fly slowly, I should get there with plenty of time to spare.


    She took her time flying to the hospital and arrived just in time to see Emily walking out of the front doors. She wanted to hug tackle Emily, but resisted the urge as she landed beside her instead. "I hope I didn''t make you wait," Maxine said honestly.


    "Not at all. You arrived right on time," Emily said as she walked towards the parking lot and Maxine followed behind her, "Follow me to my car and we can go get something to eat."


    "You''re driving a car?" Maxine asked incredulously, "We can literately fly faster than the speed of sound. Why bother?"


    "It''s to avoid terrifying ordinary people," Emily replied, "They''re still getting used to the idea of cultivators running around. Rubbing it in their faces will only cause more problems."


    "Huh, I never thought about it that way," Maxine said.


    "I know. I didn''t think about it either until one of my coworkers pointed it out," Emily admitted and finally stopped next simple grey car. It isn''t even one of the newer models, but I wonder how the hell I will be able to get into it. I can move my tail around, but what the hell am I supposed to do about these quills on my head? They will shred the head rest. It looks like I will have to make myself uncomfortable to fit in that car.


    Emily had already unlocked the car and was getting in by the time Maxine moved to the passenger seat. She rapidly used her energies to push her quills down against her head and neck. It put a lot of stress on her scalp and it made her feel like someone was trying to pull her hair out, but she managed to smooth them out enough that she wouldn''t damage Emily''s car with them.


    "This is really uncomfortable," Maxine complained as she sat down in the car and put on her seat belt, "I hope the restraunt isn''t far."


    "It isn''t," Emily said and Maxine caught a faint glimmer of guilt in Emily''s eyes. What does she need to feel guilty about?


    Like Emily said, the drive to the restraunt was short and to Maxine''s delight, she found out it was a buffet. I still need to restrain myself otherwise we will get kicked out.


    They both got out of the car and went inside. However, when Maxine looked towards the reception desk, she understood why Emily felt guilty. She saw Jonathan and Claudia Levings with their five year old son waiting off to the side. I hope Emily has a real good reason for pulling this shit. She knows full well why I never wanted to see Jonathan Levings again.

 Chapter 163

    Maxine was about to ask Emily what she was thinking when Jonathan Levings turns around and looked straight at her. In that moment, Maxine was afraid of him, but she quickly managed to surppess that fear since she knew that he couldn''t actually hurt her. However, her efforts didn''t banish her fear entirely. I was worried this might happen. He''s the source of my androphobia afterall. It only makes sense that I would still be afraid of him.


    "Maxine, before you get mad, please hear me out," Emily said gently, "He''s changed. He''s no longer the same man that hurt you. I''m not asking you to forgive him. All I''m asking is that you give him a chance." He doesn''t deserve a change and he didn''t change on his own. He was FORCED to by daddy.


    "Fine," Maxine said through grit teeth, "I''ll try to be civil, but you have some explaining to do later."


    "But don''t forget that you do as well," Emily said while gesturing towards Maxine''s hand.


    "Yeah, I know," Maxine replied, "Can we get seated? I''m very hungry."


    Suddenly, a small voice asked, "Mom, who is that lizard lady with spiky hair?" Maxine turned her head and looked at her little brother. He had brown hair and eyes. This is the first time I''ve actually gotten to see my little brother with my eyes. He''s such a little cutie.


    "Nathan, that''s your big sis," Claudia answered him, "And she doesn''t always look like that. But I''m as curious as you as to why she chose to appear like that."


    "It will take more than a few minutes to explain, so I would prefer that we get seated first," Maxine answered and she saw Claudia''s gaze land on her hand with surprise and horror, "Don''t worry about my finger. It will grow back and yes, I know for a fact that it will grow back. It just needs time and I need a lot of calories and nutrients to speed up the process. Hence, why I''m so impatient to get something to eat."


    "That explains one of my questions," Emily said, "Let''s get something to eat."


    A few minutes later, they were seated in a secluded spot of the restraunt and had returned from the buffet with full plates. However, Maxine was uncomfortable as she ate. Jonathan Levings was staring at her with a gaze full of regret. She felt her anger trying to boil up, but she forced it down. She didn''t want to upset Emily by breaking her word.


    "So, how did you loose your finger?" Emily asked.


    "I was kidnapped and they wanted to present Guan with proof of that they actually had me. My finger was cut off for that purpose," Maxine answered, "Too bad for them that they were forced to release me as bait so they could escape. I managed to escape from that bad situation and believe me when I say that I cut it really close."


    "They didn''t do anything to you did they?" Claudia asked with concern.


    "Aside from cutting off my finger? No," Maxine replied.


    "What about the rest of the time that you were missing?" Emily asked, "I''ve already told Claudia about our time on that hero world."


    "Well, I travelled to a planet that was being attacked by these really nasty aliens called Four-Horned Kanzils," Maxine answered and glanced at her little brother before she continued while keeping in mind to leave out the worst parts, "They are an extremely aggressive race and were using the inhabitants of that planet as training material. I helped as both a healer and a warrior in the defense of their world. I stayed there for a few months. After that, Guan enrolled me in an academy to learn how to use my blades better. I''m almost positive my teacher was a sadist. The jerk kept throwing me into illusion arrays that forced me to fight endless hordes of enemies that kept getting stronger and stronger. And bullying is rampant in that academy and Emily, at least, knows how I feel about bullies. I beat them up and in the course of events, I managed to stand up for a pair of gorgon sisters. They wanted to repay me for my kindness, so I had them help me out with a few errands. As a bonus, the bullies tended to avoid them. Unfortunately, someone got wind of my distaste for bullies and set me up to be sent on a mission. It was on that mission that I was kidnapped by the people that cut off my damn finger and once I freed myself, I went back to the academy. I let everyone invovled with that whole mess feel my displeasure for setting me up like that without killing any of them. Although, I think most of them would''ve prefered it if I had killed them." Claudia, Emily and Jonathan looked at Maxine with concern while her little brother Nathan just gave her a confused look.


    "At least, you are okay now," Jonathan Levings said encouragingly.


    "Yeah, that''s true," Maxine agreed, "Any other questions?"


    "Did you meet any nice young men while you were travelling?" Claudia asked hopefully.


    "Yes, but only one of them was interested in me," Maxine replied, "Jason tried to come to my rescue when a bunch of peak gold cultivators tried to kidnap me. I can still hear him roaring ''Get away from her'' at the top of his lungs while shooting arrows at them. It''s too bad that I can''t reciprocate his feelings. A certain someone made it nearly impossible for that to happen with how they treated me when I was a child." She glared at Jonathan Levings and began to rapidly shove various meats down her throat to avoid saying anything more. However, she still saw him lower his head in shame.


    Nathan, however, had a confused look on his face as he looked between Maxine and Jonathan Levings. "Mama, who bullied big sis?" Nathan asked innocently.


    To Maxine''s surprise, Jonathan Levings answered before Claudia could, "I did."


    "But you said I''m not supposed to bully girls," Nathan said innocently.


    "I know I did," Jonathan Levings said, "And I wish every day that I hadn''t."


    "So why did you bully big Maxine then?" Nathan asked. However Jonathan Levings didn''t answer. She could see him tormenting himself from the small changes in his expression. Has he been like this since daddy poisoned him? I''ve hated him this whole time while he''s been punishing himself. Fine, I will rescue you just this once.


    "He believed the lies someone else told him about me," Maxine said, "The lies were not entirely wrong either, but a certain someone should''ve told him the truth." I know he thought Claudia cheated on him when he found out that I wasn''t his, but daddy should''ve revealed everything to both of them to clear up this whole mess. If he had, I probably wouldn''t have been abused for five years of my fucking life.


    Claudia gave Maxine a grateful look before she said, "I just wish he realized the full truth sooner."


    "So, do I," Jonathan Levings said and no one else seemed up to commenting further. The mood around their table had gone from uneasy to sour. The only one uneffected by the mood was Nathan, whom was too young to understand what was going on, as he ate happily.


    Maxine got up after finishing her plate and went to get some more food. She filled two more plates with different kinds of meats and used her tail to hold one of the plates. However as she was returning to her seat, she heard a commotion coming from the front of the restraunt.


    "What the hell is that thing?" an angry man said. Maxine glanced over at him and saw an ugly man pointing at her as his friends looked at her as well. Oh, great. I knew there would be more intolerant assholes running around. I just didn''t expect to encounter them twice in one day. Oh well, I will just have to put up with his bullshit. Hell, even if the prick attacks me, I can''t fight back. If I do, they will just scream and holler that I''m abusing my power. Don''t those pricks know how fucking hard it is to control my strength? If I just use a tiny bit too much of my strength, I could end up ripping one of their arms off instead of simply throwing them.


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    "Sir, she is a paying customer and if you continue to act like this I will have to ask you to leave," the receptionist said loudly enough for Maxine to hear.


    "Fine, but seat me as far away from that thing as possible," the man snapped.


    "Not a problem, sir," the receptionist replied calmly. Thank you, miss receptionist! Now both of us can eat our meals in peace.


    Maxine got back to her seat and set both of her plates infront of her. Nathan watched her the whole time with wide eyes. "I didn''t know you could use your tail like that," Emily commented, "I wonder how dexterous your tail actually is."


    "I havn''t really tested the dexterity of my tail," Maxine replied, "But as far as I can tell it''s like having another hand." To prove this fact, she used her tail to pick up a fork and feed herself with it.


    "That seems like it could be useful," Emily remarked.


    "It is useful when I''m making my potions," Maxine agreed, "But aside from that, I mainly use my tail to strike my opponents from tricky angles. The pain and surprise of being hit like that often gives me another moment to either attack once more or escape. It all depends on the situation. The biggest drawback is that a quick fighter might reflexively strike at my tail and trust me that hurts like you wouldn''t believe."


    "You''ve lost part of your tail before?!" Emily asked in surprise and concern.


    "Yeah, nearly two foot section at the end of it," Maxine said calmly, "It grew back though. It''s also how I know that I can regrow my finger."


    "How long did it take?" Emily asked.


    "Hmm, a few days I think, but I had access to a special fruit that enhanced my regeneration," Maxine replied, "But that rapid regeneration uses up my internal reserves and puts a lot of stress on my body. It''s better to just let allow my body to regenerate naturally."


    "That sounds a lot like what happens to people that drink too many healing potions consecutively," Emily complained, "They end up half killing themselves from the intense stress cause by the potions."


    "Only half?" Maxine asked in surprise, "They''re lucky. Normally it''s a death sentence to drink even one too many healing potions. They must be using healing potions for people a full tier below their own."


    "How the hell would you know that?" Emily asked.


    "I''m an alchemist, remember?" Maxine asked in return, "Anyways, those potions would put less stress on your body, but are no where near effective enough to keep you from dying. Those would at most buy you an hour or two to get to a proper healer. For earthlings, that isn''t a bad idea, but I wouldn''t recommend it for anyone planning on going off world. The chances that you get a healer that is willing to risk their neck on a mercenary contract is terribly low. Hell, I was one of thirteen healers out of thousands of mercenaries that went to help that planet being attacked by goblins."


    "Wouldn''t that make you severely understaffed?" Claudia asked out of concern.


    "You have no idea," Maxine said as she ate the last of the food on her plates, "Anyways, I need to get myself a couple more plates."


    "You eat like your pregnant," Claudia said jokingly before her expression turned thoughtful, "Are you pregnant?"


    "Sorry to disappoint you, but no, I''m not pregnant," Maxine said with a shrug as she stood up, "I need to eat that much to maintain my strength while in this form. It uses up a lot of calories, but my dietary needs are much higher when I''m more active."


    After Maxine returned with another two heaping plates of meat, Claudia commented, "If you keep this up, you''ll end up eating more than Silky ever has. I can''t imagine how much your grocery bill is."


    "It''s not as much as you would think and as you said before, my current state isn''t a permnament one," Maxine said, "It''s part of my training. If I don''t master this form and I use it for any reason, I get prone to violent outbursts and there is a small chance I will go into an uncontrollable feeding frenzy in the middle of a fight."


    "Feeding frenzy?" Emily asked in confusion before her expression turned to one of horror.


    "From your expression, you''ve probably guessed what happened," Maxine replied with a depressed look on her face that mirrored her mental state, "It''s not something I''m proud of. Anyways, the chance of it happening again are very low. It''s unlikely for me to be put under the same kind of stress that triggered that state again and I''m not going to tell you how it was triggered. I get nightmares about it." Emily put her hand over Maxine''s comfortingly and Maxine looked into Emily''s eyes as she smiled to show her gratitude.


    "Was there anything positive that you can talk about?" Emily asked.


    "Yes, there is. I learned that I have a gift for singing," Maxine said, "You would be surprised how often the elves asked for me to sing when I visited their living area at the academy. Even the lamia, gorgons and marilith children enjoyed it when I sang for them."


    "Elves?" Claudia asked, "You''ve actually seen elves?"


    "Yes, and several different varieties at that," Maxine said, "They were very welcoming even to someone with just a elven bloodline like me. Only a few of them were distrustful of me."


    "I always thought they behaved as if they were superior to everyone else," Claudia remarked.


    "Don''t believe cultural media," Maxine retorted, "Most elves are friendly until you give them a reason not to be. There are a few exceptions though."


    "That''s interesting," Claudia said, "But why havn''t elves come to Earth yet?"


    "It''s probably because of how much pollution there is here," Maxine replied.


    "Oh, that''s too bad. I was looking forward to seeing some elves," Claudia said in disappointment.


    "Technically, there is a large group of people with an elven bloodline already on Earth," Maxine said.


    "Oh?" Claudia asked hopefully, "Which group is that?"


    "The Kavros Clan," Maxine answered, "One of their ancestors was a shadow elf with two cores and due to their arrogance, those shadow elves with two cores named themselves Shadow Lords."


    "So that''s where you got your elven blood," Claudia said in realization, "I was wondering why you said you had some elven blood in you."


    "Yeah, but there are downsides to having elven ancestry," Maxine said casually, "It''s harder for me to have children due to my longer lifespan. There are ways around it, but those methods are expensive. Thankfully as an alchemist, it''s rather easy to accumulate wealth."


    "I imagine so," Claudia said, "Emily earns quite a bit of money at the hospital."


    "She should," Maxine said, "She can heal virtually any wound. She''s like an ER trauma surgeon."


    "Yeah, that more or less sums up what I can do," Emily agreed, "My attribute isn''t suited for anything else."


    "You forgot it''s top notch defensive," Maxine reminded Emily, "If you focused completely on defense, there are only a handful of people in the same stage that could breach your defenses. Myself included."


    "That''s true," Emily said with a smile and she frowned as her phone rang, "One second." Emily pulled out her phone and got up before walking a short distance. Maxine could tell something was up, but trusted Emily enough to not listen in. If it''s important, she would talk to me about it.


    A few minutes later, Emily came back and sighed before she spoke, "Amanda just called. The russian embassador wants to meet up with you for some reason. I told her you wouldn''t be interested, but she wanted me to ask you anyways."


    "I''ll think about it, but I probably won''t see him," Maxine answered truthfully, "I may loose my temper with him due to the actions of a certain group of russians."


    "Yeah, I know and they even share the same family name as the one that ordered it," Emily remarked, "I can''t imagine what you would do if it was actually him."


    "I rather not talk or think about that kind of what if scenario," Maxine answered.


    "I don''t blame you," Emily said.


    "Yeah," Maxine said in a downcast tone before she forced herself to cheer up, "Now, let''s finish up this dinner. I made a promise to spend the night at my other parents'' place and they might be getting a little impatient for me to show up at this point."


    "Sounds good to me," Emily said, "Although I''m a little disappointed that you won''t be spending the night with me."


    "I''m sorry. I can''t risk accidentally scratching you with my claws in my sleep," Maxine apologized.


    "It''s alright," Emily said understandingly, "Just so long as I get to meet Lucas later. I still can''t believe you found him."


    "Alright, who told you about him?" Maxine asked.


    "Hellen did. We talk from time to time," Emily answered defensively.


    "Figures," Maxine said and finished cleaning off her plates. By this time, everyone else had already eaten more than enough. They were simply waiting on Maxine to finish. I havn''t eaten quite as much as I want, but this place''s manager keeps glancing at me. If I keep this up, I may get blacklisted. So, it''s best if I stop here.


    "I''ll go pay for dinner and meet you outside," Emily said.


    "Alright," Maxine said and as they left the restraunt, she grabbed Jonathan Levings before whispering into his ear, "I don''t want to ever hear about you hurting Nathan. Otherwise, I can''t be responsible for what will happen to you. Understand?" Jonathan Levings nodded his head nervously. "Good," Maxine said before she walked off towards Emily.


    "You''re not serioulsy going to kill your dad, right?" Emily asked with concern.


    "No, but I can make his life a living hell," Maxine replied, "But that''s only if he hurts Nathan. Otherwise, I don''t care what he does."


    "Fair enough," Emily said, "So when are you leaving for the night?"


    "In a few minutes," Maxine answered honestly, "I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed dinner with you tonight."


    "Charmer," Emily said with a smirk.


    "You know it. Oh and before I forget~," Maxine said before she leaned in to kiss Emily, "Good night. I''ll see you tomorrow."


    "I''ll see you then," Emily said happily.


    Maxine smiled as she created a portal to Guan and Hellen''s home and waved one last time to Emily before jumping into it. Once through the portal, she saw Lucas running towards her at top speed and swiftly hide behind her. Seems like mom has been disciplining this little guy a lot today. She glanced around and saw strips of cloth and scratched up furniture. Yep, she definitely punished him for messing up her home. Now, I bet this little guy will insist on sleeping next to me tonight. I just hope he doesn''t have the same habit of laying on top of me like Silky did.

 Chapter 164

    As soon as Maxine woke up, she felt a weight laying down on top of her and unconsciously signed in irratation. She didn''t even need to open her eyes to know that Lucas was laying on top of her. This was mostly because she felt his tail wrapping around her left leg and he was the only one small enough to use her right breast as an effective pillow.


    She had put him in a bed in the same room as hers and had hoped that he would sleep in it throughout the night. Unfortunately, that clearly didn''t work out. She guess it was due to his fear of Hellen that he crawled into her bed. Afterall, he had torn apart three different sets of clothes that Hellen had put on him, shredded most of the furniture and took a shit on the bathroom floor, twice. The only positive about the whole mess yesterday was that at least he knew that he needed to relieve himself in the bathroom, but he still hadn''t figured out he was supposed to do that while sitting on the toilet. All of that caused Hellen to spank Lucas multiple times and was probably the reason why he was afraid of her. That and no matter how much he tried, his claws couldn''t so much as leave a mark on her skin.


    Maxine felt like she hadn''t got enough sleep, but she knew that she couldn''t lay in bed all day. She needed to finish up the job that Amanda asked her to and meet up with Emily after she finished work. I still can''t figure out how I ended up with two kids that like to use me as their personal bedding. Or is it perhaps that Lucas is afraid of Hellen sneaking into this room to spank him some more and wants me to protect him? Yeah, I''ll go with that. Now to get this little shit off of me so I can get to work.


    Maxine gently nudged Lucas'' face with her tail as she gently said, "Time to wake up, sleepy head. I can''t make your breakfast if you don''t get up." Lucas unconsciously swat at her tail viciously with his claws. Unfortunately for him, his action angered Maxine quite a bit and she warned him, "Get up or I will give you to grandma for some more spankings." Lucas jumped out of the bed and landed on his feet as he looked around widly. He almost dragged her with him in the process since his tail was wrapped around her leg. Damn, I didn''t expect that reaction. It seems Hellen taught him alliance common yesterday. I hope she didn''t force the knowledge into his head.


    "I''m sorry, Lucas. I didn''t mean to scare you like that, but I needed to get out of bed," Maxine apologized to him, "I''ve got a lot of things I need to do today, and I need to leave you here again. But I will bring back some really tasty food for lunch, but if you misbehave, I will eat it all myself. Is that understood?" Lucas nodded his head swiftly.


    "Good. Now give me some privacy so that I can get dressed and get dressed yourself. Don''t destroy your clothes this time. Your grandma took the time to pick them out just for you, so you could at least wear them without damaging them for her," Maxine told him, "She just wants you to look your best."


    "Okay," Lucas struggled to say while looking down before leaving the room. Maxine was stunned that Lucas was able to talk, but that feeling faded as a sense of pride took it''s place. My god, he learns fast. Now that I think about it Silky learned insanely fast too. Maybe it''s a common trait with beastkin that have recently evolved into a humaniod form. It would certainly make sense. They would need to figure out very quickly how to use their new bodies.


    Maxine quickly got dressed and went towards the kitchen. But before she got there, she caught the distinct scent of cooking bacon and saw Hellen infront of the stove. Maxine saw Lucas wearing a pair of pants and a loose t-shirt while he sat at the dinning room table.


    "I don''t know how you did it, but I''m glad to see that little rascal wearing clothes for once," Hellen said without turning her head, "Now we just have to make sure he gets properly ''potty trained'' as the earthlings call it."


    "I think he ''missed'' because he was mad at you," Maxine replied, "How else is he supposed to get back at you when he can''t hurt you?"


    "Oh?" Hellen said in surprise, "I never thought of it that way. I should''ve made him clean it up then." Maxine sense Lucas glaring at her angrily.


    "Don''t think for a second that your grandma can''t see that glare of yours and you better not direct it at her," Maxine warned Lucas, "She might deprive you of your breakfast if you do that." Lucas responded promptly by sitting up straight and removing his angry expression. I thought that might be an effective way to make him behave.


    Hellen glanced over her shoulder just before bringing four plates to the table. "Guan, breakfast is ready!" Hellen yelled and Guan just appeared in a chair. She didn''t feel any wind or air displacement. How the hell was he able to do that? And when will he teach me how to do it? But it wasn''t nearly as surprising as seeing Guan without his hood or mask. The skin colored scales on his face, jaw and neck were rather disturbing to look at. I wonder why he wears the mask and hood for. If I saw someone like that glaring at me with his reptuation, I would do my best to make sure I NEVER made them angry.


    "This smells delicious," Guan announced before he began eating his breakfast slowly. Hellen smiled at him breifly before eating in an elegant manner befitting her upbringing. Lucas was simply shoveling in the breakfast with his fork. I better eat my breakfast before Lucas thinks he can get away with eating my breakfast along with his own.


    After eating breakfast, Maxine took her plate to the sink to clean it. "I''m going to head out soon. I promised Amanda that I would make a batch of potions," Maxine said, "I''ll be back just before lunch with something to eat for Lucas as long as he behaves. I would take him out, but I''m not sure how well he will react to seeing a large number of humans considering how he was treated recently."


    "I share the same concern," Hellen said, "But you shouldn''t worry too much. He learns quickly and it shouldn''t be long before it''s safe to bring him around with you."


    "Alright and thanks for educating him for me," Maxine said gratefully, "It would probably take me several times longer to teach him to behave."


    "I know," Hellen said knowingly, "You can''t bring yourself to swat his backside as firmly as you should. You made the right choice to let me look after him for awhile. He''s too wild to use your soft approach."


    "You''re right," Maxine said in agreement, "Anyways, I best head out. Be good for grandma, Lucas." Lucas nodded his head and left the room. A few moments later she heard him playing with something without destroying it. Well, that''s something.


    Maxine calmly opened up a portal to a park that she was familiar with and leapt into it. She only took a few moments to orient herself before heading towards the Fire and Ice Guild to work on making the potions. She knew that she could at most finish the remaining iron tier potions today, but the silver ones would require her full attention to concoct over the course of four or five days.


    When Maxine finally entered the guild''s headquarters, she stopped in her tracks and felt her eyes stretch vertically and her teeth sharpen as rage reddened her vision. Ambassador Andrevich was standing next to the reception desk with four bodyguards and when he turned to face her, a friendly smile spread across his cheeks. He looks a little older, but he is definitely the same piece of shit that ordered the kidnapping of my birth mother, Claudia. I want to rip him to pieces! But I can''t. I will get Amanda in trouble if I do. I need to calm down.


    Unfortunately, her hydra bloodline wasn''t making it easy. It hungered to devour the flesh of the person that hurt her and she was forced to lock her muscles in place to avoid acting on that impulse. Sadly, she wasn''t able to stop herself form releasing dragon fear due to her extreme anger.


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    Sweat spontaneously appeared on ambassador Andrevich''s brow and the receptionist looked visibly pale. However, the receptionist slowly grabbed the phone at her desk and called Amanda.


    "Ma''am, your friend is here and she''s giving off this extremely terrifying vibe," the receptionist said fearfully, "Could you, please, come down here and calm her down? Ma''am?" Literately two seconds later, Amanda threw open the door to the stairs and hesitated for a moment before slowly approaching Maxine.


    "Maxine, what''s wrong?" Amanda asked cautiously, but she noticed where Maxine was looking, "Get the ambassador out of here! Right now!"


    [He''s the one,] Maxine answered Amanda via spiritual sense, [He''s the one that sent those bastards that kidnapped mom.] Amanda''s eyes widened for a moment before she walked up to Maxine and blocked Maxine''s vision of Ambassador Andrevich while putting both of her hands on Maxine''s cheeks to keep her from diverting her gaze.


    "I know you''re angry, but you need to calm down," Amanda said, but added via spiritual sense, [God knows that I want to hit him myself. The bastard tried to poach a few of my people behind my back, but now is not the time for this.]


    "I know. It''s why I locked my muscles in place," Maxine answered through grit teeth and she meant it as a answer for both conversations.


    "What the hell is up with your teeth?" Amanda asked, "Do they get pointy like that when you are angry?"


    "Yes, and it''s the same with my eyes," Maxine answered as she started to feel her anger starting to subside.


    "Most people need special contact lenses to do that," Amanda commented as she finally took her hands off of Maxine''s face.


    "I''m just lucky like that," Maxine said as her eyes and teeth returned to normal, "It''s too bad I can''t completely control that reaction though."


    "That it is," Amanda said, "Feeling better now?"


    "Some," Maxine replied honestly, "Although I''m still angry."


    "I see," Amanda said, "What did he do to piss you off anyways?" Yeah, I guess I need to have a valid reason for my reaction besides the real one. Instantly, Maxine remembered every detail about ambassador Andrevich and his four bodyguards. It only took her one glance to come up with a suitable excuse.


    "One of his bodyguards was wearing a snakeskin belt," Maxine growled, "And if you''ve forgotten, I''m part hydra. It was like witnessing someone wearing my cousin''s skin."


    "I''m positive they had no idea," Amanda said comfortingly as she played along, "Will you be alright, if I leave?"


    "Yeah, I should be," Maxine answered, "I just need half an hour to calm myself down before I work on those potions. Do you have somewhere that I can be alone for awhile?"


    "I''ll get Maggie to find an empty room for you," Amanda said, "Now, I have to go see why the ambassador wasn''t sent straight to my office when he arrived."


    "Thanks," Maxine said before Amanda nodded and walked over to the receptionist. Maxine didn''t bother listening in, but she could tell Amanda was furious.


    A few minutes after Amanda finished chewing out the receptionist, a young woman with brown hair with a few green strips in her hair walked up to Maxine and said, "Amanda said you needed a quiet place to calm down. There is an empty one near the herbal storage room. Is that alright?"


    "That sounds perfect," Maxine answered, "Lead the way."


    The young woman brought Maxine to the room. It had a office desk and chair in it, but little else. Without saying a word, the young woman left Maxine after shutting the door. Maxine immediately sat down in the office chair and leaned back into it as she closed her eyes. That was close. I nearly lost it back there. I really wanted to pummel that bastard into a bloody pulp. My hydra bloodline just made my anger more pronounced than it would''ve been otherwise. Anyways, I better calm down the rest of the way. Alchemy requires a calm and collected mind to produce the best results. Maxine calmed her thoughts and reviewed several herbs in her head as she meditated.


    It took her less time than she thought it would to calm the remnants of her rage and began to make her way to the herbal storage room. She waved at the guards posted at the door when she went in and created three shadow clones before concocting potions. Iron-tier potions require more concentration and effort to make. So that limits me to three shadow clones. Silver tier potions are even worse. I might be able to only make one shadow clone to speed up the process without sacrificing the quality. It will still take me at least four days to finish them all though. She kept an eye on the time while she made potions and just before lunch time, she decided to take a break for lunch.


    Maxine sent her spiritual sense through one of her clones to contact Hellen, [Hey, mom. Has Lucas been good today?]


    [Much better than yesterday at least,] Hellen said, [He''s only left a few scratches on my floors and furniture. I never expected that he would have such sharp claws. Do you have a similar problem?]


    [I would if I didn''t coat my claws in energy to blunt them,] Maxine answered.


    [That just means both of you need more practice,] Hellen said, [So, when can I expect you to come with his lunch?]


    [I''m not sure. I shouldn''t be too much longer than an hour,] Maxine answered.


    [Good. Lucas looks like he''s getting hungry,] Hellen said, [And he gets even more wild when he gets too hungry. So, if you can, arrive as quickly as you can.]


    [I will do my best. See you when I get there,] Maxine said.


    [Alright, sweetie,] Hellen said before Maxine retracted her spiritual sense.


    Maxine promptly left the herbal storage room and stopped in the reception hall when she realized something. She didn''t have any means of paying for her meal. She felt like smacking herself upside the head for forgetting such a basic thing. Shit, I forgot Earth hasn''t switched currencies yet. What do I do now?


    "Miss Maxine, if you are looking for something to eat, our caffeteria has quite a selection," the receptionist offered, "Amanda said you could grab whatever you want free of charge and she notified them in advance about you as well."


    "Oh, thanks," Maxine said, "Which way is the caffeteria?"


    "Go to the second floor and follow the signs," the receptionist said.


    "Thanks again," Maxine replied as walked over to the elevator and went to the second floor. As advertised, there were signs that lead her to the caffeteria. Before she even reached it, she could smell at least a dozen different kinds of beast meats being served and when she finally reached it, she smiled happily. It was as big even for a buffet restraunt and the selection was mind boggling. Now this is a caffeteria.


    Maxine walked towards the takeout boxes, but noticed a sign above them. There was a 6 takeout box limit per day. Might as well load them up then and since I''m only eating lunch here, I''m going to take the maximum. God, I wish that I didn''t need to eat so much to maintain my health in this form.


    She took her time selecting various meats and vegetables for herself and ended up filling 5 takeout boxes. She used another four to select some sweet and robust tasting meats for Lucas. The last takeout box was for Hellen as a thank you for looking after Lucas and it was filled with a few different kinds of chocolate deserts. There that should be it.


    Maxine walked up to the checkout counter just incase, but as the receptionist had told her, it was all free. With that confirmation out of the way, Maxine transferred the takeout boxes to her dimensional ring and moved to leave the building. However this time she scouted ahead using her spiritual sense to avoid any unpleasant encounters.


    Thankfully, she didn''t have to avoid anyone and once outside, she took a few extra moments to create an arch infront of her. This was more for everyone else than for her. She was completely fine with jumping into a portal on the ground, but she knew it would be disconcerting for most people to see her just vanish into the ground without damaging it in the least.


    She walked through the arch and almost instantly Lucas hug tackled her. She retreated a step to avoid being knocked over before she hugged him gently back. "I missed you too," Maxine said as she gently stroked the back of his head, "Now, let''s get to the table and eat. I brought you some goodies."


    Lucas dislodge himself from her embrace before he practically became a blur as he ran to the dining room table and sat down. She followed behind him and proceeded to place the takeout boxes infront of him before opening them. He practically drooled as he looked at the food that she selected for him, and she was happy to see that he took his time eating it all while using a fork. I see mom has been teaching him manners. Although, I don''t think she intended for him to use his fork like a dagger.


    Maxine handed Hellen the desert-filled takeout box before she set up lunch on the table. While she ate, she thought of the events of that morning and shuddered. I wish I could''ve avoided making a scene at Amanda''s guild and the excuse I used was just terrible. All I did was put that bastard on guard and give PETA a whole new excuse to push for better treatment of animals to avoid upsetting their beastkin cousins. To top it off, I''ll be the first one under suspicion if the prick get attacked any time soon. I really fucked up. I''ll have to wait at least a year, probably longer, before I can make a move on him without it leading to me. I can''t even use a shadow clone to kill him while appearing somewhere else since it''s public knowledge that I can make them. If I want to kill him, I''ll have to get really creative without drawing any suspicion to myself.

 Chapter 165

    Maxine was walking with Lucas through a nearly empty park. She watched him like a hawk as he surveyed the area. This was their first outting and she wanted to be ready in the event he tried to attack someone. It was a nice distraction after the last five days that she had spent concocting potions and spending time with all of her parents, including Jonathan. She loathed the time she had to spend with her abusive father, but it was the only way she could spend some time with her precious baby brother Nathan. She found his shy temperment to be adorable.


    Aside from all of that, she found the time to come up with a few solutions to eliminate ambassador Andrevich. The most realistic one was to hire an assassin. She knew a man like him would easily have a large number of enemies that were looking for an opportunity to get rid of him. However, she could only pay the assassin with potions or deadly poisons. That solution though left a very obvious trail back to her if the assassin was ever caught. It just wasn''t worth the risk, but that didn''t mean she couldn''t kill him herself at a later date. Regardless, I bet he''s straining his brain trying to figure out why the real reason I showed him such hostility. He probably still believes I''m just some random alchemst that he was probably ordered to lure to his country. Huh, that gives me a vicious idea. I wonder what would happen if I bypass him and let his leaders know why I hate him so much. Or I could see if there is a disgruntled subordinate of his that could do that for me. In any case, those guys may just kill ambassador Andrevich themselves to appease me enough that I visit their country for awhile. I could make a few high end potions while I''m there and that would be that. Although that method comes with some risks, but they are far more manageable than making a move myself. But there is always the chance that they see him as too valueable of an asset to kill over a possibility. That leaves me with an option that I really don''t want to do. I really hate doing hours and hours of research, but the chance that it will lead back to me is virtually zero.


    "Mama?" Lucas asked while tilting his head. That simple word caused Maxine to be jolted out of her own dark thoughts.


    "Yes, Lucas?" Maxine asked, before her expression turned to one of joy, "You spoke!" It had literately been the second time Lucas had spoken since she found him. Unfortunately, he didn''t say anything else to Maxine''s disappointment. It seems this little guy only speaks when he finds it neccesary to do so. He must''ve been worried about me.


    After a few minutes of waiting, she noticed him glancing at a playground. "Do you want to go play over there?" Maxine asked, but Lucas shook his head, "Then why do you want to go over there?"


    Lucas simply pointed his finger towards a girl with golden blonde hair that was running joyfully near the playground before saying, "Pretty."


    "You think she is pretty?" Maxine asked with a smile, "Do you want to go over to say ''hi''?" Lucas immediately nodded his head and Maxine gently took Lucas'' hand into her own as they walked towards the blonde-haired little girl.


    Unfortunately, as soon as they got within thirty feet of the little girl, she spotted them and froze with a fearful expression on her face. Maxine stopped in her tracks and waved at the little girl with her free hand. That small and harmless movement caused the little girl to burst into movement and flee towards her mother. Shit, I was afraid that would happen.


    Lucas jerked in her grasp, but she didn''t let him go. And there goes his predatory response. To most predators, anything that runs from you is clearly prey. She was prepared to swat him upside the head to knock him out of it, but surprisingly, he stopped trying to free himself from her grasp after only a few seconds. He turned his head to look at her with tear-filled eyes.


    Maxine felt a pang of sympathetic pain as she knelt down and gently hugged him. "It''s alright. I know you just wanted to play with her," Maxine said comfortingly as she stroked his hair, "But to her, the two of us look a bit scary, so don''t hold it against her." In response, Lucas hugged her back with both his arms and legs. I can''t really blame him for this reaction. He probably just wanted to make a friend his own age and he was rejected like that. He may be more feral than other children, but his emotions are just as strong.


    Maxine stood up and walked away before the little girl''s mother came to confront them. After walking for only a few seconds, she created a standing portal that lead back to Hellen and Guan''s home. As soon as she walked through it, a strange thought popped into her head. Where exactly is their home? I think I remember one of them mentioning it was on the moon, but that just begs more questions. How the hell are they able to have a house on the moon without someone spotting it? And how the hell are they able to make the gravity feel like I''m on Earth? I think it''s best not think about that too hard or I will give myself a headache.


    "Welcome back you two. You weren''t gone that long," Hellen said, "Did something happen?"


    "Lucas wanted to play with one of the children at the park, but they ran away from him," Maxine said, "He didn''t take it very well."


    "Don''t worry, Lucas. I''m sure you will find a friend soon enough," Hellen said comfortingly as she reached out and patted Lucas'' head, "I take it that it was a little blonde girl that fled from him?"


    "How did you know?" Maxine asked in surprise.


    "He likes to watch TV shows that have pretty little blondes in them," Hellen said with a smile.


    "So he has a thing for blondes, eh?" Maxine said with a smirk on her face, "There are plenty of those around, little guy. Just be careful. Some of girls can be really mean." Lucas only buried his face deeper into Maxine''s shoulder and she could swear she could feel that shoulder heat up slightly. Is he ... blushing? That''s adorable!


    "Stop teasing him," Hellen admonished Maxine, "But you''re right. It''s better to err on the side of caution when finding friends of any kind."


    "At least, you don''t have to worry about scratching them by accident," Maxine said encouragingly, "Those gloves and shoes that your grandpa made will definitely keep that from happening." It still surprised Maxine that he was able to design and make them. They competely covered the claws on his hands and feet, but at the same time, they were easily removed in the event that he needed to defend himself. I think daddy was inspired by mom to make them. She was getting tired of having to repair the floors and furniture all the time. Although, this is just a temporary measure until Lucas learns to control his essence enough to form a protective coating over his claws.


    "That they do," Hellen commented, "Although, I''m beginning to get concerned. Lucas hasn''t spoken a single word thus far. Normally, beastkin like him learn to speak complete sentences by now."


    "He can speak," Maxine said reassuringly, "But even, I''ve only heard him say three different words."


    "Oh?" Hellen asked with curiosity, "And why havn''t you mentioned this before?"


    "Because before today, he''s only spoken once," Maxine said, "I heard him speak twice while we were visiting the park. I think it''s possible that he doesn''t like to speak unless he has to."


    "I think you''re right," Hellen said, "Most hydras are solitary creatures and typically only travel together if they are mother and child."


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    "I can see how that can present a few problems for his social development," Maxine said. He must be afraid of saying the wrong thing. That would explain he rarely ever speaks and even then only one word at a time to avoid any blunders. I bet he''s listening in to our interactions to learn as many social skills as he can.


    "He may just need more experience in that regard before he opens up," Hellen said, "Try taking him to see Amanda''s daughter. I think her daughter''s name is Sarah."


    "I could," Maxine said with a thoughtful look on her face and asks Lucas, "Do you want me to set up a playdate for you and Sarah?"


    "Yes," Lucas said very softly and Maxine saw Hellen''s face light up.


    "Lucas, why don''t you talk more when you have such a lovely voice?" Hellen asked in a gentle voice. Now that she mentions it, Lucas has an amazing voice. It''s almost angelic due to how innocent it sounds. But I know better. He''s a cunning little shit and that will serve him well when he has to deal with any young masters or mistresses. Unfortunately Lucas didn''t say anything else as he buried his face into Maxine''s shoulder.


    "Mom, he''s known you for literately less than ten days," Maxine reminded Hellen, "And me for only a few days more than that. You can''t expect a him to open up that fast." She felt Lucas tense up in her arms. I bet you didn''t realize that I willingly adopted you until just now.


    "That''s true," Hellen said understandingly.


    "In any case, let''s slowly introduce him to more people. That should build up his confidence," Maxine said, "And on that note, could you look after him for awhile? I want to go talk to Amanda to see if it''s alright to set up a playdate for Lucas with her daughter."


    "That''s fine. Just hand the little guy over," Hellen said as she gently plucked Lucas off of Maxine and held him in her own hands.


    "Thanks, mom," Maxine said, "I''ll be back later and Lucas, be good for grandma." Maxine created a portal arch infront of her that lead to the front area of the Fire and Ice guild and walked through it.


    Without missing a beat, she immediately entered the building and felt annoyed when she spread her spiritual sense out. Amanda was giving ambassador Andrevich a tour around the building. When is that fucker going to leave?! This is at least the third time he''s been toured around the building. Doesn''t he have other places besides this one to visit? He''s already tried to recruit Silky and Lan twice. She retracted her spiritual sense before her temper flared uncontrollably. What time is it? Maybe I can talk to Chris about a playdate since Amanda''s busy.


    Maxine glanced at the time before she walked up to the reception desk to ask, "Is Chris Maze in?"


    "He walked in not five minutes ago with Sarah in tow," the receptionist said, "Would you like me to contact him, Miss Maxine?"


    "Yes, please," Maxine replied.


    "This will just take a second," the receptionist said before picking up the phone at her desk. Maxine took a few steps away from the desk and did her best not to listen in.


    Thankfully, she kept her mind busy by following the route that Amanda was taking as she gave ambassador Andreviche around the building. She took this time to look over his bodyguards. It surprised her momentarily that they were all silver stage. Wow, I didn''t think he had the political influence to get four silver stage bodyguards. That''s actually rather impressive. They still wouldn''t be able to stop me if I took a direct approach to getting rid of that asshole, but I can''t do that without causing a shit storm of problems.


    "Miss Maxine, Chris said to come up to the daycare room on the second floor," the receptionist said.


    "Oh, thank you. I''ll head that way now," Maxine said gratefully to the receptionist and made her way to the daycare room. She found Chris with his daughter, Sarah, playing tea party. Maxine did her best to avoid laughing at the sight, but failed in the end when she noticed that Chris was wearing a tiara and a tutu. Maxine involuntarily laughed at the sight.


    The both of them turned their heads to Maxine and Chris looked confused to for a few moments before he asked in disbelief, "Maxine? Is that you?"


    "It certainly is," Maxine said with a smile and shifted her gaze to Sarah, whom looked rather small for her age, "Is your daddy good at tea parties?"


    "Yep!" Sarah said happily, "But he wouldn''t let me bring any of my toys."


    "Well, he probably didn''t want you to loose them and get super upset," Maxine said, "I know I would get really sad if I lost one of my toys when I was your age."


    "Really?" Sarah asked, "What was your favorite toy?"


    "It was my dolly. She had red yarn for hair," Maxine said while smiling fondly at the memory, "In fact, my dolly''s hair was the same exact shade of red as yours."


    "Can I see it?" Sarah asked expectantly.


    "Well, you can''t see the original, but I can make a good copy of it," Maxine said as she flourished her hand and created a construct in the form of her childhood doll. It''s head was cicular with a mop of red yarn hair and wore a simple green checkered dress.


    "You can use magic!" Sarah said with eyes fill with wonder as Maxine handed her the doll. Sarah''s eyes were sparkling as she examine the doll in her hands.


    "You might be able to do something similar when you''re older," Maxine said happily.


    "Is that true, papa?" Sarah asked excitedly while looking at Chris.


    "I can''t say for certain, sweetie, but it''s possible," Chris answered honestly, "It really depends on your attribute."


    "He''s not wrong," Maxine agreed, "You see your ''papa'' can only use fire. That''s not good for making a dolly is it?"


    "No, it isn''t," Sarah agreed and she immediately looked worried, "Will I only be able to use fire?"


    "It''s possible, but it''s not for certain," Maxine comforted Sarah, "Take me for instance, I didn''t inheirit my father''s poison attribute. Instead, I got the shadow attribute. I can mimic any attribute I want, but it''s not perfect. I''ll never be able to create a flame as potent as your papa''s or an illusion as perfect as your mother''s."


    "And they will never look as scary as you," Sarah chimed in playfully.


    "Exactly," Maxine said, "Everyone is different. There''s no telling what wonderful gift you will have, so you''ll have to wait for now to find out what gift you have. You''re just a little too young to cultivate just yet."


    "But I''m already five years old!" Sarah complained, "I''m a big girl! I want use magic NOW!"


    "Can you sit still for hours at a time while doing something that''s boring?" Maxine asked.


    "Huh? Why would I need to do that?" Sarah asked.


    "That''s one of the things you need to do to be able to use magic," Maxine replied, "Now answer my question." Chris was sitting quietly with a strange smile on his face.


    "I can do it," Sarah said stubbornly.


    "Prove it," Maxine said, "Try singing a song over and over again for hours at a time without moving from that spot." Sarah immediately started singing ''Mary had a little lamb'' over and over. She sang like that for twenty minutes before her focus started to shift. She lasted longer than I thought. Still, it''s not enough. It took another ten minutes before Sarah finally tired herself out and began pouting.


    "Good attempt, but it''s not enough," Maxine said honestly, "Give it another few more years and if you still want to learn, I will teach you myself."


    "Promise?" Sarah asked hopefully.


    "I promise," Maxine said, "Now, would you like to meet my son, Lucas? He''s a bit older than you and he doesn''t have my spiky hair."


    "Can I, papa?" Sarah asked.


    "We will have to talk to, mommy," Chris said and he added, "That reminds me. Amanda has been complaining that you still havn''t gotten a cellphone yet. It''s made it rather hard to contact you." Shit, I forgot about those things. I can literately talk to anyone within 100 miles with my spiritual sense, but most earthlings don''t have that kind of range.


    "I forgot that I needed one of those. I''ll take care of that this afternoon," Maxine said, "What''s her number by the way?"


    "You can just call me later," Chris said as he handed Maxine a small business card, "But if you want to talk to Amanda, you''ll have to call us after six."


    "Got it," Maxine said as she stashed the business card into her dimensional ring, "I best go get that phone then. See you two later."


    "Bye!" Sarah said happily before going back to playing tea party with Chris, "Papa, you forgot to add the sugar to your tea. It will taste icky." Maxine smiled to herself as she left. He''s a very good dad, and he doesn''t spoil her too much.


    Maxine left the Fire and Ice guild and went straight to a walmart to buy a ''pay as you go'' phone. It didn''t take her very long to set it up. The only problem that she faced was how to use it without damaging it due to her claws. Eventually, she smacked herself on the forehead when she realized that she could just create a few tendirls to use the touch screen instead of using her hands. After doing all of that, she sent Chris a text message to let him know her cellphone number. Now with that out of the way, I think it''s time to find a pawn to help me get in contact with the russian leadership. I wonder if the ambassador is a big enough fool to keep someone that hates him at the russian embassy. I can only hope that he does. If not, there are other routes that I can use to contact them. And if they don''t want to get rid of him, I will have to take a different approach to getting rid of him.

 Chapter 166

    Maxine mentally complained to herself as she continued her research on a library computer. Her search for a disgruntled subordinate at the russian embassy was pointless. Not a single person there hated ambassador Andrevich. In fact, most of them respected him immensely. She even went so far as to consult with the local Bratva, russian mofia, to see if they could help her contact the leadership back in Russia, but they turned her down once they found out her history with the good ambassador. Fuck, I hate doing research and to compound the problem, I''m doing research on events that happened nearly ten years ago.


    She was looking for news reports that involved a missing girl or boy after their family had been wiped out and cross referencing it to a list of possible cultivators. This was an attepmt to find someone that managed to escape from the russian kidnapping squads. If I''m lucky, I''ll find someone soon. I''ve already been at this for two days and tonight is Lucas'' playdate with Sarah. It doesn''t help that my mind works faster than the computers in this damn library and I have to make other searches to make it look like I''m keeping my knowledge on Earth''s customs up to date. Hmm? What''s this?


    Maxine looked at a particular news article that described the gruesome murder of a single father by the name of Hector Barnes and his daughter, Michelle Barnes, was missing. The man had suffered a tremendous blow to the chest that literately caved it in and the neighbors had heard some shouting in russian. However, his attackers were also found at the scene and there was a trail of blood leading away from her house into the nearby woods. Perfect, let''s see if I can find any reports about a young girl matching Michelle''s description popping up in any hospitals within 100 miles of her home. After an hour of searching, she found no mention of any teenage girls matching Michelle''s description or any sightings of any young women hiding in the local forests. This will have to do. I really hope she''s actually dead. I would feel absolutely horrible if she''s actually alive and I pin the ambassador''s death on her. I''ll need to search around the area where she disappeared, but for now, I need to form a mental image of her to work with.


    Maxine made a mental image of Michelle in her mind and aged her up. Afterwards, she proceeded to add some scars from her fight with the russian kidnappers and from any beasts that she may have encountered while fleeing for her life. There, that should be suitable. I just need to figure out what she liked to wear before her disapperance and I need to find out a few of her personality traits. Although, even if I make a few mistakes, it won''t matter. She literately watched her father get murdered infront of her and had to fight and kill to escape her attackers. That kind of trauma would inevitably twist her personality in horrible ways, so even if she suddenly appears out of nowhere for revenge, no one would suspect a thing. Still, I can''t be careless with this. It will take me at least a week, probably longer, to tweek this construct to the point that it will pass off as the real thing. I''ll also have to keep coming to the library to make it appear as if I''m looking into what''s happened on Earth the last ten years. It''s strange that I''m so comfortable using a dead girl''s identity to get my revenge. I hope I''m not turning into some kind of monster.


    She glanced at the time and moves to leave the library. I better head back and get Lucas ready for his play date and I need to take a shower since I''ve been using my energies to clean myself off. I just want to feel really clean while I keep an eye on Lucas. After getting outside, she creates another arch and walks through it to see a grumpy and wet-haired Lucas on the couch.


    "You still don''t like to take baths?" Maxine asked in surprise, "Did someone get soap in your eyes?"


    "Yes, he did," Hellen said, "I told him to close his eyes, but he didn''t listen."


    "I bet he will listen now," Maxine commented as she walked up to Lucas and gently said, "Lucas, don''t forget you have a playdate with Sarah today. First impressions are very important, so it won''t do to have a grumpy look on your face."


    Lucas loooked at Maxine for a moment before nodding his head and his expression became more neutral. "You only have an hour to get cleaned up Maxine, so you best take your bath now."


    "Alright, mom," Maxine said as she headed to the bathroom. She saw fresh blouse with a floral pattern on it and set of jeans laid out for her. Silky really does good work. I still havn''t figured out how she got the blouse''s neck to accomodate my quills without exposing too much of my skin.


    Maxine got into the shower and created dozens of thin tendrils to scrub herself down as thoroughly as she could. She heard the bathroom door open and saw that it was Hellen. Thus she didn''t pay it any mind. Hellen left after setting something down next to the clothes that were already laid out.


    As soon as Maxine was done with her shower, she saw what Hellen left her. It was a set of special shoes and gloves that were virtually identical, aside from the size, to the ones that Lucas had. Finally, I don''t have to worry about shredding my clothes if I''m inattentive while using my energies to blunt my claws.


    After getting dried off and dressed, she found Lucas sitting on Hellen''s lap as they watched cartoons and glanced at the time. I can let them spend a few more minutes watching cartoons. We have a good half hour to get there and it would take us only a minute to get there. Hmm, I can use this time to send out my ravens and wolves to search for any traces of Michelle Baker. I really prefer to confirm that she''s dead rather than hope she is. If I can''t find her remains, I''ll have to figure something else out.


    After sending out her ravens and shadow wolves to search for Michelle Baker, Maxine sat down beside Lucas and Hellen and got a little surprise a few seconds later. Lucas got off of Hellen''s lap to sit on hers. A smile blossomed on Maxine''s face and ruffled Lucas'' hair playfully. He didn''t seem to mind it and continued to watch his cartoons. However just before the cartoon ended, Lucas looked at the time and glanced at Maxine with a anxious look on his face.


    "Yes, we should get going," Maxine said to soothe him, "But remember Sarah is really fragile. So when you play with her, you have to be gentle. No rough play got it?" Lucas nodded.


    "I already let him know how much strength he is supposed to use and to avoid scratching her," Hellen said calmly.


    "Oh, good," Maxine said partly in relief, "Let''s get going then." Lucas got off her lap and Maxine created an arch before they both walked through it.


    Maxine looked at Amanda''s house and noted that it was rather plain considering her wealth. It still had a simple and well kept flower garden to either side of her front door.


    She grabbed Lucas'' hand before walking up to the door and knocking on it gently. She waited for a few moments before Amanda greeted them as she opened the door, "Hey, Maxine and this little guy must be Lucas. Sarah has been excited to meet you." As if summoned, Sarah peeked her head around Amanda''s leg.


    "Hi, I''m Sarah," Sarah said happily.


    "Lucas," Lucas said almost as if in a daze as he gently patted his chest.


    "Come on," Sarah said as she rushed forward and practically dragged Lucas inside, "I have a game we can play." What the hell? He''s actually letting Sarah drag him around?! Maybe, he''s not resisting out of worry that he will hurt her by accident.


    "I better follow them," Maxine said with some concern, "I''m a touch worried that Lucas will forget how strong he is."


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    "Don''t worry about it too much. I made some preparations in advance," Amanda said, "Sarah is wearing a rechargable, protective pendant. It can block multiple attacks from a peak iron stage expert. He couldn''t hurt her if he tried."


    "That couldn''t have been cheap," Maxine commented.


    "It wasn''t, but neither are your potions," Amanda remarked, "You should''ve told me how famous your ''brand'' is."


    "Found out about that did you?" Maxine said as she mentally winced.


    "Do you have any idea how expensive they are?" Amanda asked.


    "Not really," Maxine answered honestly, "I just sold them for whatever price they offered and bought more alchemy ingredients."


    Amanda sighed in frustration, "Your potions sell for more than double of a standard healing potion. I need to modify your pay accordingly."


    "We''re friends, and I''m already wealthy. So you don''t need to give me more pay," Maxine said calmly, "But can we talk about this later? I''m getting a little worried that I havn''t heard those two playing since they left."


    "You''re right," Amanda said as her brow furrowed with concern, "Let''s go check on them." They looked around and found Lucas playing Castle Crashers on an Xbox. Lucas'' character was just wandering all over the place and randomly swinging it''s weapon. He''ll figure out how to play it properly in a minute and probably be playing it better than Sarah.


    "You didn''t tell me you had an Xbox," Maxine commented, "I wouldn''t have been so worried if you had mentioned it earlier."


    "I forgot Chris bought that a couple weeks ago," Amanda said offhandedly, "They play that game together from time to time."


    "Well, I just hope Sarah doesn''t get too mad at Lucas for playing so poorly," Maxine said, "He''s never played a game on a console before."


    "He seems to be learning fast enough," Amanda commented, "I think we can let them play for a little while without breathing over their shoulders."


    "Alright, but I''m still going to have one of my ravens keep an eye on them, just in case," Maxine replied.


    "That''s fine," Amanda said, "You will still be able to help me make dinner, right?"


    "I can, but I will warn you. Both me and Lucas eat a lot," Maxine warned Amanda.


    "How much are we talking about?" Amanda asked cautiously.


    "I can eat five pounds of food per meal and still feel hungry," Maxine replied, "If it''s meat from an essence beast, three pounds should be enough."


    "Jesus," Amanda said, "How do you afford your food bill?"


    "I don''t. I hunt for most of our food," Maxine replied, "I suppliment it with vegetables grown in rich black dirt."


    "I don''t blame you for that in the least," Amanda said, "And I just realized that I don''t have anywhere near enough food set out to feed the both of you. So, I hope you''re not upset that I won''t be making you any."


    "Don''t worry about it. I never planned on staying for dinner anyways," Maxine replied, "I just want Lucas to enjoy spending some time with other children. It''s good for his developement."


    "By the way, how many other children has he played with?" Amanda asked.


    "None, most either run away as soon as they see him or their parents drag them away before they can," Maxine answered.


    "Assholes," Amanda said angrily.


    "My thoughts exactly," Maxine agreed, "Anyways, you said you needed help with making dinner. Do you still want me to give you a hand?"


    "That would be great," Amanda replied, "But we don''t need to work on it for a few more hours yet."


    "So what would you like to talk about?" Maxine asked.


    "For starters, why weren''t you wearing those wierd shoes earlier?" Amanda asked as she pointed at the special shoes that Guan made for her, "I was constantly worrying that you would damage the floors at my guild every time I saw you walking around barefoot."


    "If I had them before today, I would''ve worn them," Maxine replied honestly, "You have no idea how hard it is to keep my claws constantly coated with my energies. They are frighteningly sharp."


    "Just how sharp are your claws?" Amanda asked.


    "It''s easier to show you," Maxine said as she carefully took off one of her gloves and picked up a nearby pencil, "This is how sharp." Maxine closed hand and left only her index finger extended before dropping the pencil horizonally onto her claw. The pencil was cut halfway through before it stopped and she simply wiggled her finger for it to cut itself the rest of the way through.


    "Jesus!" Amanda exclaimed, "But that can''t be the only reason you''re so worried. You could easily heal people if you accidentally cut them."


    "You''re right," Maxine admitted as she put her glove back on and after after hesitating for a moment, she added, "My claws are naturally envenomed with a super toxin that kills anyone with a cultivation below silver stage, even with the antidote."


    "So, that''s why you avoided touching anyone," Amanda commented out loud as she visibly paled.


    "Tell me about it, but the upside is that I won''t have to stay in this state for more than a couple more weeks," Maxine said, "I already feel like I''m getting a better handle on my aggression."


    "Really?" Amanda asked in a tone that said she didn''t believe Maxine, "Then do you care to explain why you almost ripped the good ambassador to pieces the other day?"


    "If I hadn''t made any progress, I wouldn''t have been able to stop myself at all and he would''ve died along with anyone else that tried to stop me," Maxine replied, "I''ve already gone completely berserk once already and I do not want that to happen again. Just thinking about what I did gives me nightmares."


    "Sorry, I didn''t mean to bring up those memories," Amanda apologized and Maxine gave her a questioning look, "Emily told me. She''s worried about you."


    "I know," Maxine said, "But let''s talk about something else. What''s the latest fashion?" Amanda smiled and took her changing the subject in stride before they talked about fashion and a few other thing.


    Maxine still kept an eye on Lucas and Sarah to make sure they were playing nice. Somehow she managed to talk Lucas into holding still while she tied ribbons onto his tail using a bow knot. More than one time Lucas gave Maxine a pleading look, but she didn''t interfer. It''s best he learns how to say no himself.


    Eventually, it was time to leave and Maxine bid Amanda and Sarah farewell. "I think those two have had enough fun for one day," Maxine said as she gestured at Sarah, whom had collapsed onto the couch while using Lucas'' tail as a pillow.


    "He''s so sweet to let her get away with that," Amanda said approvingly, "Will the two of you come by again?"


    "It depends on Lucas," Maxine replied, "But my guess is that he enjoyed the play time."


    "He should''ve. They spent half their time on that console," Amanda pointed out, "Just let me know when you want to come by again."


    "Will do," Maxine said as she stood up and Amanda went over to pick up Sarah before carrying her upstairs to her bed, "I''ll let myself out. See you later."


    "Alright. Take care," Amanda said before disappearing behind a door.


    Maxine made her way out of Amanda''s house with Lucas in tow. However before she could create a portal back home, her shadow wolves sent her a report. They found a fresh scent of a solitary girl. She had only one of her wolves follow that scent while the rest continued their search. It''s best to find out who that is. It might not be Michelle at all.


    Still, she needed to get back home and opened an arch that lead back to Hellen and Guan''s home. "Welcome back," Hellen said as Maxine walked through the arch with Lucas, "How was the playdate?"


    "Sarah loved it. Not so sure how much Lucas did," Maxine repled, "It all depends on him if he wants to go again."


    "Again?" Lucas asked out loud while he tilted his head before answering, "Yes, again."


    "Oh? Do you like Sarah?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes," Lucas replied, "Pretty hair."


    "You think her hair is pretty?" Maxine asked with a smirk, "Did you tell her that?" Lucas immediatley shook his head.


    "Girls like it when you give them compliments," Hellen chimed in.


    "That they do," Maxine agreed and quickly added, "So long as you avoid giving compliments to their attributes covered by clothing."


    "''Kay," Lucas said right before his stomach growled and he shamelessly added, "Hungry." Maxine smirked while Hellen chuckled at his antics.


    "Me and grandma will go into the kitchen and put something together," Maxine told Lucas, "If you still feel like playing, go see if grandpa is free." Lucas trembled slightly as he looked away at the mention of Guan and promptly went to watch TV. I think I need to talk with daddy. He''s obviously scares Lucas and I need to find out why. It could be that he is just that powerful and Lucas'' instincts are screaming at him to avoid daddy.


    Maxine went to the kitchen where Hellen was already working on cutting various meats. Maxine saw a rather sizeable pile of vegetables and recognized what Hellen was making just from what was set out. She promptly grabbed a knife and began cutting the vegetables. However as she cut the vegetables, her shadow wolf that was tracking the woman sent her a report. It had found the woman in rags hunting outside of a rather large arachne web and she looked ninety percent similar to Michelle Baker. Damn, I can''t kill him, but this brings up a new possibility. I wonder how much hatred she feels for the man responsible for her father''s death. She deserves to have the first crack at him and if she wants to kill him, I''ll give her an opportunity to do it as well as a means to escape without a trace. But regardless, her being alive changes things immensely and I don''t want to do another round of intense research. I guess I will just have to give up on killing him, but that doesn''t mean I can''t destroy his life.


    Maxine pulled out her communication disc and called Zephyr. As soon as his face appeared, Maxine said, "Hey, uncle Zeph. I need some help. Do you know any native information dealers?"

 Chapter 167

    Maxine slowly trudged through the forest that she had spotted Michelle Baker in. She decided to look for her during the day rather than at dusk when she had originally spotted Michelle. Thankfully, she had thought to have her shadow wolf follow Michelle the night before to avoid having to hunt her down later and was surprised to find that she was living with a trio of arachne. I''ve heard of arachne living in groups, but I''ve never heard of them letting a human, or any other species for that matter, live beside them for any period of time before.


    After a few minutes of hiking, she finally spotted the arachne nest and heard one of them yell at her, "That''s close enough, lizard woman. What do you want?"


    "I want to talk to the human living amongst you," Maxine replied, "And I''m not a lizard woman. I''m a human with a powerful bloodline, not a lizardkin."


    "Noted, but our human friend doesn''t want to talk to you. Go away," the arachne said coldly.


    "Even if I want to give her information on the people that killed her father?" Maxine asked. Through their silence, she knew that her statement had caught them off guard and were probably notifying Michelle. A few moments later, her suspicion was confirmed when Michelle came into sight just behind some dense webbing.


    "What do you know about the men that killed my father?" Michelle asked with a serious tone.


    "I know they were ordered to capture you by a man named Petre Andrevich and that man is the current russian ambassador residing in the city of St. Louis," Maixne answered honestly.


    "And why are you telling me this?" Michelle asked cautiously.


    "Because we''re both victims of that bastard," Maxine answered, "But in comparison, I was far luckier than you. My mother was only injured from the encounter."


    "Interesting story, but you''re not human. There is no way he would be dumb enough to kidnap an offworlder," Michelle said coldly.


    "I didn''t always look like this. I looked human in my teenage years when the attack on us happened," Maxine replied, "But that isn''t important. What is important is what you want to do to that bastard that ruined your life."


    "I want him dead," Michelle said angrily.


    "That''s where we disagree," Maxine said, "Death is too good for him. I want him to suffer horribly."


    "Hmph, and how would you do that?" Michelle asked.


    "By revealing every last one of his dirty deeds to not only his people, but to everyone," Maxine answered, "It would effectively ruin his career and if he''s particularly unlucky, he''ll end up being hunted by his own people. If you think that''s going too easy on him, there are other things that I can do to worsen his life. But if you decide to end him, I''ll help you do it."


    "Give me a few days to think about it," Michelle said before retreating back into the arachne nest.


    "I''ll return in five days," Maxine shouted before she turned to leave, but shouted behind her as she left, "Just so you know your aunt has never stopped looking for you." I''m not lying. Her aunt posted a $5000 reward on any information that leads up to Michelle''s return. Still, it''s her decision to help me out with this. It really doesn''t matter to me either way. Thankfully, she gave me the option of giving her some time. It allows me to get a hold of the documents from th at information broker. Now all I have to do is go through with my uncle''s request in return for helping me get that stuff. I don''t understand why he insisted that I pay him back by singing at a concert. I still don''t understand why he didn''t just ask me to make a bunch of potions. I''ll just ask him about it when I see him.


    Once Maxine was far enough away, she created an arch and returned back home. Lucas hug tackled almost immediately and asked, "Sarah''s house?"


    "Sorry, but not today," Maxine said apologetically, "But I''m going to sing for a bunch of people today. I thought I told you that earlier. Anyways, do you want to go?" Lucas looked at her for a moment before nodding his head.


    "I hope you plan take him for another playdate soon," Hellen said from the couch, "It''s done him some good. He''s speaking so much more since his time with Sarah."


    "That he has," Maxine said with a smile as she ruffled Lucas'' hair, "You must really like her, huh?"


    "Yes," Lucas replied, "She''s fun." More like, the only other kid that can and will play with you.


    "How about I see if I can have Amanda bring her along to join us for my performance?" Maxine offered.


    "Please," Lucas begged and even tried his best to use the puppy dog eyes.


    "I can only ask, but if she says no, there is not a lot I can do," Maxine said honestly.


    "Call them," Lucas demanded.


    "Alright, alright," Maxine chuckled as she pulled out her cellphone, but she saw that she had no signal. Of course, I wouldn''t have a signal. We''re on the fucking moon.


    "Here, use mine," Hellen said as she tossed Maxine a smart phone.


    "Umm, I don''t think that a change of phones is the issue," Maxine said and called Amanda without even bothering to look at the signal strength. If mom handed me this, she must''ve already tested it''s ability get in contact with Earth.


    After a few rings, Amanda answered, "Hello? Who is this?"


    "It''s Maxine," Maxine replied.


    "Oh, I''m a little busy right now. So, if you made it quick, I''d appreciate it," Amanda said.


    "Sorry about that, but will you be going to that concert being held by the Kavros Clan?" Maxine asked.


    "That''s exactly the problem I have right now," Amanda complained, "The ambassador wants tickets to it for him and his bodyguards."


    "I can hook you guys up," Maxine said confidently, "I''m their young miss, afterall. I just need to let my uncle know."


    "I''d appreciate it," Amanda said, "By the way, how did he convince you to perform?"


    "I''m doing as a favor for my uncle and getting you some tickets is not a problem at all," Maxine explained, "His subordinates were bored out of their minds and this is a good way to perk up their morale. It''s not every day they have their ''young miss'' sing for them."


    "That''s true," Amanda said, "In any case, make sure to include a ticket for me. I''m supposed to escort the ambassador around."


    "So, Sarah isn''t coming?" Maxine asked.


    "I could bring her. Why do you ask?" Amanda asked in return.


    "Well, Lucas wants to listen to me sing with Sarah," Maxine explained, "He really likes her."


    "That''s convenient. Sarah seems to like him as well, scales and all," Amanda said, "It''s adorable."


    "I agree. It''s too bad I can''t talk more. I have a few errands to run before I sing tonight," Maxine said, "See you then."


    "See you later," Amanda said before she hung up.


    Maxine handed Hellen''s cellphone back. "Thanks. How does that thing work out here, anyways?" Maxine asked.


    "Oh, that. I just had it specially made," Hellen replied, "It''s effective range is nine million miles or so." That''s some impressive range, and I''m willing to bet that cellphone literately has more computing power than the vast majority of the computers on Earth.


    "Hmm, I might order one," Maxine commented, "Anyways, do you know of any places on Earth that might be suitable for Lucas to find some more friends?"


    "You could try one of the parks set aside for beastkin," Hellen offered.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "There are parks set aside for that?" Maxine asked. Segregation? I thought we did away with that shit more than half a century ago.


    "Yes, but it''s not what you think," Hellen said, "The beastkin are the ones that requested for these parks. I think they simply wanted to avoid their children from harming normal humans." Oh, yeah. That''s right. Beastkin children are born with their cores and possess much greater physical strength.


    "That makes perfect sense," Maxine said, "I''m glad they thought of that. Because I certainly didn''t. I''ll look for one of those parks so Lucas can finally play without worrying about hurting his playmates."


    "Oh, that reminds me. Who''s going to watch Lucas while you sing?" Hellen asked.


    "I will," Maxine said with a smile, "I have a clone that can do the singing while he sits on my lap." Amanda will be too busy watching Sarah.


    "It will severely confuse him. He''s never seen your clones and he''s already expecting you to be on stage," Hellen advised Maxine, "I can look after him during your performance."


    "You''re right and thanks," Maxine said gratefully, "It never occured to me that he hasn''t seen my clones yet."


    "You should remedy that soon, so at least, he knows that they exist," Hellen said, "You should introduce him to Turan as well at some point."


    "Tell me about it. If I don''t, Lucas is likely to attack him as soon as he pops out of nowhere," Maxine joked and after a moment, she realized something, "Now that you bring him up, I''ve realized I havn''t seen him for awhile." It''s odd that he hasn''t found his way to me yet. Hell, he didn''t even check on me when I made my attack on the Alchemists Association''s branch office.


    "It almost sounds as if you''re worried about him," Hellen pointed out.


    "I''m not worried about him," Maxine replied, "It''s just that he''s been watching me for years. It feels odd that he''s not there." I am worried, but I refuse to admit it out loud. I hate that I actually consider that stalker as my friend, but he''s one of the few men whose touch doesn''t bother me.


    "He''s probably just being held up by his teacher at the Stardust Academy," Hellen said, "So, he will probably return to your side soon enough."


    "I don''t like how you phrased that," Maxine said in annoyance, "But I''ll let it slide. I need to make sure uncle Zeph doesn''t lay out a dress that makes me look scarier than I already do."


    Hellen chuckled and said, "I doubt that he will. In any case, I''ll keep an eye on Lucas while you''re gone."


    "Thanks again, mom," Maxine said as she opened up an arch that lead to the Kavros Clan''s compound on Earth, "Lucas, be good for grandma."


    "''Kay," Lucas said before he changed the channel on the TV to watch cartoons.


    Maxine simply shook her head in amusement and walked through the arch. She immediately saw a building that looked just like an apartment building, but she knew she was at the right place. Kavros clan members needed very little space to organize their people.


    She walked into the building and was immediately accosted by a rather young Kavros clanswoman, "What is your purpose here, beastkin?"


    "I see someone hasn''t bothered to keep themselves informed," Maxine commented coldly, "You''re going to feel like kicking yourself in a couple minutes."


    "I highly doubt that," the Kavros clanswoman said, but Maxine only smiled at her when she spotted Zephyr walking towards them from behind her.


    "Maxine! You''ve got excellent timing. I''ve got a few outfits for you to pick out from for your performance tonight," Zephyr said happily. However the Kavros clanswoman instantly paled. Yeah, I expected that kind of reaction. Uncle Zeph has no doubt informed everyone that his neice is coming to perform on stage.


    "Good. Let''s see what you''ve picked out for me," Maxine said cheerfully and sent via spiritual sense to the Kavros clanswoman, [You were just doing your job, so I''m not going to tell anyone about your behavior. But next time, be more respectful. Not everyone is as patient or understanding as I am.] The clanswoman only nodded her head stiffly before Maxine stopped paying attention to her and focused more on where Zephyr was leading her.


    Zephyr brought her to a dressing room, but the both of them stopped in their tracks once they walked inside. Turan standing there with his back towards them and was holding up an elegant green dress infront of himself. Why am I not surprised to see him here?


    "I think this one would look best on you," Turan said and turned around as he presented the dress to Maxine, "It definitely makes your eyes more dazzling, like smooth brown jewels flecked with gold."


    "Where the hell have you been?" Maxine asked.


    "I just arrived a few minutes ago," Turan answered, "My teacher at the Stardust Academy had very little to teach me and thus sent me away."


    "I doubt that," Maxine answered.


    "You can believe me or not. It matters very little," Turan said calmly, "But I still think this dress would look wonderful on you."


    "Is that because you know that''s my favorite color or because you think it would look good on me?" Maxine asked with a flat stare.


    "Can''t it be both?" Turan asked with a smile.


    "It can," Zephyr chimed in with a smile, "But there are other outfits here. Let Maxine pick one out for herself."


    "Of course, of course," Turan said as he placed the dress back into it''s place on the hanging rack.


    Maxine ignored both of them as she browsed through the various outfits set out. There were very few of them that could actually accomadate her tail, but narrowed her choices down to three. Unfortunately she couldn''t decided amongst them and tried to visualize each of them on her. The black dress with the slit in the skirt would look okay on me, but it will need some modifications to accomodate my tail. And the frilly green dress that Turan wants me to wear has too much contrast with my silvery skin. It would draw too much attention to my skin tone. Hmm it looks like I will have to go with the shimmering red dress. Although I''m not a fan of how much of my cleavage is visible, but at least, it''s already got a sleeve in the back for my tail. But after selecting that dress, Maxine had a sudden thought.


    "You know I can use my energies, or even my shadow''s embrace armor, to create any kind of dress that I want, right?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, we know, but it''s very obvious that you''re using your energies to make those clothing," Zephyr replied, "And your shadow''s embrace armor always has scales of some kind. It''s much better to just use actual fabric."


    "Fine," Maxine said as she held up the red shimmering dress, "I''ll wear this dress while I sing. Have your people adjust it to fit me."


    "They already have," Zephyr replied with a smile, "Our seamstress took a glance at you the other day and modified most of the outfits in this room, but she was limited on how much of it she could alter. So that''s why we decided to let you pick something out and adjust it to fit later. You just happened to pick out a dress that she already adjusted to fit you."


    "You shouldn''t have done that," Maxine said as she set the dress back on the clothing rack, "You''ll end up overworking your poor seamstress."


    "She''ll be fine," Zephyr replied casually, "She was actually rather bored to begin with and enjoyed the heavy workload."


    "Alright," Maxine said, "So when is this concert supposed to start?"


    "Seven o''clock," Zephyr answered, "You should get here around half an hour before that to get changed and do whatever you need to do before you perform."


    "Alright, anything else before I head out?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, there are a few song requests," Zephyr said as a data pad appeared in his hands before he gave it to Maxine, "I hope there are not too many of them."


    Maxine looked over them and was rather surprised. The majority of the songs requested originated from Earth. She spotted at least twelve songs that were related to the theme song of anime characters. She mentally selected a few of them, but one in particular caught her eye. Voracity? That''s actually a name to a song? I need to look this up. It seems to be an opening theme song related to the anime ''Overlord''.


    "Do you have somewhere that I can listen to these songs?" Maxine asked.


    "You can listen to them in the next room," Zephyr replied, "And while you do that, Turan and I will have a nice long chat about his coming and goings."


    "Have fun you two," Maxine said, but she knew that Zephyr was most likely going to be mostly yelling and threatening Turan.


    Maxine began listening to the songs that were requested and a devilish smile appeared on her lips as she listened to ''Voracity''. Oh, my. They''re asking someone with a hydra bloodline to sing about their ''intense hunger''. Do they want me to scare the hell out of them? Fuck it. I''ll have some fun with them and use it as my first song. I''ll just pick a few others and use the remainder of my time on stage to sing a few elven songs.


    Maxine listened to most of the songs before she selected the ones that she was confident that she could sing proficiently. Afterwards, she walked out of the room and didn''t see either Turan or Zephyr, but with Turan, that didn''t mean much. She knew all too well that he liked to remain hidden from sight.


    She shrugged as she left the building and created an arch back to home. Lucas was watching TV and Hellen was in the kitchen cooking. She''s making dinner early.


    "Dinner will be ready in another half hour," Hellen said and Maxine glanced at the time. It was 4:30pm. I was over there longer than I thought.


    "Thanks for letting me know. I''ll be sitting with Lucas," Maxine responded and sat down next to Lucas to wait for dinner to get ready. As usual, he was watching cartoons.


    After a little while, dinner was ready and Maxine went to the table with Lucas. While they ate, Guan asked, "You''re performing tonight?"


    "Yes, I''m repaying a favor to uncle Zeph," Maxine replied.


    "Oh? What kind of favor?" Guan asked.


    "He dug up some information for me on Petre Andrevich through less than legal means," Maxine replied, "Mr. Andrevich was the man that ordered the kidnapping of my birth mother."


    "And what do you plan to do with that information?" Guan asked.


    "That depends on the answer of a fellow victim that I managed to track down," Maxine replied.


    "And if she remains undecided?" Guan asked.


    "I''ll reveal all of his dirty deeds to the world to ruin his career and severe his spinal cord in just the right spot to turn him into a quadriplegic," Maxine replied, "He''ll be in a living hell for the rest of his life and I''ll pay out of my own pocket anonymously to ensure that''s a very long time."


    "Ruthless," Guan said, "I approve."


    "I don''t need your approval," Maxine replied. Guan simply chuckled before he returned to his meal. They spent the rest of their meal in silence.


    Shortly after finishing dinner and putting it away, Maxine created an arch to the Kavros clan''s compound on Earth. Hellen and Lucas followed behind Maxine. As soon as they arrived, several Kavros clansmen escorted Lucas and Hellen to a VIP waiting room while Maxine returned back to the room filled with the dresses.


    After changing into the red dress, Maxine waited in the hallway until someone came to escort her to the stage. When she got onto the stage and saw how packed the venue was, she was rather surprised. Thankfully, Lucas and Sarah were sitting side by side inbetween Hellen and Amanda and Hellen. They were sitting down in the front row in a VIP section, but unfortunately ambassador Andrevich was sitting next to Amanda. I wish he wasn''t in the front row.


    Regardless, Maxine showed a toothy smile as she thought about her opening song and transformed her pupils into verticle slits and sharpen her teeth into fangs. She took one deep breath as the instrumentals to kick in and sang ''Voracity'' and enjoyed how some of the audience looked nervous rather than cheering like everyone else.

 Chapter168

    Maxine was thoroughly looking over the documents sent by the information broker. She wanted to make sure it had as much concrete evidence as possible to put Petre Andrevich into prison. Unfortunately, there wasn''t much besides his ''over zealous'' attempts at acquiring more cultivators for his nation. I''m actually impressed that he wasn''t involved in some other scandal or criminal activity, but all that means is he''s uncommonly skilled at keeping himself from being implicated. Or he''s just an all around nice guy, but I don''t buy that. It makes it a lot harder for me to ruin his public image with so little hard evidence. It looks like I may have to get personally involved with this. I really don''t want to want to any connection with this when I make my move to cripple him. Still, I can imagine what would happen if I were to be involved. His superiors back home will probably do just about anything to fix this problem and will in all probability look the other way if I were to turn him into a cripple. At least if I''m revealed as a victim, I''ll have a legitimate reason for wanting to hurt him. The only drawback to this plan is that it will be most effective once my training to be completed in the event I have to get involved.


    "Why are you here, instead of with Emily?" Hellen asked, "Isn''t this her lunch hour?"


    "It is, but I''m giving her some space. She''s still mad at me for forgetting to personally invite her to my concert," Maxine replied honestly. And for some reason, it doesn''t matter that she still got to see it since uncle Zeph invited her for me. I felt like an idiot for forgetting to invite her msyelf. Although, I don''t think it was the best idea to tell her that I forgot. I should''ve just kept my mouth shut and thanked uncle Zeph for being so thoughtful.


    "That''s not what I heard," Guan said as she set a few potion bottles in front of Maxine, "In fact, she and I had a little chat last night. So you should listen to me when I say you should really just talk to her."


    "What?" Maxine asked in confusion.


    "She''s not angry, Maxine," Hellen said, "She''s jealous of the attention you''ve been giving Lucas."


    "I guess I have been neglecting her," Maxine admitted to herself.


    "Just take care of it," Guan said, "It doesn''t matter how."


    "You two talked about this behind my back, didn''t you?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes," Guan answered honestly, "It still doesn''t change the fact that your beloved is jealous."


    Maxine glanced at the potions before scooping them up. "What are the potions for?" she asked.


    "Oh, that," Guan said, "I made a few gender inversion potions for Emily and some fertility boosting potions for the both of you. You know as well as I do how much easier it is for a silver stage cultivator to have children than a gold stage one and your mother insisted that I make them."


    "I insisted?" Hellen asked while raising an eyebrow, "If I remember correctly, I believe it was you that wanted them to ''hurry up and have some children.''" Guan barely seemed to react, but she still saw his eye twitch very slightly. It was barely there, but it was enough for Maxine to see his discomfort at his intentions being revealed.


    "Really?" Maxine asked with a smirk.


    "I''m concerned that you will have as hard as we did at having you," Guan answered, "Even with all of my knowledge, it''s extremely difficult for us to conceive another child any time soon."


    "He''s right, Maxine," Hellen chimed in.


    "Fine, I''ll talk with Emily about it," Maxine said.


    "Good," Hellen said, "Now didn''t you have something you wanted to do today?"


    "Yes, I''ll be heading out in a few minutes," Maxine answered, "Oh, and I may bring Emily by for dinner. Is that ok?"


    "Of course, it is," Hellen said happily.


    "Thanks, mom," Maxine said as she gave Hellen a hug, "Now, I better get going. I''ve got an appointment to keep."


    Maxine created an arch that lead near the arachne nest and walked through it. She hiked towards the arachne nest, but paused for a moment when she noticed Turan talking to a blonde arachne. However a smile spread across her lips when she saw the look on that arachne''s face. Oh, poor Turan. She''s sizing him up as a potential mate. I wonder if she''s the kind of arachne that forces her affections on others. It would teach him a good lesson if she was, but I''m more interested in the change in some of his behaviors. It''s completely unlike him to appear where I''m going. He normally just appears beside me.


    As soon as Maxine entered the blonde arachne''s line of sight, she greeted Maxine, "I''ll let Michelle know that you''re here. But before I do, I have a question. Is this male your mate?" Well, this gives me a perfect moment to test a theory of mine.


    "Nope," Maxine said honestly, "He''s all yours." A smile blossomed on the blonde arachne''s face.


    "What does that mean?" Turan asked in confusion.


    "It means that you''re available," Maxine said, "Arachnes have a strong aversion about grabbing another woman''s man. She probably caught my scent on you and asked me about our relationship because she''s interested in you."


    "She''s right, you know," the blonde arachne remarked while flashing a beautiful smile at Turan, "Could you wait here while I go get my friend? I''ll be right back and we can talk some more."


    "She really is quite beautiful," Turan said after the blonde arachne was out of earshot and Maxine was instantly on guard.


    "Who are you?" Maxine asked with hostility as she took a few steps away from him.


    "Maxine, you know who I am," Turan replied, "What''s this about?"


    "Fine, if you know me so well, who was the only man that I''ve ever shown a romantic interest in?" Maxine asked, "Surely, someone as dedicated to stalking me as you would know this."


    "What?!" Turan asked in disbelief.


    "And you already failed my test," Maxine said coldly, "If you were Turan, you wouldn''t have hesitated at all. Instead, he would''ve said it was a trick answer or guessed based on my past behaviors."


    "What gave me away?" the fake Turan asked.


    "You''re an idiot. That''s how," Maxine replied coldly, "But I guess you want more details, so here it is. First off, Turan has always disengaged his stealth technique no more than ten feet from me and he hasn''t done so indoors if he could help it. Second, aside from our first meeting, he has never once made any comment about my eyes. Third and most importantly, he''s confessed that he''s in love with me and would never flirt with another woman where I could see. There are a few other things, but next to those three, they are nearly irrelevant."


    "You must have some affection for him yourself if you noticed such details about him," the fake Turan remarked.


    "That''s where you are wrong," Maxine replied, "I consider him a non-aggressive stalker that''s been following around me for years. It would be more bizarre if I didn''t pick up on his behavioral quirks. Now, what have you done with Turan?"


    "Nothing, and he''s fine by the way. I''m just here temporarily until he''s done with a certain task," the fake Turan said, and he turned towards the arachne nest before smiling, "Welcome back." I can''t tell if he''s lying or not. But he probably is lying. I doubt he would be taking on Turan''s face otherwise. Great, this is the last thing I want to deal with. I much rather have Turan around. He may be a stalker, but he''s the one I know. I have no idea what this new guy is capable of.


    "Thank you," the blonde arachne replied happily as she approached and gestured towards her right, "Michelle is waiting over there to talk to you."


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    "Thanks, and that guy''s face is an illusion," Maxine said before creating dozens of energy threads before throwing them at the fake Turan''s face, but not to harm him. It was just strong enough to shatter the illusion. He was still a shadow lord, but he looked far more ruggedly handsome than Turan. However, the blonde arachne wasn''t surprised at his change of appearance.


    "I was aware of the illusion, but thanks for dispelling it," the blonde arachne said, "Now, handsome, where were we?"


    Maxine shrugged and walked towards Michelle. She was still wearing the rags, but she looked cleaner than before. "Did you come to a decision?" Maxine asked.


    "Show me what you have on him first," Michelle answered. Maxine shrugged and retrieved the documents from her dimensional ring. She created a tendril to hand it to her.


    "That''s all I could find on him," Maxine said, "I know most of it is circumstantial at best, but you should take a peek at page 13. On it is a list of everyone he''s sent squads after. That''s literately the only event that can be directly tied to him."


    "If you have this, why do you need me?" Michelle asked.


    "Look at me," Maxine told Michelle as she gestured at herself, "Between you and me, who do you think the public is more willing to listen to? I''m some scary beastkin girl and you''re a beautiful, albeit emotionally damaged, young woman. It doesn''t matter if I''m a good alchemist. People judge others based on appearance whether they admit it or not."


    "I''ve noticed that kind of thing when a few people approached our home. They reacted either acted like a bunch of horny idiots or were afraid of Lyssa and the others," Michelle answered.


    "I wasn''t expecting some of them to behave like horn dogs, but it still proves my point," Maxine said, "So, do you agree to help me out, or am I on my own?"


    "I''ll help, but first, tell me why you even bothering after ten years to go after him," Michelle demanded.


    "Because I haven''t had an opportunity yet," Maxine replied honestly, "And there was a proximity issue as well. I was away from Earth for years at a time."


    "I see," Michelle replied, "Fine, what do you need me to do?"


    "For starters, we need to get you into something other than rags," Maxine stated, "After that, I don''t know. You can decide how to circulate that information. You can go to your aunt for help, post it online or go to the news stations. It doesn''t matter to me how you do it, so long as it gets done."


    "And if he doesn''t get punished?" Michelle asked.


    "I''ll shatter his spine in just the right way to turn his body into a literal prison that can still feel," Maxine answered honestly, "Although I''m thinking about doing that anyways and using my amassed wealth to keep him alive for a very long time."


    "Can''t we just do that?" Michelle asked, "I think publicizing all of this dirt you have on him is a waste of time if you''re planning on doing that to begin with."


    "True, but by doing it this way, there will be next to no public sympathy," Maxine answered, "If there''s public sympathy, there will be more people looking for the person or persons that rendered him immobile. Which translates to it becoming more likely that one or both of us will be found out to be his attacker."


    "I see your point. I''m going to grab a few things and let the others know that I''m leaving," Michelle said before she ran back deeper into the arachne nest. When she returned, she was wearing light grey pants with a matching shirt and she was wearing a large traveling pack strapped to her shoulders. Is that undyed arachne silk? It has be. There isn''t any other material that they could''ve used to make it.


    "So, where do you want me to drop you off at?" Maxine asked.


    "My aunt''s place," Michelle answered, but she looked nervous, "I want to let her know that I''m okay and maybe, live with her."


    "Are you okay with flying?" Maxine asked, "Or would you rather I create a portal that leads directly to her front lawn?"


    "I thought we were just going to walk there," Michelle replied, "But if we have to take one of those two, I''ll go with flying." Yeah, I''ve known a quite few people that would much rather travel the normal ways than through portals or teleportation arrays.


    "Good choice," Maxine said as she levitated off the ground and created a couple tendrils to grab Michelle. Michelle looked surprised that Maxine could actually fly, but that was quickly replaced with fear when she saw the tendrils grabbing her.


    "You''re not planning on doing anything weird to me, are you?" Michelle asked nervously. Oh, I guess she''s heard about tentacle porn.


    "I''m not going to anything weird to you with them. They are just meant to hold onto you while I fly you there," Maxine reassured Michelle, "I could carry you on my back, but I might accidentally poke out your eye or something with one of my quills. It''s safer for you this way. Oh! And try not to talk while we are flying. You might end up swallowing a bug or something. If you need to talk, use your spiritual sense."


    "Spiritual sense? What''s that?" Michelle asked as she let Maxine''s tendrils pick her up. Oh, I guess no one has taught her how to use it yet.


    "Oh, it''s a special sense that cultivators like us can use," Maxine replied, "I can teach you how to use it later. It''s not that hard. Most people figure it out after an hour or so."


    "Thanks. By the way, how long is our flight going to take?" Michelle asked. Her aunt lives nearby at least. I think she stayed to continue looking for her niece. So it shouldn''t take me too long, even if I fly to it at a slower speed.


    "Oh, and about ten to fifteen minutes give or take," Maxine replied and began to levitate the both of them above the tree tops, "You might want to brace yourself."


    "Why?" Michelle asked.


    "You''ll see," Maxine said with a smirk and slowly accelerated towards the city that Michelle''s aunt lived in. Just as Maxine was about to hit Mach 1, she glanced back at Michelle. She didn''t look stressed, but that didn''t mean much. Maxine accelerated past Mach 1, and the accompanied sonic boom thundered in her ears. Michelle looked as if she just took a punch to the gut. I was afraid of that. Cultivators under silver stage can''t withstand a sonic boom that well. Still, I factored that in to the flight time that I told her earlier.


    Maxine maintained her pace until they neared the city and reduced her speed. There were several laws prohibiting super sonic flight over cities or suburbs due to it startling both animals and people. Regardless, Maxine was still able to zero in on Michelle''s aunt, who was home for her lunch at this time.


    Maxine approached the house and came in for a landing. However she made sure that Michelle was firmly on the ground before she released her and landed herself.


    "So, do you want to knock on the door or should I?" Maxine asked, "And if you''re wondering, she''s home right now."


    "I''ll do it," Michelle said as she walked up to the front door, but she hesitated for nearly a minute before she gently knocked on the front door of her aunt''s house. After a few minutes, the door opened and once Michelle''s aunt saw Michelle, she started breathing quickly.


    "Hey, auntie Sue," Michelle said casually, but her body language showed that she was uncomfortable.


    "Michelle!" Michelle''s aunt Sue howled with tears in her eyes and quickly embraced Michelle. Maxine smiled at the two and felt happy for them. She gave them one last look before she began walking away to let them get reacquainted. It''s not my place to interfere. I just have to wait for things to play out.


    However before she got far, she heard Michelle''s aunt Sue call out to her, "Thank you for bringing Michelle home."


    Maxine looked over her shoulder and replied, "You''re welcome. I''ll leave you so that you two can catch up." She quickly created an arch before walking through it without waiting for an answer.


    "Welcome back," Hellen said, "Did you finish your errand?"


    "Yes, I did," Maxine answered simply and she looked to Lucas, "Ready to go to the park?"


    "Yes, mama," Lucas said as he bounced with an excited look on his face. She checked his special gloves and shoes to make sure they wouldn''t come off while he was playing before she created another arch.


    Once they walked through, Maxine saw the park had dozens of beastkin families with their children. Lucas'' gaze zeroed on on the closest group of children before he literately ran on all fours, almost like a wolf, towards them.


    Before he reached them, she checked their cultivation and was somewhat surprised when each of them were bronze stage. It''s unfair that they are born with their cores, but I guess it evens out since their cultivation rates are much slower than that of a human. And their limited by how strong they can get due to their age. Peak bronze stage is probably the strongest they can get before they reach adolescence.


    The other beastkin children just looked at him as he approached and thankfully Lucas stopped to stand up right just as he reached them. They simply stared at each other for a few moments before one of them rushed up to him before saying ''tag you''re it'' as they gently touched his shoulder and in the next moment, they collectively ran away from Lucas.


    A smile instantly appeared on Lucas'' before he started chasing the other beastkin children around. It took only seconds for him to catch up to one of them and tag them.


    Maxine continued to watch Lucas and the other beastkin children play before she found a bench to sit down on to watch him. This is like heaven and earth compared to how normal human children react to him. Hmm, I wonder if Emily is on her lunch break. It should be about that time. She checked the time on her cell phone to make sure and called Emily.


    "Hey, Maxine. You have the oddest sense of timing," Emily said as soon as the call connected, "I was literately about to start eating."


    "Sorry, but I wanted to make sure I got in contact with you," Maxine said apologetically, "I was wondering if you want to do anything with me tonight?"


    "What did you have in mind?" Emily asked.


    "Maybe dinner and a movie," Maxine answered, "Or you can decide what we do. I don''t really care so long as it''s time spent with you."


    "A dinner and a movie sound great," Emily said happily, "But will it be okay for you to leave Lucas with Hellen?"


    "It should be," Maxine said, "I''m actually watching him play with a bunch of beastkin children. He seems to be having a lot of fun."


    "Take a video of that for me," Emily said, "And I really should get to my lunch. My lunch break is limited."


    "Alright," Maxine said, "I''ll see you tonight."


    "See you then," Emily said before the call ended.


    Maxine activated the camera mode on her phone and began recording Lucas and the other beastkin children playing. She also used her spiritual sense to constantly monitor the condition of his gloves and shoes to make sure they stayed on. Good, they don''t look like they''re going to fall off any time soon. And it''s nice that Emily is able to go out with me tonight. Things are really coming together. Still, I should tell her my plans about dealing with that prick, Petre Andrevich. It''s something that I need to take care of before Michelle begins spreading the news about him. I just hope she doesn''t get too angry about it.

 Chapter 169

    Maxine spent two weeks waiting for Michelle Baker to release the documents on Petre Andrevich and she finally saw some results. It was mostly russian politicians spouting non-sense that those documents were fake, but regardless, it was gaining traction in the public. It wouldn''t be long before a serious inquiry began and by then, it would become harder and harder for the ambassador to deny it.


    Emily was not a fan of Maxine''s plan, but went along with it anyway. Maxine was grateful for that and promised Emily that he would be the only one that she went after like this. It helped that Petre Andrevich had hurt many others. It made Maxine''s actions look more righteous than if she were simply attacking him out of a personal vendetta.


    But now, she was in an excellent mood. Mostly because she was almost certain that her training to control her hydra bloodline was finished, but she wasn''t entirely sure. She still felt the innate aggression and hunger while in her battle form, but she could choose to not let it bother her. She still decided to wait until later on in the day to return to her base state, but only after talking to Guan to hear his opinion on the matter first. He is the first human-hydra hybrid and probably had enough experience in the matter to know if Maxine''s training was truly completed.


    She walked towards his alchemy room and peeked inside. He wasn''t working on any pills or potions, so Maxine figured now was the best time to talk to him. "Hey, daddy," Maxine said as she entered his alchemy room, "I have a question that I need to ask you."


    "Hmm? What is it?" Guan said in a calm tone.


    "I just wanted to know if there is anyway to further improve my control over this form," Maxine explained.


    "As far as I can tell, there isn''t and any further time in that state will render very little in the way of control," Guan said and he had a slight look of confusion on his face, "On that note, why are you still in that state? Your training should''ve ended last night."


    "It did?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, you did," Guan said in an approving tone, "Now, if only I could figure out a means to fix your other weaknesses, I would be completely at ease."


    "I''m not going to just stand there and let people hurt children," Maxine growled.


    "I know, but it''s only a matter of time before your love of children is used against you again, Maxine," Guan pointed out, "It''s no secret at this point since someone already tried to use Lucas to draw you out. Or did you think that Horatio wasn''t going to inform me?"


    "I thought he might," Maxine said calmly, "But that only means that I need to get stronger or punish those that mess with me harsher to prevent that kind of thing, right?"


    "Good, you''re learning," Guan said approvingly.


    "Just so you know, I''m still not going to be the genocidal maniac that you are," Maxine told him before walking out of his alchemy room.


    "I never expected you to," Guan said softly in return, but to Maxine, it might as well have been a shout.


    Maxine turned to look at him for a moment before walking towards the living room. Lucas was reading a book out loud while sitting on Hellen''s lap. It looks like mom is enjoying some time with Lucas. I hate to interrupt them. I think it''s okay if I just sit next to them.


    "Good job, Lucas," Hellen praised Lucas as he finished reading the book and she turned her head slightly towards Maxine, "I heard that talk you had with your father."


    "I didn''t know we were that loud," Maxine replied.


    "You weren''t, but the ventilation system carries your voice quite well," Hellen said with a smirk, "Anyways, when are you going to change back to normal? And I hope your going to do it in front of Lucas. He may be smart, but it may be difficult for him to recognize you if you don''t."


    "Yeah, you''re right," Maxine said and stood up before moving in front of both Hellen and Lucas, "Lucas, I know you''ve heard me and grandma talking about this before, but this is not my original shape. I''m going to change into my original shape, okay?" Lucas looked at her in confusion, but after a few moments, he nodded his head.


    Maxine widened her stance and spread her arms out before she slowly began reverting back to her natural state. Lucas'' eyes widened in wonder as Maxine''s quills changed into her original state. She felt her scales become smooth skin, quills become hair and her claws back to fingernails. Once she finished her transformation completed, she assessed herself. This is going to feel a little weird without a tail, but I can adapt. Hmm, I may need a haircut. I don''t like having my hair reach past my shoulder blades and right now it''s reaching halfway down my back. Although, Emily always liked it when I let my hair when it''s longer. I''ll talk to her about it.


    "So, what do you think?" Maxine asked Lucas.


    "You''re still beautiful, mama," Lucas said.


    "Charmer," Maxine said happily as she ruffled Lucas'' hair, "Do you want to go see Emily with me?"


    "I want to see Sarah," Lucas replied.


    "I see how it is. You rather see your girlfriend rather than hang out with your mom, right?" Maxine asked.


    "She is my friend and she is a girl," Lucas answered.


    "You''re not wrong, but you will think differently when you''re a little older," Maxine said knowingly, "She will too for that matter, but if you''re not going to go with me, you can just stay here."


    "Okay," Lucas said.


    "That''s great. I can get you to read me another book, Lucas," Hellen said happily.


    "You two have fun," Maxine said and before she could do much else, she felt a vibration coming from her dimensional ring. She retrieved her communication disk from her ring and answered the call.


    "Maxine!" Orianna greeted Maxine with a panic stricken expression, "I need your help! Patrick''s group just appeared out of nowhere and they''re all beat up pretty bad. Most of them look like they''ll live without help, but one of them doesn''t look like he will last very long."


    "Opening a portal to you now," Maxine told her without any hesitation and opened up an arch directly in front of Orianna, "Bring him over as fast as you can and I''ll do the rest." Orianna rode a centipede-like construct through the portal. At the tail end of that construct, there was a small bed strapped to it''s back with Jason Markham laying on it. He was semi-conscious, and in tremendous pain. But she was very concerned about the bloody foam forming at the corner of his mouth.


    Maxine closed the arch and swiftly went to his side to check his wounds with her spiritual sense. Fuck, his body looks like he''s been through a blender. I''m not even going to try to count all of his cuts scattered throughout his body. A few of those cuts got deep enough to injure his kidneys, intestines, lungs and liver. If he wasn''t a cultivator, he would be a corpse a few times over. He must''ve gotten swarmed by a bunch of goblins weaker than himself. No wonder he''s hurt so bad. Still, these injuries are nothing to scoff at. She immediately started healing his damaged lung while scanning the rest of his body to see if there were any damaged blood vessels. To her surprise, the only major artery that needed attention was his left leg''s femoral artery and it only had a small nick in it. Not enough to be immediately fatal, but enough that he would eventually bleed to death if it was left unattended. It only took a few moments to close that wound.


    As for his internal organs, she had to convert her energies to the divine attribute to heal them without leaving any permanent damage and had to do it slowly to avoid putting too much stress on his already strained body. She stopped halfway and retrieved a nutritional potion from her dimensional ring.


    "Drink," Maxine told him as she raised his head with one hand and held the potion to his lips with the other, "Your body is in need of extra nutrients for me to finish healing you." He drank it slowly and once he finished it off, she went back to healing the rest of his injuries. Unfortunately, there was no way she could heal him completely.


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    Just as she finished, she felt a hand gently rest on her shoulder for a brief moment. "I''ll take it from here, Maxine," Guan said gently and knelt down beside her to examine Jason more carefully, "You''ve gotten most of it already. There are a few small injuries that you overlooked, but one of my potions should heal him the rest of the way." He placed one of his potions into Maxine''s hands as he finished speaking.


    "Thanks, daddy," Maxine replied and after a little prodding, she got Jason Markham to drink it.


    "Think nothing of it," Guan said gently, "Although, I am curious as to what he did to earn such care from you. I thought you hated men."


    "I don''t hate men. I just don''t want them touching me. As for Jason, he tried to save me from some kidnappers far more powerful than himself," Maxine answered honestly, "It was an idiotic move on his part, but he still tried. So I trust him to a degree and as you know, I don''t trust many people."


    "I see," Guan said calmly, "Set him up in the guest bedroom." He started walking away before she could answer him.


    "Understood," Maxine replied to Guan''s back and gestured for Orianna to direct her centipede construct to the guest bedroom. By the time that she finally got him taken care of, she realized that Emily''s lunchbreak had already ended. Shit, I hope she''s not too angry with me that I didn''t make it.


    Just as Maxine returned to the living room, Hellen spoke up, "Emily called earlier wondering where you were and I told her what was going on."


    "Thanks for telling her, mom," Maxine said gratefully.


    "It''s what I should do," Hellen replied, "And I also invited her to dinner tonight."


    "Nice," Maxine said happily, "I''ll make a trip to Amanda''s guild to see if she has any work for me. If not, I''ll take Lucas for another trip to the park."


    "Sounds good to me," Hellen said, "Try to be back before dinner if nothing else and don''t forget to bring Emily. She can''t get here on her own just yet."


    "I know. See you later, mom," Maxine replied as she created a portal that lead to the front of Amanda''s guild. As soon as she walked through it, she was greeted with confused looks. They''re probably wondering why this ''new girl'' came out of the portal that the beastkin alchemist usually uses.


    Maxine ignored them and walked inside. No one recognized her and she felt a bit of relief when she realized that Petre Andrevich wasn''t around today. He had made a point of visiting this guild at least once a week to ''improve relations'' as he put it. But everyone knew that it was just an excuse to try and poach more people from the Fire and Ice guild. It was no surprise when she found he has pulled a similar move to the other guilds in the area.


    The receptionist at the front desk gave Maxine a strange look before her eyes widened and she dialed Amanda''s office number. "Mrs. Maze, I think your alchemist friend is here, but I''m not one hundred percent it''s her," the receptionist said and paused for a moment as she listened to Amanda''s response before replying to it, "Yes, she looks human and has silver hair. How did you- Yes, I''ll send her up right away."


    Before the receptionist could say anything more, Maxine said, "I heard. Take it easy." She didn''t wait for the receptionist to reply before Maxine moved to the elevators and made her way to Amanda''s office.


    As soon as she walked in, Amanda appraised Maxine with a smile. "I see your training finished. Did it pay off?"


    "Yes, it did," Maxine admitted, "I''ve developed a lot more control over my aggression when I''m in my battle form. Although, it feels strange to be without my tail and I''m not sure how much control I will have if I fully transform into a hydra. But I should be good to breakthrough to gold stage."


    "Awesome and you know what it means for humanity when you breakthrough, right?" Amanda asked excitedly. Maxine furrowed her brows in confusion for a moment before it struck her like a lightning bolt. For young worlds like Earth, the Alliance would provide a protector for that planet until the first native born gold stage cultivator appeared. The native born gold stage cultivator would become that planet''s protector and would give a voice, albeit a small one, within the Alliance whenever laws are voted on.


    "I have no intention of ever taking over daddy''s job," Maxine said bluntly, "Anyways, the governments of Earth would stir up a huge fuss about not having a say over what I decide. I don''t want to deal with that headache."


    "You could always send a representative to speak in your place," Amanda offered.


    "Yeah, I could, but you know how politicians are. They could make promises they they won''t be able to keep and as the planet''s protector, it would fall on me to uphold their promise. I do not want to even take a risk that scenario could happen. No matter how low the odds are that it will. And that''s not even considering the schemes that the more unscrupulous Alliance members would use to trick me into selling Earth''s rights away, if I were to go myself," Maxine countered, "It''s easier and safer for everyone involved just to let daddy keep doing what he''s been doing. No one wants to provoke a genocidal maniac."


    "You''ve thought about this alot, haven''t you?" Amanda asked.


    "Yes, I have and I don''t want to EVER be in a position of power," Maxine replied.


    "I understand where you are coming from, but Earth needs a voice in the Alliance," Amanda pointed out, "It''s worth the risk." When did Amanda get so political? Hmm, must''ve happened when I was away and I just haven''t noticed until now.


    "Yeah, but not through me," Maxine said firmly.


    "Do you have any idea how long it will take before Earth will get another gold stage cultivator?" Amanda asked almost angrily.


    "Another few years at the earliest, a decade at most," Maxine answered honestly.


    "And I will have to deal with the complaints about this from the government until then," Amanda said with obvious irritation in her voice.


    "Just give them my phone number. They can direct their complaints to me," Maxine said firmly, "I will let them know just what I think about them."


    "Alright, but remember you asked for this," Amanda said in surrender, "Did you have any other reason to come down here than to give me an update?"


    "I was wondering if you had any work for me," Maxine answered, "I like to keep busy."


    "No, I don''t," Amanda said, "The other guilds might, but that''s up to you to go see them. They don''t like talking to the competition."


    "Well, shit. I have no idea how to advertise that I''m available," Maxine complained to herself, "Is there an auction that I could post my potions up at?"


    "There is a monthly auction for cultivators at the Kavros Clan''s headquarters," Amanda answered with a smirk, "As their ''young miss'', I thought you would know about that." Maxine felt like an idiot, but kept her embarrassment off of her face.


    "They don''t keep me updated on every little thing," Maxine retorted, "Although I''m pretty sure they would buy my potions directly off of me. Thanks for the tip."


    "Don''t mention it," Amanda said, "Although, I wish you would reconsider becoming Earth''s representative."


    "Not a chance," Maxine replied, "Anyways, I''m not planning on breaking through to gold stage for at least a few years."


    "What? Why?" Amanda asked.


    "I want to have a couple kids and it''s easier to do it while I''m still a silver stage cultivator," Maxine explained, "I originally wanted to be able to protect myself and my family, but it''s not necessary anymore. There is no immediate need for me to become more powerful than I am right now and I have both the Kavros clan and my biological parents to help keep everyone safe during a pregnancy."


    "So, who''s the lucky guy?" Amanda asked before she followed up with, "I thought you didn''t like men."


    "As if I need a man to have kids," Maxine said, "Daddy developed a potion to help lesbian couples have children. It''s a gender inversion potion. It basically gives a woman a dick and balls without changing their frame." I''m almost certain that I told her about it before. Did she forget?


    "I''m not even going to question how that works," Amanda said while shaking her head, "Anyways, I''ve got a lot of work ahead of me. If you don''t need anything else, I should really get to it." At least, she didn''t ask about it''s effect on men.


    "I can''t think of anything else, thanks," Maxine said gratefully and moved to leave the office, "See you later."


    "See you," Amanda said just before Maxine could shut the door behind herself.


    Maxine began working her way out of the building, but as she left the elevator, she saw Ambassador Andrevich. To her surprise, though, the ambassador''s gaze immediately locked onto her and for an instant, she saw a look of surprise and disbelief in his eyes before it disappeared. So, he both remembers me. I would love to see his reaction when he finds out I''m the one that gave Michelle those documents, but I would rather be incognito for little longer. It shouldn''t be too much longer before the reporters figure out that I''m back on Earth and still amongst the living.


    Maxine didn''t spare him another glance and walked out of the building. She created an arch that lead back home, but when she walked through, she was immediately infuriated. Jason Markham was out of bed and talking to Hellen on the couch. Both of them noticed her almost instantly.


    Instead of locking up or showing guilt, Jason got to his feet as if in a daze and was walking towards her. "What the hell are you doing out of bed?! You''re supposed to be-," Maxine''s tirade was cut short when Jason sealed her lips with a kiss. His action left her completely stunned and didn''t react until his tongue invaded her mouth. Without even having to think about it, she kneed him in the balls. He fell to the ground grasping at his injured testicles while groaning in pain.


    Maxine was nearly blinded with rage, but she restrained herself by reminding herself that his wounds had yet to fully heal. "If you''re up to pulling that kind of shit, you''re healed enough that you don''t need me to keep an eye on you," Maxine growled as she grabbed him by his hair as she formed an arch in front of herself and threw him into it. She heard a few surprised shouts from Patrick and the rest of his troupe from the other side of it just as she dismissed the arch.


    "You must like him," Hellen commented, "I''ve seen you beat someone far worse for less."


    "I have to agree with mom," Orianna chimed in, "I heard you beat the ever living hell out of someone for just trying to touch your butt."


    Maxine only glared at the both of them before storming off to the bathroom to brush her teeth. That fucking asshole. My day was going so nice and he just had to pull something like that. I know he has a crush on me, but he should''ve known that kissing me like that would only piss me off. It doesn''t help that mom and Orianna were right when they said I took it easy on him. Why didn''t I beat the shit out of him?! I could''ve just patched him back up afterwards. She stopped in her tracks as she closed her eyes and took a deep calming breath. That''s right. Calm the fuck down. That idiot was just thinking with his dick and didn''t consider the consequences of his actions. And I have more important things to worry about than being pissed off that Jason stole a kiss from me. I need to keep an eye on the news and be ready for those damn reporters when they show up. I don''t want them harassing Claudia and Nathan just to get my attention.

 Chapter 170

    "It''s so nice to have a meal with just the two of us," Maxine commented as she sat at a table with Emily in one of the more fancy restaurants in the area. They had just finished eating and were relaxing before paying the bill.


    "Yes, it is," Emily replied, "That Lucas is a bundle of energy. I''m surprised your home is in as good of condition as it is." And now you know why I don''t wear dresses very often. Even with his special gloves and shoes, that little shit might accidentally shred them with his claws and it''s far easier to replace a pair of denim jeans or a t-shirt than a nice dress. Still, I wonder if Emily likes the dark green dress that I''m wearing right now. She hasn''t made a comment on it, so I can''t be sure.


    "You should''ve seen the damage he caused before daddy got him those gloves and shoes. He absolutely shredded everything underfoot," Maxine said honestly.


    "You told me about that. I completely understand why it takes both you and Hellen to keep that little guy in line," Emily pointed out, "By the way, have you talk to Jason lately?"


    "I haven''t talked to him since I threw him out of the house," Maxine answered, "Why do you ask?"


    "Just curious," Emily replied, but Maxine sense there was more to it than just her being curious.


    "I''m not interested in him, Emily," Maxine said bluntly.


    "Don''t be so quick to say that. You never know what surprises life throws at you," Emily said while smiling knowingly, "Take me for example. I didn''t even consider the possibility that I was bi until after you kissed me."


    "And what a happy surprise that was for the both of us," Maxine said with a happy smile.


    "That it was," Emily agreed. But at that point, Maxine spied a man and woman pair approaching them out of the corner of her eye. She spotted a small handheld camera in the man''s right hand. It took them long enough to find out that I''m alive. I just wish that bitch had waited until after we left this place. The other four were polite enough to wait outside until we leave the restaurant.


    "I''m sorry. It seems our date is going to get interrupted," Maxine apologized to Emily, "A pair of reporters are approaching us from behind you."


    "Shit," Emily uncharacteristically cursed, "At least, they waited until after we finished eating."


    "There is that," Maxine agreed just before the reporter and her cameraman arrived at their table.


    "Are you Maxine Levings?" the reporter asked.


    "That is my legal name," Maxine answered coldly, "And you are?"


    "Oh, I''m Marisha Walters from channel 5 news," the reporter replied, "Can I ask you a few questions? It won''t take much of your time."


    "I would prefer it if you left us alone," Maxine answered in an even colder tone, but just as she finished speaking, the reporter pulled a microphone from her bag. I don''t know what I was expecting. I know that someone like her wouldn''t leave even if I told her to directly.


    "Ms. Levings, where have you been the last few years since your supposed death?" Marisha Walters asked and practically shoved the microphone in Maxine''s face.


    "Not on Earth," Maxine answered. You interrupted my date with Emily and I''m sure as hell not going to make this a good interview.


    "Can you give me any specifics?" Marisha Walters asked.


    "No," Maxine answered simply and gave Marisha Walters an angry glare, "You get one more question."


    Marisha Walters seemed to hesitate for a moment before she asked, "What are you feelings towards Ambassador Petre Andrevich now that it''s been made public that he''s responsible for your mother''s kidnapping and subsequent injury?" I knew this question was coming, but it still pisses me off for someone to ask it.


    "My feelings?" Maxine asked as she tried to contain her anger, but she still wasn''t able to completely control herself as she snarled, "His men nearly killed my birth mother and you ask me how I feel about him?! Fine. If it will sate the curiosity of your viewers to insensitively poke at me, I''ll tell you. I hate that man and if there is any justice in this world, he will pay for his crimes against everyone that he''s hurt. Now, leave me alone!" She unleashed some dragon just as she finished speaking.


    "Yes, of course," Marisha Walters said nervously and she quickly left the table. Maxine spied the manager of the restaurant approaching them and promptly pushed down her anger. Neither Emily or that manager deserved to experience her wrath.


    "I think the manager is going to ask us to leave for making a scene," Maxine said to Emily.


    "Can you blame them?" Emily asked, "You were practically yelling at that reporter, but I understand why you were. She''s lucky that you didn''t slap her."


    "If I had, I might''ve taken her head off by mistake," Maxine said while pushing her anger at the reporter out of her mind, "It''s hard to control my strength when I''m angry."


    "Ladies, here is your bill," the manager said calmly, "And I apologize for the earlier disruption. Miss Walters has been warned in the past about bothering the other customers and has been banned from this establishment."


    "Thank you," Maxine replied politely, "And please pass my compliments to the chef. Everything tasted heavenly."


    "I will let him know," the manager said with a smile, "I hope you both enjoy the rest of your evening." After bowing his head slightly, he began walking back to the main counter.


    "We can only try," Maxine replied to his back before focusing her gaze onto Emily, "I don''t see much more point to stay here. Do you?"


    "Not really. That reporter ruined it for me," Emily complained.


    "My thoughts exactly," Maxine agreed as she stood up and grabbed the bill, "Let me take care of this. I''m the one that suggested we eat here anyways."


    Once the bill was paid, Maxine met up with Emily at the entrance to the restaurant and saw the reporters moving towards them just as they were leaving the building. She already had enough of the invasive questioning from the one that ambushed her inside and unleashed her dragon fear towards them to relay to them that she didn''t want to be interviewed. This halted their approach, but they didn''t leave. Damn, I thought they would be more cowardly than that. Well, you can''t be a reporter without having some some bravery.


    "Since these guys are so resolute about following us around, how about we fly through the sky for a bit?" Maxine asked Emily.


    "Great idea," Emily replied and she held Maxine''s hand as both of them took flight. They flew above the city and admired the view of countless lights scattered across the ground from the night sky. However they kept below a certain altitude to avoid any planes or helicopters that might be in the air.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    "It''s a great view," Maxine commented.


    "It is, but I should really head back soon," Emily said, "Grandpa still gets worried if I stay out too late."


    "Seriously?" Maxine asked incredulously, "Nothing short of a nuke going off in your face could kill you and the few cultivators that could hurt you wouldn''t. They know better than to hurt the only divine attribute healer on the planet."


    "I know that, but grandpa is just being overly cautious," Emily explained, "His explanation every time is that I lack the combat power to defend myself. He isn''t wrong in that respect. If it wasn''t for my powerful barriers, he could overpower me with his strength." Yeah, I''m still rather surprised he managed to become a peak iron stage cultivator. I was almost certain that bronze was his limit.


    "We both know why you don''t have much combat power," Maxine said knowingly.


    "Yeah, I just can''t bring myself to hurt anyone," Emily said, "I''m not like you or the others."


    "And I wouldn''t have you change for the world," Maxine told Emily.


    "Thank you," Emily said softly, "Now, let''s head back before grandpa gets too worried."


    "Alright," Maxine said and the both of them flew towards Emily''s house.


    Once they landed, Emily gave Maxine a quick kiss and said, "Good night."


    "Good night," Maxine said and watched Emily go into her home. She stood there for a moment and turned around.


    Maxine was in a great mood, and she didn''t want anything to spoil it. However, she needed to go check on Michelle Baker. It wouldn''t surprise her if someone tried to go after her at this point. She had put a few of her shadow wolves into Michelle''s shadow as a precautionary measure, but people could still threaten to kill her aunt to get her to back off. Hence, Maxine made it a point to check on them twice a week and talk to Michelle about how things were coming along.


    When she arrived over the house that Michelle was staying at, she began scanning 5 miles in every direction for any thing out of place. Surprisingly, she only found a few cultivators from Amanda''s guild keeping watch over her. Yeah, those guys will definitely keep anyone away and if someone is dumb enough to try something, those guys from Amanda''s guild can probably handle it. Still, it''s best that I check in with Michelle.


    Maxine gently brushed against Michelle''s mind a few times with her spiritual sense before she began talking to her, [Hey, Michelle. Any changes to report?]


    [Just the same old crap. The russian diplomats are calling bullshit and threatening me and my aunt. Nothing has come of it, though,] Michelle answered, [Although recently, they''ve been getting more direct about what they will do if I don''t back off.]


    [Is that why you asked those young men to be your bodyguards?] Maxine asked as she sent mental images of the four burly men that were patrolling Michelle''s neighborhood.


    [Yes, it is,] Michelle replied, [But one of them keeps trying to talk to me, and seems more protective than the others.]


    [That''s probably because he''s interested in you,] Maxine replied, [If you don''t like it, just be blunt and tell him directly. Men can be rather dense at times and often don''t pick up on subtle hints.]


    [Thanks for the advice,] Michelle replied, [By the way, how much longer do you think it will take for them to punish Mr. Andrevich?]


    [If they''re going to do it, it will be within the next month or two,] Maxine answered, [But I think they will.]


    [Let me guess,] Michelle said smugly, [It''s because he failed to capture you and severely injured your mother in the process. And with both your real parents and the Kavros clan backing you, they will have no choice but to give him up to survive.]


    [Correct, and Petre Andrevich knows it,] Maxine answered, [His current actions are doing nothing more than a form of stalling for time. He''s probably trying to think of a way out of this mess, but its too bad for him that I don''t even know how he save himself from prison. Thankfully, the Alliance is rather loose when it comes to enforcing their laws. Only places that are open to everyone are subjected to it and since Earth only has a few small spaceports, they won''t try to enforce them here. They can be pretty nasty with their punishments. If you were to attack and kill a normal citizen, you would have to pay a massive fine based on your cultivation and get your dominant arm cut off in such a way that it can''t be restored using conventional means.]


    [Jesus. Does anyone actually break that rule?] Michelle asked.


    [Yes, but it doesn''t happen very often,] Maxine answered, [It''s usually some arrogant young master or miss that thinks their above the law.]


    [Just like Petre Andrevich,] Michelle said angrily.


    [Indeed,] Maxine agreed, [Anyways, do you need anything while I''m here? I''m about to head back home.]


    [No, I''m good,] Michelle replies, [Thanks for dropping by.]


    [Don''t mention it. See you later,] Maxine said and flew a short distance before touching down. She created an arch and walked through it to return home to Hellen and Lucas. It was already quite late when Maxine arrived and she saw Lucas struggling to stay awake as he watched cartoons while sitting in Hellen''s lap.


    "Welcome back, Maxine," Hellen said without turning, "Could you call Orianna? She tried to contact you earlier, but you didn''t answer."


    "Alright," Maxine said and pulled out her dimensional disk to call Orianna.


    Orianna answered practically as soon as Maxine activated it, "Maxine! I''m so glad you called me back. I''m sorry to bother you about this. But could you open a portal back to Earth? Patrick''s troupe wants to be back in time for Thanksgiving and you''re practically the only one that can do it."


    "Fine, so long as Jason doesn''t try to kiss me again, I don''t mind," Maxine replied, "But can I change first?"


    "Sure, go ahead. It''ll take them a few minutes to get assembled anyways," Orianna said, "And thank you for doing this!"


    "You don''t need to thank me for that, sis," Maxine said with a gentle smile. She''s recovered faster than I did. Then again, she had a real good reason to.


    "It doesn''t matter if I need to thank you, or not. I will thank you anyways," Orianna said happily.


    "Alright, alright. Enough of this mushy stuff. I''ll open the arch in a few minutes," Maxine said just before she turned off her communication disk and went to her room to get out of the dress she was in.


    "Orianna asked me to open up an arch on Earth for her. Could you watch Lucas for a little while longer?" Maxine asked as soon as she walked out of her room, but quickly realized she shouldn''t have bothered. Lucas was already asleep and Hellen was in the process of carrying him to bed.


    "Of course, I can," Hellen said in amusement, "Looking after him while he''s asleep is far easier than when he''s awake."


    "Thanks, mom," Maxine said and created an arch to a large park in St. Louis, "I shouldn''t be gone for more than a few minutes."


    "Alright, take your time," Hellen said and carried the slumbering Lucas to his room.


    Without any further ado, Maxine walked through the arch and changed the location of it''s other entrance to the Stardust Academy. A few moments later, Patrick and the rest of his mercenaries walked through it.


    "Thank you for this, Maxine," Patrick said gratefully.


    "You''re welcome," Maxine replied calmly. Unfortunately, when Jason Markham walked through the portal, her expression became cold. Patrick looked over his shoulder.


    "Yeah, he''s really regretting that move of his and as far as I''m concerned, he had it coming," Patrick said, "Still, try to see it from his perspective. It''s obvious to anyone that he''s got a thing for you and he was, until recently, under the impression that you had been kidnapped. To top it off, he thought you were being tortured to lure your father out. Can you really blame him for being a bit emotional when he saw you safe and sound?"


    "Most people hug the person they were worried about and say something to express that," Maxine answered coldly, "And he should''ve understood that wouldn''t have made me angry."


    "He''s also kind of dumb," Patrick said shamelessly, and the rest of his troupe nodded in agreement while Jason looked betrayed.


    Maxine looked at Jason for a moment, before agreeing with him, "Yes, I agree with you there. He has to be fairly stupid to pull something like that."


    "You guys are assholes," Jason growled as pushed his way towards Maxine. However, this time Maxine had her guard up.


    "What is it?" Maxine asked after Jason stopped just out of arms reach.


    "I''m not going to say sorry," Jason said and Maxine raised her eyebrow at him.


    "Then, why are you here?" Maxine asked.


    "I love you. That''s why," Jason Markham said with a gentle smile on his face, but his confession hardly effected Maxine. She searched his eyes to look for any falsehoods, but couldn''t find any.


    "You''re an idiot, if you think you have a chance being with me," Maxine told him harshly.


    "If being in love with you means I''m an idiot, I don''t want to be smart," Jason said with a straight face and Maxine heard a chorus of groans. That was such a cheesy line that even your team mates groaned in embarrassment. Doesn''t he understand how bad it was? Clearly, he doesn''t. I can deal with people trying to cut my head off. Or someone trying to kidnap me and cut off my fucking finger. I can even deal with a horny young master trying to get into my pants. But I can''t deal with this level of stupid. Time to leave.


    "I''m going back home," Maxine announced and without waiting for a response, she created an arch back home before walking through it. She walked right past Hellen, whom was watching TV, and went straight to her bedroom. She promptly got ready to go to sleep, but even after she laid down, she couldn''t fall asleep. That damn asshole. His cheesy line is resounding over and over in my head. If his goal was for me to think about him, he''s achieved it, but making me loose my sleep is a good way to piss me off. I''m going to have to punch him the next time I see him.

 Chapter 171

    Maxine smiled while watching the news. They were broadcasting the arrest of the former ambassador Petre Andrevich. Someone, probably his own government, had leaked files implicating him on several different operations that harmed innocent people. It was enough that he would spend the rest of his life in prison and he would spend most of his time in solitary for his own protection from the other inmates. If it wasn''t for the solitary confinement, I would make a move myself. Humans far too social to withstand being isolated for that long and they will slowly go insane without human interaction. Cultivators are no exception. And his friends thought they were doing him a favor.


    However, Maxine found out that Emily had been talking to one of her colleagues far more frequently than the others. Maxine didn''t get angry or jealous at this discovery. They could simply be friends. Instead, she approached him on her own during his lunch break at the hospital''s cafeteria. I recall that his name is Jerimiah Mattlas. To be honest, I wouldn''t be surprised if she wanted to date him. He doesn''t look half bad and she knows that I''m okay with her seeking a third in our relationship. But I have to be able to at least tolerate any man she chooses. Although, I doubt he understands the risks of dating a cultivator while being just a normal person. Cultivators have a very hard time controlling their strength during sex. If we had sex with a normal human, the result would be death by snu snu. At least, I think that''s the right cultural reference. Where the hell did that term come from anyways? To be honest, I think I''m better off not knowing.


    "Hi, there," Maxine said, "I''m Maxine and Emily is my girlfriend. She''s the divine essence healer that''s employed here."


    "I know. Can I help you?" Dr. Jerimiah Mattlas asked uncertainly.


    "I wanted to say hi and get to know you since you spend so much time with Emily," Maxine said openly as she sat down in front of him.


    "Is that all?" Dr. Jerimiah Mattlas asked as if in relief.


    "Not entirely," Maxine answered honestly, "I''m also here to inform you of a few things that you might not be aware of. On a side note, I''m curious if you''re going to try becoming a cultivator. I''m sure that you''re aware of benefits to becoming one."


    "I''m fully aware of the benefits and I have no intention to become one. I just don''t have the time to cultivate," he answered, "I''ve got over a hundred thousand in student loans that I still need to pay off."


    "That''s quite a large debt, but as a cultivator, you need less sleep. So, you can work more hours and in turn, pay of your loans sooner," Maxine countered.


    "Perhaps, but how long will it take before I reach a level that reduces my need for sleep? And while I''m busy bringing up my cultivation level, the interest will build up on my debt," he replied. So, he''s not the courageous type. He won''t even take a single hour a night to cultivate to feel the benefits for himself.


    "I thought you would be more open to risk taking. Particularly since, you''re spending so much time around someone as powerful as Emily," Maxine commented.


    "What are you talking about?" he asked cautiously.


    "Oh? You didn''t know?" Maxine asked in surprise, "I thought someone as smart as you would at least suspect that cultivators need to have flawless control over their muscles to avoid hurting normal people. You have no idea how many forks and door knobs I destroyed while learning how to control my strength. For few months, I was afraid to even touch my mother out of fear that I would hurt her by accident."


    "I didn''t realize," Dr. Jerimiah Mattlas practically whispered.


    "Normal people rarely do," Maxine commented, "It''s worse for people that are even stronger than me. For them, it''s like living in a world where everything is made of paper. The slightest slip up results in something breaking or someone getting hurt. And that''s the best case scenario." The saddest part is I don''t even need to lie. If my control isn''t perfect, I could accidentally crush a man''s hand into bloody pulp during a handshake and it''s also why I avoid physical contact with normal humans. I''ve gotten a lot better with practice, but I''m still worried that I might misjudge the amount of strength I should use. I don''t know how Emily has avoided such fears. Perhaps, it''s due to constant practice from all the patients that she treats.


    "That sounds terrifying," he said.


    "And now you know why cultivators tend to avoid physical contact normal people most of the time. That includes our close relatives," Maxine said, "It would be too heartbreaking for us to accidentally hurt, or, god forbid, kill someone we care about."


    "I see, and I think I''ve finally figured out why you are bothering me. You''re worried about my intentions towards Emily," Dr. Jerimiah Mattlas stated, "You don''t have to worry about that. I''m only curious about her abilities to heal and I''m trying to figure out a way to recreate an energy field with similar properties to Ms. Herst''s healing energies."


    "Oh, that explains a few things," Maxine said as she felt her ears heat up. I was getting worked up over nothing. At least, I didn''t come out and ask him if they were dating.


    "You don''t have to worry about me stealing your girlfriend," Dr. Jerimiah Mattlas said with a small smile.


    "I wasn''t worried. I''m more than comfortable sharing," Maxine replied, "I was just concerned for your health. As I said before, it''s hard for cultivators to control their strength in certain situations."


    "Is that why Emily refuses to chase Mr. Markham away?" Dr. Jerimiah Mattlas asked.


    "What''s that idiot been doing to Emily?" Maxine asked.


    "Nothing malicious so far," Dr. Jerimiah Mattlas said honestly, "He just keeps asking her about how to get in your good graces and he''s becoming more insistent after each attempt." He''s already fucked up with me. I don''t know why he''s bothering Emily like this. He should know that will only irritate me further. I guess Patrick is right. Jason has to be rather stupid for him to pull this shit. Although, I''m concerned at his sudden personality change. He used to be on the timid side. Now he''s far more aggressive. Still, it''s more likely that the battlefield changed him rather than him catching something that would effect him like this.


    "Emily''s too nice to tell him to fuck off," Maxine said bluntly, "I''ll have to do it for her. About what time does he come by to harass her?"


    "He comes and goes into clinic at a random, but if it helps, he usually comes during the afternoon," Dr. Jerimiah Mattlas replied.


    "Thanks and good luck with your research," Maxine said as she stood up.


    "Thank you," Dr. Jerimiah Mattlas replied.


    Maxine walked towards the clinic within the hospital. She wanted to be there when Jason Markham arrived. She just had this strange suspicion that if he didn''t get what he wanted from Emily that he might turn violent. She hoped that she was wrong, but it was better to lean on the safe side. I can''t just sit there the whole time waiting for him to show up though. Perhaps, I could offer my services as a healer. I''m not sure if that will work or not, but it''s worth a try.


    She reached the clinic after a short walk, but was surprised that the place was packed. She glanced at some posted signs and realized that it was a free clinic. And that the doctors and healing-type cultivators were volunteering. Well, that makes this easier.


    Maxine approached the sign in desk and asked the clerk attending it, "Excuse me. I was wondering how I would go about volunteering here."


    The clerk took one look at Maxine and simply asked, "You''re a cultivator, right?"


    "That''s right," Maxine affirmed and held up her hand to use her energies to make her hand glow a brilliant white, "I''m a skilled battle medic and if you need someone to vouch for my skills, you can ask Emily Herst. She''s seen me in action."


    "One moment," the clerk said and brought out a clip board and a pen, "Fill this out and sign wherever it asks you to. When you''re done, bring it back here and we can see about you seeing a few patients."


    "Alrighty," Maxine said, "Be right back." It was a rather simple form and Maxine filled it out rather quickly. She returned to the sign in desk and handed the clerk the clipboard.


    "Wait, you''re the ''Maxine Levings''? What are you doing here?" the clerk asked.


    "I like helping people," Maxine answered.


    "You''re definitely not what I expected," the clerk commented.


    "What were you expecting?" Maxine asked with a smirk.


    "I don''t know to be honest," the clerk answered.


    "Anyways, which of these rooms should I use?" Maxine asked, "And which patients should I take a look at? I''m completely new to this whole experience."


    "We''ll have a nurse bring them to you, but first, we need to confirm if you can really use your abilities to heal," the clerk said, "There have been incidents were cultivators have falsely reported their abilities."


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    "I completely understand," Maxine said. If something like that happened amongst mercenaries, the idiot that pulled that shit wouldn''t be coming back home. They would be lucky to put what''s left of him in a baby food jar.


    After Maxine was brought to an empty exam room, a young woman with a mild laceration on her wrist was brought to Maxine. It wasn''t serious, but it was bad enough that it would need stitches if a healing-type cultivator wasn''t present.


    "Well, how the hell did she manage that?" Maxine said as she tenderly took the woman''s hand and looked at the wound closely, "Broken glass?"


    "How did you know?" the young woman asked.


    "A tiny shard of glass is still stuck in your wrist," Maxine said as she created a tiny tendril with small grasping hands at the end of it to pick out the glass shard, "Hold still for a moment. I''ll have you patched up in no time." Maxine healed the small wound with her energies until there was only smooth skin where the wound used to be.


    "Incredible," the young woman said.


    "That was nothing. I''ve seen way worse than a minor cut like that," Maxine said, "Is there anything else I can help you with?"


    "No, you covered it," the young woman answered, "Thank you."


    "Don''t mention it," Maxine said, "Have a good day."


    Maxine saw a couple other patients before Emily noticed her. [What are you doing here?] Emily asked via spiritual sense.


    [I wanted to help out,] Maxine answered honestly, [And you should know how I feel about Jason Markham harassing you.]


    [Who told you about that?] Emily asked.


    [One of your coworkers did when I was in the cafeteria,] Maxine answered, [But does it really matter at this point?]


    [He shouldn''t have told you. I can defend myself from Jason,] Emily answered.


    [I know that,] Maxine replied, [You have the best defenses around, but the other patients here won''t be able to.]


    [Fair enough,] Emily replied, [Just don''t break anything if and when you make your move.]


    [I was planning on sending him a few hundred miles away by tossing him through one of my arches,] Maxine replied, [I don''t think anything will get damaged if I do it like that and it will take at least an hour for him to get back. By then, he should''ve calmed down. Although, that will be the last time that I will take it easy on him.] I''ve already taken it easy on him for trying to save my life before. Now it will be because he''s a fellow earthling.


    [So you admit that you took it easy on him,] Emily said.


    [So?] Maxine asked, [He tried to save my life. That gets him out of severe beating, but that''s it.]


    [Fair enough,] Emily replied, [And he just walked into the clinic. He doesn''t look like he''s in a good mood either.] Maxine saw him and she was right. He looked agitated. Why does he even come here? He isn''t injured and cultivators rarely, if ever, get sick. This is harassment.


    [I see him,] Maxine said, [I''ve already made it so I can react instantly if he becomes hostile.]


    Maxine watched him talk to the clerk, but things were getting heated. [Unless you''re actually sick, go away,] Maxine said to Jason Markham, [You''re bothering the people that actually need help.] Oddly, his agitation immediately vanished as soon as he received Maxine''s spiritual sense message.


    [Maxine! I''ve been trying to get ahold of you for days,] Jason Markham said happily, [Where have you been?]


    [At my biological parent''s place. It''s literately on the moon,] Maxine replied, [And didn''t I tell you that you had no chance with me?]


    [Why don''t you like me?] Jason Markham asked, [Is it because of that bitch girlfriend of yours?!] That''s it. I''ve had it with him. The only upside is that I''m not seeing any patients right now. They might die from shock if they were anywhere near me.


    Maxine instantly focused her killing intent on him along with a heavy dose of dragon fear. Thankfully, she had practiced a lot recently. Otherwise the people around him would suffer from it as well. [Call her that again and I will castrate you with a fucking spoon,] Maxine said angrily, [And if you''re dumb enough to actually hurt her, I will take you to a place that no one will ever find and use you as a test subject for pain-inducing poisons until your mind shatters. And the first one I''m going to try on you is something I''ve just developed, Thousand Ant Devouring Poison. Are we clear?] I wonder if he realizes that I''m bullshitting him about that poison. It doesn''t even exist, but I can easily make a poison that has a nasty enough effect to be worthy of that name. Hell, I may just make it anyways and slip some into Petre Andrevich''s next drink if his prison cell is anything but standard.


    [Fine, I won''t hurt her,] Jason Markham growled without a hint of fear. Huh?! That''s never happened before. Even cultivators stronger than me would show some fear before covering it up when I blast them with both dragon fear and my killing intent. Something must be suppressing it and I''m willing to bet it''s hidden deep in his head. That was the only place I didn''t look too carefully when I patched him up. Maxine immobilized him with a thought by using dozens of tendrils and gagged him as a safety measure before appearing next to him.


    She gently placed her hand on his head from behind and performed a deep scan of his head with her spiritual sense. I thought so. He has brain parasites and these little shits like to hang out in the more interior parts of his brain. And to top it off, they''re hard to detect even when I know what to look for. No wonder I didn''t detect them before. These things feed on the electrical energy produced by the brain, but can survive off of other forms of bioelectricity and are causing some dysfunction in his decision making as well as enhancing his aggression and libido. At the same time, it''s lowering his inhibitions and fear response. That explains his behavior to a degree, but I''m still not going to let him completely off the hook. His brain may have issue, but it''s not to the degree that he wasn''t able to understand that what he did was wrong. Hmm? It looks like these parasites are transmitted through saliva or blood, but not through urine or stool. They must''ve gotten in his system when some goblin blood got in his eyes or into an open wound. I''m just glad it only transmits that way. It really limits exposure to people that are close to them, but that fucker kissed me earlier. I better check myself out. She quickly scanned herself for any of the parasites or their eggs within her body, but she didn''t find anything. My immune system must''ve already gotten rid of them. I better check Emily later as well just to be safe. We''ve kissed a couple times recently.


    "What are you doing?!" the clerk demanded.


    "This man has some nasty brain parasites and was about to become violent. So, if you don''t want to be infected, I suggest you stand at least ten feet away," Maxine replied calmly. The other patients waiting quickly got at least twice the distance she recommended away from her.


    "How contagious is he?" the clerk asked.


    "Very, but so long as he doesn''t bleed or spit on you, it shouldn''t be a problem," Maxine replied and reached out with her spiritual sense to contact Patrick, [One of your people has brain parasites. He probably got it from fighting those goblins. You should bring the rest of your people along with their families over here for me to check them out as soon as possible. We can''t have this shit spreading.] Why didn''t I insist on scanning each and every one of them thoroughly after bringing them through? That''s basic quarantine procedure and I''m surprised that the mercenary guild didn''t catch it either. These things might have some kind of anti-detection ability that only works while they are still eggs. I''ll have to collect some of the parasites and devise an airborne poison to wipe them out without harming their hosts in case I miss any. It''ll be hard, though. It''s hard for most poisons to reach that far into the brain without damaging it. I think I may talk with daddy about this.


    [They just got back. Is it really necessary?] Patrick replied.


    [If this parasite spreads to ordinary humans, it will cause them to become hyper violent psychopaths that have a penchant for rape,] Maxine snapped, [So, you tell me how necessary it is.] That would be the effect on normal humans. Cultivators have some resistance to it.


    [We''ll be there within the hour,] Patrick replied.


    [Good,] Maxine replied, [Your man should be parasite free by the time the rest of you get here and I should have a faster means of removing them.] As she spoke, she was testing various mixtures of energies to kill the parasites in Jason Markham''s head. However, she was avoiding using any elemental energies that could cause brain damage as a side-effect.


    "Could you take him into an exam room, please?" the clerk asked as she looked at the other patients nervously.


    "Of course. Sorry," Maxine said apologetically as she picked the struggling Jason Markham and carried him into an exam room. By the time Patrick and the others arrived, she discovered the most effective means to eliminate them using only her energy.


    It took her only a few minutes to scan everyone''s head and only found one person besides Jason had the parasites. Thankfully, the parasites hadn''t effected his mind too much before she found them and he had cooperated once he realized what was going on. Still, she couldn''t take the chance that some of them might have the eggs for the parasites in them.


    "There, that''s it," Maxine said, "Sorry for dragging you guys out here, but it''s necessary."


    "There''s no need to apologize," Patrick said, "I made everyone understand just how nasty those parasites are."


    "I noticed," Maxine commented, "Well, I still need to see other patients for another hour or two."


    "Alright, we will head out. Let me know if there is anything else you need," Patrick said, "Although, it would be nice if you could make a few arches to our respective cities."


    "Fine, just go outside and have them speak out their destinations. I''ll do the rest," Maxine replied.


    "Thanks," Patrick said as he lead his people and their families out of the clinic. Jason Markham gave Maxine an apologetic look, but he didn''t say anything as he followed Patrick out. I think he''s given up on me.


    Maxine went back to treating other patients, but after the scene that was made earlier, it wasn''t nearly as busy as it was before. She used this time to scan Emily for the parasites and was relieved to find that Emily didn''t have them.


    After another couple hours, the clinic closed for the evening and Maxine returned home through an arch . She was about to go look for Guan when she saw him in the TV room. He was letting Lucas wrestle with his arm. Although, wrestle was a strong word. It was more like Lucas trying to get Guan''s arm to move while Guan simply held it out for the little guy. It was adorable to watch.


    "They''ve been at that for over an hour," Hellen remarked, "This is the second time this week that your father has played with him."


    "Daddy doesn''t seem like the type to play," Maxine commented.


    "He normally isn''t, but that little rascal called him ''papa.'' After that, your father warmed up to him," Hellen said happily, "He''s called me ''mama'' a few times when you were not around as well."


    "Why am I not surprised?" Maxine asked no one in particular, "With the amount of time that I spend with him, I''m more like his sister than his mom."


    "So, you finally realized how little time you spend with him. You have no idea how starved for attention he is," Guan said as he glanced over his shoulder, "By the way, I''ve cleaned up your mess already."


    "My mess?" Maxine asked.


    "Those parasites that your friends brought back with them. You should''ve checked them over thoroughly after bringing them through," Guan said calmly, "Because of that there were four people infected with that parasite that you had no idea about. I dealt with the issue by injecting them with the cure covertly, so you shouldn''t have to worry about it any further." Maxine felt embarrassed about that, but she kept it off of her face.


    "Thanks, dad and I know I messed up," Maxine said honestly and she noticed Lucas had started to bite Guan''s arm, "You know he''s biting you, right?"


    "I know, but it''s not like he can hurt me," Guan said calmly and he reached out with his free hand to tickle Lucas, "That''s for biting me." Lucas unlatched himself from Guan''s arm as he burst into laughter. Maxine smiled at that scene and decided to leave them to their fun. I never knew daddy had a playful side to him. I hope I can see more of that side of him in the future.


    However as Maxine walked to the kitchen to help Hellen cook dinner, she felt tense for some reason. This feeling confused her. This was the one place where she should feel the safest. Yet, she still felt tense as if some hidden danger was approaching. The animal part of my brain knows something that the rest of me doesn''t. But is it even a legitimate threat with daddy here? I doubt it, but it might be a good idea to create a few warp stones to the shadow world or that planet with the glowing blue crystals for Emily and the others.

 Chapter 172

    It had been a week since she began to feel restless and oddly, it didn''t amount to more than that. She still handed out warp stones to everyone important to her just in case. And decided to spend some time with Emily by going shopping. Unfortunately, her fashion sense was just terrible after being away from Earth for so long. Hence, why she kept asking Emily what she thought about various outfits that caught her eye and did the same for Emily. Right now, they were getting ready to leave.


    "Emily, are you sure you want to wait?" Maxine asked once again.


    "Yes, for the twentieth time," Emily said in irritation, "You may want kids, but I think it''s still too soon for us to have kids. Just finish powering up. You can always use one of your father''s potions when we are both ready."


    "Alright, alight. I won''t push you about it anymore," Maxine acquiesced.


    "Good," Emily said, "Now, how confident are you that you can pass this ''tribulation'' of yours?"


    "Fifty percent chance, I think," Maxine replied without much confidence, "It''s something that''s very hard to judge. There are not exactly a lot of people in my situation, so I have almost no point of reference. And the only person that I know of that has a similar situation to mine is daddy and he only had his breakthrough from gold to immortal when he had four cores. All of this leads to the simple fact that the more powerful that you are, the much harder your lightning tribulation becomes."


    "That doesn''t sound good," Emily replied, "Is there any way to improve your chances?"


    "Other than improving my blade skills and getting my teacher to set a formation for me? Not a whole lot. I''ve already made dozens of potions to boost my regeneration and a Stable Mind potion for the mental portion of the tribulation," Maxine said, "Those boost my chances, but don''t guarantee success. The armor daddy got me gives me another layer of protection and my blades are perfectly suited for me. The other thing I can do is prepare myself mentally for it."


    "It sounds like you have everything covered," Emily replied, "Why don''t you try breaking through in a few days?"


    "I could," Maxine said, "But I rather hold off on it for now."


    "On that note, why did you change your mind about breaking through to gold?" Emily asked.


    "I just don''t feel that it''s the right time to do so and my strength is already comparable to gold rank seven or eight," Maxine answered, "There are not that many people under immortal stage that can defeat me in battle." And even fewer that I can''t run away from. Still, there might be a few immortals that don''t give a damn about their reputation and come after me anyways.


    "But you can still be beaten by false immortals and those at the peak of gold stage," Emily pointed out, "And you are only talking about raw power. There are older cultivators that could be far more skilled than you. Did you forget about your teacher, Horatio Quay? Didn''t he beat the snot out of you even though you were physically stronger and faster?"


    "Yeah, there is that," Maxine admitted, "But I still want to be as prepared as I can be for it. I''ve heard about the devastation these tribulations can cause to the surrounding area if I were to fail it and want you to keep your distance if you''re going to watch. I don''t want you to get hurt because you were too close. It''s so destructive that most clans have special places designated for gold stage breakthroughs and those that want to breakthrough to immortal have to do it in space to avoid permanently damaging a planet in case of failure."


    "Yeah, Hellen told me about that," Emily said, "But from what I heard, you just have to endure it and Hellen even remarked that my barriers will most likely hold up against it when I chose to breakthrough to gold. And that I shouldn''t worry about failing too much, but she never explained what happens to those that fail."


    "Death by being roasted alive by lightning and immediately after your core, or cores, will detonate. There literately won''t be anything left of you to bury," Maxine answered honestly, "It''s one of the reasons I want to be as prepared as I can be."


    "But you have your clones. Won''t that make it safer for someone like you?" Emily asked fearfully.


    "The tribulation lightning doesn''t just attack the body. It attacks the soul as well and without my soul to control them, my clones are just piles of meat," Maxine replied with a sad look, "It''s either you pass or fail. I mean there are those that just barely survive after failing, but those people are by far in the minority. And it''s an even rarer thing for them to recover enough to try again. Just think of it as the universe''s solution to keep the population of powerful cultivators to a relatively low number. I believe to prevent large disasters where they fight each other frequently. Regardless, you can see why I''m hesitant to breakthrough just yet."


    "You sound like you''re afraid and I don''t blame you one bit," Emily said.


    "You''re right. I am afraid," Maxine admitted and her voice trembled slightly as she continued, "Afraid of overpowered lightning bolts that were created for the sole purpose of arbitrarily judging if I''m worthy enough to exist. Based on rules that I don''t completely understand. All because I want enough strength to defend myself and those I care about. I''m not some shitty novel protagonist with fucking plot armor three miles thick! And I''ll be the first to admit that I''ve been very lucky so far, but I''m not invincible." It''s been a constant worry in the back of my head ever since Horatio Quay told me about lightning tribulations. Why did he have to tell me how fucking dangerous they are? No, he had to tell me. If I tried to breakthrough to gold without being fully aware that it could easily killed me, I would''ve fail for sure. It didn''t help that I insisted to see the records of other people who tried to breakthrough to gold to give myself an idea of what I''m going to face. It was definitely a mistake on my part. The ones that succeeded were all badly injured. Loosing a limb or having a large section of your skin melted off was rather common, even for those properly prepared. One poor bastard lost all of his skin and most of the flesh on his head, including his eyes. He still had some muscles on his cheeks and neck, but everything else was just gone. The fucker looked like very scary version of Skeletor with all of that exposed muscle. It was a small miracle he even lived through that. And he only had one core without any powerful bloodlines. The fatality rate for those with powerful bloodlines or multiple cores is much higher due to the exponential increase in difficulty.


    Emily didn''t say a word. She just looked at Maxine for a moment and hugged her. "Why didn''t you say something earlier?" Emily asked.


    "I didn''t want you to worry," Maxine said weakly.


    "By not saying anything, you made me worry more and you''ve made a mistake by not telling me sooner," Emily chided Maxine as she grabbed Maxine by the sides of her head and looked her in the eye, "The solution you''ve been looking for is really rather simple. Just think of the tribulation as an enemy that needs to be cut in a special way. Didn''t you say there was nothing that you couldn''t cut with your blade energy? I think lightning is included in that and you can ask your bug zapper of an uncle to help practice cutting lightning."


    "When you put it like that, I feel like an idiot," Maxine said softly as Emily removed her hands.


    "You shouldn''t feel too bad. Almost everyone acts like an idiot when they''re afraid. Cultivators, like us, are no different," Emily pointed out.


    "Thanks for reminding," Maxine said and gave Emily a quick kiss on the lips. By this time, there were several people watching them intently. Right, I forgot where we were, so of course, people will watch the ensuing drama.


    "I think we should head out," Emily suggested, "I would love to see little Nathan again. And has he seen you since you first came back?"


    "No, not yet. I didn''t want him to see me much in my battle form. I''m well aware of how scary that form can appear, and I''m overdue to give my mother a visit anyways," Maxine admitted, "Let me give her a call to make sure it''s alright for us to visit."


    "That''s fine," Emily said calmly.


    Maxine pulled out her cellphone and dialed Claudia''s number. I hope she still has this number. It''s been years since I''ve last used it. After a few rings, Claudia answered, "Hello? Who is this?"


    "Hey, it''s me," Maxine said, "How''s Nathan been doing?"


    Stolen story; please report.


    "Oh, Maxine. It''s about time you called," Claudia said, "And Nathan is doing fine."


    "That''s great. Do you mind if I come by with Emily for a visit?" Maxine asked.


    "Not at all," Claudia, "Oh! Have you finished your training yet? I''ve had to constantly remind Nathan that his sister doesn''t normally look like a monster girl."


    "Yeah, I''ve finished my training and you might want to avoid using that term around beastkin of any kind," Maxine warned Claudia, "They find it extremely offensive. Mostly because it''s a derogatory term that only slavers use."


    "I didn''t know that," Claudia remarked, "What should I call them then?"


    "Unless you know the proper name for their particular species, just call them beastkin," Maxine explained.


    "Will do," Claudia replied, "When should I expect you?"


    "Oh, in ten or so minutes," Maxine replied.


    "Alright, see you in ten," Claudia said as she ended the call.


    "Let''s go," Maxine said as they made their way out of the department store and took flight. However, it only took them seven minutes to arrive since Maxine called.


    Maxine walked up to the front door and knocked gently. After a few minutes, Johnathan Levings opened the door, instead of Claudia. It surprised her for a moment before her expression became cold.


    "Come on in," Johnathan Levings said invitingly as he stepped aside to let them in. Maxine didn''t say a word to him as she walked in and looked around for Nathan. Emily followed behind her.


    Maxine didn''t see him anywhere and was about to spread out her spiritual sense when she felt a thump on her left leg.


    "Big sister!" Nathan shouted gleefully and he hug tackled her leg. He had been hiding behind the couch that she just walked past. He proceeded to wrap his arms and legs around her leg. She could only smile at how adorable he was acting. Heh, cute little guy. I definitely wasn''t expecting this kind of reception after how he acted at the restaurant. Was he afraid of me? Or he could''ve just been tired.


    "Hey, Nathan," Maxine said happily as she ruffled his hair, "Where''s mom?"


    "She''s in the kitchen making dinner," Nathan answered with a smile on his face. It''s a little early to be working on dinner, but if she''s making something that needs to be cooked awhile in the oven, it would make sense.


    "I''ll go help her," Maxine stated and noticed that Nathan didn''t dislodge himself from her leg, "Are you going to let me go?"


    "Nope, Imma leg parasite!" Nathan announced playfully.


    "Okay, you little parasite. You better hold on tight," Maxine said with a smile and she started walking somewhat lopsided towards the kitchen while being careful not to move too fast. Nathan was laughing joyfully the whole way.


    "I''ll help too," Emily said as she followed behind Maxine.


    As Maxine walked into the kitchen with Nathan still latched to her leg, Claudia looks over her shoulder and smiles as she says, "Welcome home, Maxine and I see you''ve gotten yourself a leg parasite."


    "Yeah, I do. How do you get him to let go?" Maxine said.


    "Tickled him until he lets go," Claudia said and gestured towards a small pile of carrots, "Emily, can you dice those carrots?"


    "Sure thing," Emily said as moved to do as Claudia asked, "And Maxine, once you get him to let you go, I need those tomatoes cut up into chunks." Maxine nodded and created a few dozen tiny tendrils before manipulating them to tickle Nathan. He was nervous at first, but as soon as they started tickling him, he burst into laughter. He practically threw himself off of her leg, and she had to catch him using her tendrils to prevent him from hitting his head.


    "Can you go play with dad while I help mom with dinner?" Maxine asked Nathan.


    "Yep," Nathan said happily and he ran over to tackle Jonathan Levings. She glanced over to where Nathan and Jonathan Levings were and they were play wrestling. That little guy has a lot of energy and doesn''t show signs of being afraid of Jonathan Levings. That''s good. He''s behaving like a proper dad.


    Maxine grabbed a knife and began working on the tomatoes. However, she kept watching them with her spiritual sense just in case an accident happens. She still didn''t trust that Jonathan Levings had completely changed.


    Once she was done with the tomatoes, she brought them to Claudia. "Here you go, mom," Maxine said as she set a bowl of the tomatoes next to Claudia, "Need me for anything else?"


    "Not in the kitchen," Claudia said, "But you could spend time with your little brother. He brags that you''re his big sister to his friends quite a bit."


    "What kid wouldn''t brag about having a big sister that can turn into a scary looking beastkin?" Maxine asked.


    "Actually, he''s happier that you are an amazing singer," Claudia pointed out.


    "Really?" Maxine asked in disbelief.


    "Yes, there are a few videos of your performance on Youtube," Claudia said, "His friends think it''s cool that he has a big sister that''s a scary singing alien lady."


    "That''s nice, I guess," Maxine said uncertainly.


    "Now, stop standing there and go play with Nathan," Claudia told Maxine, "Your father can''t keep it up for much longer and Emily can help me in here."


    "Alright, alright," Maxine said as she walked out of the kitchen. She found Jonathan Levings sitting on the couch looking exhausted while Nathan kept trying to wrestle with him. Well, I can''t really expect a man approaching 40 to be able to keep up with Nathan for very long.


    Maxine snatched Nathan up and began to tickle him with several tendrils that she just conjured up. He struggled mightily to free himself while laughing. "Stop, I''m gonna pee!" Nathan laughed and Maxine immediately stopped.


    "You''re not doing that on me," Maxine said playfully as she set him on the floor. Only for him to tackle her in the next moment as he tried to wrestle her. That sneaky little shit. She could only laugh at his antics as she wrestled back with extreme care.


    She played with him for nearly an hour when Nathan finally ran out of steam and the ''little shit'' was grinning ear to ear as he panted while laying on the floor. Maxine could''ve kept it going all day, but she knew that if she were a normal woman that she wouldn''t be in any better condition than Nathan. So long as the little guy is happy, I''m cool with it.


    "Enjoy yourself?" Emily asked.


    "Quite a bit, actually," Maxine answered, "How''s dinner coming?" In fact, I expected to be mentally exhausted from being so precise with controlling my strength, but I''m not. Maybe, I''m unconsciously controlling my strength when I play with children.


    "It should be ready in another hour if we''re going to stay," Emily said, "We made enough to feed everyone, including grandpa if he wants to come."


    "I think we should stay for dinner," Maxine said, "It''s been awhile since I ate here and it would do mom some good."


    "I''ll call grandpa to see if he wants to join us. I already asked Claudia if it was okay," Emily announced as she reached for her phone and began to walk out of the room.


    "Alright," Maxine replied as she got to her feet and sat down on the couch. Jonathan Levings had already gone to another room while the two of them had been wrestling. Nathan got up a few moments later and sat on her lap.


    "Can I watch some cartoons with you, big sis?" Nathan asked.


    "I don''t see why not," Maxine answered and used her energies to grab the remote before turning on the TV. She had just switched it to cartoons when Emily walked back in.


    "Grandpa won''t be joining us for dinner," Emily announced, "He''s going out to hang out with a few of his old friends."


    "I hope that old man has some fun," Maxine said calmly.


    "So, do I," Emily said.


    "I can''t hear my cartoons with you talking," Nathan complained and Maxine had to stop herself from laughing out loud. This little shit. He''s so lucky that he''s adorable.


    She ruffled his hair before they went back to watching cartoons and continued to do so until dinner was ready. However, as she walked towards the table, the feeling of restlessness that she constantly shot up in intensity. She immediately spread out her spiritual sense as far as she could in every direction, but found nothing out of place. Weird. My instincts are rarely every wrong. I best keep my spiritual sense spread out while I eat, just in case.


    Surprisingly, nothing happened while the five of them ate dinner, but Maxine wanted to leave immediately after they were done eating. She didn''t want her family to suffer from any collateral damage from a fight if one happened.


    "I''m sorry to eat and leave, but it''s getting a bit late. Howard is probably wondering when Emily will get back home," Maxine stated out loud, but sent via spiritual sense to Emily, [My instincts are going nuts right now and I think it''s a good idea to get some distance away from here before the reason for it strikes.]


    "Yeah, grandpa is a worrywart," Emily agreed, but she said something different via spiritual sense, [Are you sure? Do you want me to stay here to shield your family?]


    [No, it will look weird if don''t go home,] Maxine replied, [But you know what to do if someone attacks me, right?]


    [Yes, I do,] Emily replied, [Contact your father.] That''s pretty much it.


    "That''s too bad. It was nice having you here," Claudia said happily, "Nathan had a blast."


    "I''ll try to visit more often," Maxine told them and gave Claudia a hug, "But it''s best we head out."


    Claudia escorted them to the front door and as they walked out of the house, she said, "Take care."


    "You too, mom," Maxine said to Claudia before taking flight and she intentionally flew in the direction with the fewest people in it. Emily, on the other hand, flew towards her house. It took only a few minutes for her to get away from any human dwellings and fly over an open forest. If I was going to be attacked, now would be the best time to do it. There are no witnesses and anyone coming to my aide would be hard pressed to get here in time. However no attack came.


    She was confused for a few moments, but her feeling of restlessness became a premonition of danger when her dimensional ring began to vibrate. She swiftly retrieved her communication disk from her dimensional ring and answered the call. Zephyr''s face was projected above it.


    "Maxine, I''m sorry to contact you so late, but it''s important," Zephyr said apologetically, "The Alliance recently changed the laws regarding young planets and their protectors. It''s now mandated for that planet''s first native born gold stage cultivator, or the equivalent of one, to be their world''s representative in the Alliance."


    "WHAT?!" Maxine exclaimed in fury, "For how damn long?!"


    "Until another native born reaches gold stage and is willing to take your place," Zephyr replied. Fuck! I need to see the details of this law. Maybe, I can find a loophole that will let Daddy remain in that position. It''s no wonder that I felt restless. It was a prelude to the headache that I''m going to have to deal with since most of the younger civilizations solve disputes with one on one duels between their representatives. They just don''t have enough iron and silver stage cultivators to do a limited war like the Kavros and Divine Marks clans did. And with my luck, some greedy asshole will probably challenge me to a duel for some random bullshit to gain some territory on Earth and get access to chocolate. I do not need this shit! This bullshit will make it harder for me to spend time with my family and get myself into the right from of mind before I breakthrough to gold.

 Chapter 173

    Maxine was still furious that she was forced to participate in the Alliance''s politics and was waiting patiently in a massive virtual room for the welcoming ceremony to finish. This welcoming ceremony was nothing more than a means for the factions within the Alliance to recruit more members. However, she refused to move from her spot, unlike most of the other 50 new members, to join a faction. She didn''t see a point to it. Since from her perspective, Earth was already part of the Kavros Clan''s faction since they already sent their warriors to protect it.


    "Excuse me, ma''am, but which world do you represent? And would you like to join my faction as one of our many vassals?" the Shillantian faction representative asked in a friendly tone, but she could still sense his underlying irritation. I can''t blame him for being a little irritated. Everyone else here is showing their faces while I have my essence armor''s mask on. I''m only wearing this damn thing because I don''t want them to talk down to me or think they can take advantage of me to me due to my apparent youth.


    "Earth and no," Maxine answered simply without opening her eyes, "Is there anything else that you want to ask me?"


    "No, that''s all," the faction representative said with barely noticeable annoyance before he walked away. He has no idea of the frustration that I''ve had to deal with the past couple days. Almost every major power on Earth is raising up a big fucking ruckus over the fact that they have no say in who gets to represent them. They only calmed down once they found out what the requirements to become Earth''s representative was and those fuckers still insisted that I give them a report about any contact that I have with the Alliance. Which I was going to do anyways. I may hate being here, but I know better than to do this entirely on my own.


    However, Maxine didn''t get to contemplate her past few days in the silence for long when someone else approached her. "You know that wasn''t wise of you to be so rude to him," Krelnak, a blue skinned humanoid, cautioned Maxine, "We are both from new worlds. We need their protection."


    "My world already has a pair of patrons protecting it: Poison Emperor Guan and the Kavros Clan," Maxine replied calmly.


    "You''re quite lucky to have gained such powerful protectors so early, but I have to ask. How did you manage to get the protection of a large clan?" Krelnak asked.


    "That''s my secret," Maxine answered. I see he hasn''t heard about daddy yet. If he did, he would be more surprised that daddy is protecting Earth.


    "Excuse me, did you say that you''re Earth''s representative?" a female representative from the Tezart clan asked, "Is it the same Earth that produces chocolate?"


    Maxine finally opened her eyes as she answered, "Yes, it is."


    "Is it possible for you to arrange for a few extra tons of it to be sold to my clan?" the Tezart clan representative asked hopefully. Ahh, a fellow chocolate lover.


    "I''m sorry but no. If I negotiate for one group to get more chocolate, I have to do it for everyone," Maxine explained, "But, you can send a ship of your own to buy it off of our local companies. Just be discreet when you do it. You don''t want to upset the Kavros clan."


    "That''s a given and thank you for the tip," the Tezart clan representative said cheerfully before she wandered off. Krelnak walked away as well towards the faction that he joined earlier.


    Maxine didn''t see anyone else looking to approach her and decided to meditate until the end of this ''welcome ceremony.'' Which did happen after another hour.


    "I see almost all of our newest representatives have met their seniors," a holographic image of an elderly man said, but he oddly made a point to stare at Maxine, "Unfortunately, there will always be a few people that think they can stand on their own without the advice of others, but instead opt to learn the hard way. It''s upsetting to see them suffer like this, but they chose this path. Anyways, the welcoming ceremony is now at an end. The next Alliance meeting will be in two standard months and I hope to see all of you there. Farwell, until next time." Maxine didn''t waste a single moment as she logged herself out of this virtual room and opened her eyes.


    She was inside of meditation chamber within her biological parents house. They had recommended that she be in a very safe place for the welcoming ceremony and she couldn''t think of any place safer, at least on Earth, than the meditation chamber adjacent to Guan''s alchemy lab.


    She glanced down at the communication disk and returned it to her dimensional ring. She still marveled at the fact that it even had that kind of function. She had thought they would send her some kind of virtual reality helmet, but instead, they had simply invited her to the virtual reality greeting room through her communication disk. I still don''t know how that thing has so many different functions crammed into such a small package. All I can say is that whoever originally created the damn things had to have been a genius.


    Maxine stood up and quietly left the meditation chamber. She had taken only a few steps out of it when she was tackled by Lucas. "Play?" he asked innocently while looking up at her.


    She chuckled briefly before she replied, "Sure. What game do you want to play?" Lucas immediately took up a fighting pose and looked up at Maxine hopefully.


    "You want to spar?" Maxine asked with a raised eyebrow, "Where did you learn about that from? Was it daddy or mom?"


    Lucas shrugged and looked at her with puppy dog eyes as he practically begged her, "Please, sister. Play!"


    "Fine, we will play for a little while," Maxine said and checked the time, "But I''ve got to go report in later and don''t give me that look. I don''t like it anymore than you do. So, let''s get to the training room that daddy built for us." Lucas quickly scampered off towards the training room and Maxine smiled to herself before she followed behind him at a jog.


    The training room was nothing more than a room that was a massive cube. It was 100 meters long, tall and wide as well as reinforced to withstand any kind of training that Maxine might undergo. However, someone else besides herself and Lucas was in it.


    "Thanks for bringing her here, Lucas," Zephyr said, "And like we agreed, you can join in on the fun."


    "What entails fun?" Maxine asked in irritation.


    "He wants to try dodging my lightning darts and you don''t need to tell me to take it easy on him. I already know that," Zephyr said offhandedly, but added via spiritual sense, [I figured he would loose interest after he gets hit a few times.]


    "Fine, so long as you''re careful," Maxine answered as she retrieved her twilight iron blades from her dimensional ring before taking up a proper stance, "Ready whenever you are."


    Electrical arcs jumped all over Zephyr''s arms before he raised one towards Maxine and the other towards Lucas. Maxine saw a flurry of small dart-like pulses of lightning coming right at her while Lucas just got a much dimmer one thrown at him. Unfortunately, she no longer had the luxury of paying attention to anything aside from the lightning darts heading towards her.


    With a thought, she coated the edges of both of her blades and tried cutting them the dumbest way first with swift strikes. The lightning darts scattered into small snakes of electrical energy when she struck them and she carefully adjusted how much blade energy she put into her blades in an attempt to conserve her energy. This is easier than I thought.


    Once she lowered the energy consumption to the lowest point, she watched carefully how the lightning darts were cut as they scattered, but she quickly realized that she was only neutralizing the lightning darts'' forward momentum. Her strikes were turning the lightning darts into static electricity. I wasn''t expecting this to work anyways. I have a few more things I can try.


    Maxine slowly cycled through various different ways to cut the lightning darts. Most of them ended in failure, but the most promising method was when she concentrated a crescent moon blitz attack along the edge of her blade without releasing it. It cut a lightning dart in two and both halves shot off to either side behind her before discharging into static. But before she could experiment further, Zephyr stopped firing flurries of lightning darts at her.


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    She looked up at him in askance, but saw that he was sitting down on the floor while panting heavily. Ah, I was so focused on what I was doing that I didn''t realize he was getting tired. Actually, it''s rather impressive that he was able to maintain that kind of effort for a solid twenty minutes.


    She turned to the side to see Lucas with Albert Einstein hair. Maxine chuckled at the sight. His hair shouldn''t do that. Uncle Zeph must''ve done something to his lightning darts to specifically do that.


    "It looks like Uncle Zeph is exhausted and that means our ''play time'' is over," Maxine said and she saw Lucas pout, "I can play with you some more after I''m done with my video call with the UN. You can watch cartoons until then."


    "Okay," Lucas said as he left the training room.


    "Thanks again, Uncle Zeph," Maxine said to Zephyr as she started to walk out of the training room.


    "Yeah, yeah. Just drop by the clan''s compound later," Zephyr yelled at her back. Like I would forget. I owe you for helping me with my training and it''s only right that I make a bunch of potions for you guys in return for taking up your time.


    Maxine checked the time and opened a portal that lead to the front door of the Fire and Ice guild headquarters. She came here since she didn''t own a computer. Or at least, not one that was compatible with Earth''s computers. So she had asked Amanda if she could borrow the use of one to perform a video call with the UN.


    "Please, follow me, Ms. Levings," an unfamiliar employee said as Maxine walked inside. She glanced at him and gestured for him to lead the way. However she kept her guard up.


    She was lead to the back of the building and into a small room. There was a computer desk with a web cam sitting below the monitor, but there was nothing else in the room.


    "Thank you," Maxine said and once the employee had left, she immediately scanned the room thoroughly with her spiritual sense. She didn''t find anything that warranted her caution, but she didn''t enjoy meeting an unfamiliar man. She had enough of the attempted assassinations and kidnappings. She did not want to go through it again.


    She still had some time before the UN assembly meeting took place and opened up a word processor. Her finger flew across the keyboard as she typed out in detail everything she heard and saw. The computer could barely keep up with the speed at which she typed. By the time she finished, she had over 50 pages worth of information.


    She read over her work a couple time to make sure there were no errors and right on time, the screen lit up with an incoming call. She answered it and she saw a view of meeting room at the UN. "Greetings, gentlemen," Maxine greeted them pleasantly, "I apologize for not meeting you all in person."


    "That''s alright, Ms. Levings," the UN Secretary said, "Could you tell us what transpired during this meeting ceremony?"


    "I can do better than that," Maxine replied as she send the document that she just typed out, "I''m sending you a document about everything I saw and heard. I thought it would be better to transcribe everything so that it''s easier for all of you to review it at your leisure."


    "An action that all of us greatly appreciate," the secretary said, "Did you by any chance join a faction?"


    "I saw no need at the moment for such action," Maxine replied, "We are already part of the same faction as the Kavros Clan. Why would we need to join an inferior group when we are directly linked to a large clan that controls over fifty worlds?"


    "You''re point is taken," the secretary said, "But you can understand why we are so concerned. You''re very young and inexperienced."


    "I understand entirely that I''m young and inexperienced in the political arena. That''s why I''m so willing to cooperate with all of you gentlemen," Maxine replied, "I need your collective experience and wisdom to guide and advise me until I no longer need it. Hopefully, all of you will have retired by then." God, I hate this diplomatic bullshit, but fortunately for them, I''m not lying in the least. I have no fucking idea what I''m doing, but that doesn''t mean I will always heed their advice. However, I will always listen when it''s given.


    "That''s a good attitude to have, young lady," the secretary said approvingly and Maxine''s perspective shifted to a different position in the room, "Now, we have other topics to discuss..." However at that point, what was being discussed mattered little to Maxine. She still listened, but didn''t give it the same level of her attention as their other talks.


    After a few hours, the UN assembly meeting was finally over and she was freed from listening to topics that she had no intentions of interfering with. She stretched her arms and back before leaving the small room.


    As Maxine left the building, Turan appeared a short distance away from her. "Ms. Levings. It''s so good to see you again," Turan greeted her, "You left the academy so abruptly that I wasn''t able to catch up to you until just now." Is it really him or not? Well, it''s easy enough to test him.


    "Where did I leave my original diary?" Maxine asked. I doubt anyone besides him would know where it I left it almost a decade ago.


    "I believe your birth mother, Claudia, has it, but you placed it on your dresser before you left for the Kavros clan," Turan answered without hesitation.


    "It''s nice to see you too Turan," Maxine said to him.


    "I heard that you''re hesitant about facing your tribulation," Turan said offhandedly.


    "From whom?" Maxine asked cautiously.


    "Let''s just say your emotional outburst at the mall wasn''t unnoticed," Turan replied simply and handed Maxine a small crystal, "This might help with your other worries." Maxine carefully accepted it.


    "What''s this?" Maxine asked.


    "It contains recorded information on how Shadow Lords breakthrough to gold. I had originally acquired it for myself," Turan said and left the rest of what he clearly wanted to say unspoken.


    "Thank you," Maxine said as she felt guilty inside, "Will this get you into trouble?"


    "I don''t believe that it will," Turan answered, "But even if it did, I would still give it to you."


    "You should''ve asked to find out for certain," Maxine told him, "What if you get dragged away because you pulled this shit? Then your elders would send someone here that I don''t trust at all." He may be a weird stalker, but he''s never done anything to directly hurt me. If anything, he''s done his best to help me and even admitted that he loves me in his own way. So, yeah. I trust him enough to know that he will not intentionally hurt me.


    "I''ll do my best not to betray that trust," Turan said with a genuine smile, "I know entirely how difficult it is for a man such as myself to gain it."


    "Good," Maxine said, "I''ll be sure to return this crystal after I''ve looked through it."


    "I would appreciate it," Turan said with his customary smile and he glanced up at something over Maxine''s shoulder, "Oh, it seems that your grandmother has entered this planet''s atmosphere."


    "What?!" Maxine said as she turned around and saw a fiery meteor hurtling straight at them, "Why didn''t you say something about that fucking meteor?!" When Maxine didn''t hear his response, she turned her head back towards Turan, but he had already fled.


    [I''m sorry to abandon you like that, but your grandmother threatened my life the last time we saw each other. And as much as I would like to see the both of you together once more, I prefer to live,] Turan said via spiritual sense, but he severed the connection before Maxine could reply. What is he talking about my grandma for? All I see is a damn meteor.


    Before Maxine could figure out why Turan was talking about her grandma, the flames around the ''meteor'' vanished to reveal grandma Victoria with her arms outstretched in preparation for a hug tackle. Oh, shit! Grandma was the meteor! And she''s coming in too fast to slow down in time! She didn''t dare dodge it since it would both upset her grandmother and so she could lessen the meteoric impact that her grandmother would cause.


    Maxine caught grandma Victoria at her ribs and used her whole body to arrest her grandmother''s momentum. Unfortunately, she was just moving too fast and Maxine created a pair portals behind her at the last possible moment. As her grandmother''s nearly flat chest slammed into her face, Maxine used the force of the impact to throw the both of them into one of the portals and out of other. Even as they hurtled back into the sky, grandma Victoria didn''t miss the moment to squeeze Maxine happily. At least, my nose isn''t broken this time.


    "Maxine, how I''ve missed you! You have no idea how hard it was for me to come visit you," grandma Victoria said happily, but in the next moment, she became apologetic, "But I''m also very sorry. I couldn''t keep them from coming to you any longer."


    "What are you talking about?" Maxine asked once she freed herself from her grandmother''s embrace.


    "The young men trying to court you," grandma Victoria answered, "Once it was known that you were still alive, I had to remind them of that illusion that you created to show them your ''ideal man'' to thin out their numbers, but I couldn''t stop them from approaching you entirely."


    "Isn''t there anything else you could do?" Maxine asked.


    "No, there isn''t and I''m certain they misunderstood your intentions in that illusion," grandma Victoria answered, "They think you have a thing for valiant men with scars, but I know the truth. You desire a gentle and kind mate that you can trust, but you''re not that particular about their gender or appearance. But at the same time, it''s hard for you to trust any man enough to allow any romantic feelings to blossom due to that wretched man''s abuse. I doubt any man will be able to meet up with that virtually impossible standard you''ve made. At least, no man living has reached it. I''ve come to terms with this but I know there are many other ways for you to have children. And like both of your mothers, I insist that you bring your children by to see me once you and your future wife decide to have them."


    "I will," Maxine promised, "By the way, where are you staying?"


    "The Kavros Clan''s compound," Grandma Victoria said calmly, but in the next moment, she radiated intense anger without changing her expression or tone, "But before I go there, where is that wretched man? I have some words that I would like to share with him." That''s not good. At least, I don''t sense any killing intent emanating off of grandma, so she probably won''t kill him. I think.

 Chapter 174

    Maxine worried about Jonathan Levings for nothing. Grandma Victoria reprimanded and threatened him for over an hour and it wasn''t the first time she had done this apparently. Grandma Victoria had yelled at him every day that she was on Earth before and after Orianna and Maxwell''s wedding.


    Unfortunately, grandma Victoria also heard about Maxine''s training and decided she should join in. Grandma Victoria''s idea of training was non-stop sparring session and Maxine found out first hand how skilled her grandmother was with a sword. Even after several hours, she couldn''t figure out how her grandmother moved so swiftly when their speed was relatively equal. She was literately covered in welts from a training sword after each and every sparring session due to this and was now laying on her back panting after their most recent session.


    "How the hell are you able to move like that?" Maxine asked as she replayed their sparring match in her head. Her grandma had blocked and dodged Maxine''s attacks with minimal movements before unleashing swift counter attacks. In fact, Maxine could''ve sworn that more than half of her attacks should''ve landed.


    "Mind your language, young lady," Grandma Victoria answered, "And as for your question, it''s all a matter of experience and proper muscle control. With your intelligence and talent, it should take you another year or two before you begin to figure it out for yourself. Do you have any other questions?"


    "Do you have any idea of how to improve my chances to breakthrough to gold?" Maxine asked.


    "Your blade skills should be sufficient as they are, but you''re not taking advantage of your attribute as much as you should," grandma Victoria pointed out.


    "And how would I do that?" Maxine asked, "As far as I can tell, it''s good for mimicking other attributes and making constructs."


    "Are you sure that''s all there is to it?" grandma Victoria asked, "Have you ever considered why it''s able to mimic other attributes?"


    "No, not really," Maxine answered and thought about it for a few moments, "I guess it''s because everything gives off a shadow of some kind."


    "A good guess, but not quite," grandma Victoria answered, "Shadow''s don''t have any physical form, yet the shadow attribute can. Think about it on a deeper level. Why would the shadow attribute be able to become anything?"


    "Hmm, technically it''s made up of two different types of energy. One is white and the other is black," Maxine answered and a thought entered her head, "Those two energies... are they yin and yang?"


    "Very good," grandma Victoria said, "Shadows exist in a state between light and darkness. They are a mixture of yin and yang if you will. This makes our attribute terrifyingly powerful, but at the same time, nearly impossible to completely master it. To do so, would require that an individual to be both yin and yang either in body or soul." So, they would need someone with a fused soul or a hermaphrodite to master the shadow attribute to even have a chance to master it. I fulfill one of those requirements.


    "What exactly are the benefits of mastering an attribute?" Maxine asked as she sat up.


    "Endless stamina and energy reserves while surrounded by their attribute and the ability to take on an elemental form. Which makes the user nearly invulnerable, except to their opposing element," grandma Victoria answered and she noticed that Maxine had taken on an odd expression, "What''s with that look? Don''t tell me that you''ve actually met someone like that? It''s incredibly rare for anyone to master their attribute." That sounds disturbingly similar to Chris'' elemental destroyer mode.


    "It''s just that it sounds terribly similar to an ability of one of my friends," Maxine answered honestly and she saw her grandmother''s gaze become rather intense.


    "His attribute?" grandma Victoria asked in a very serious tone.


    "Fire," Maxine answered simply and was about to tell her grandmother that it was Chris Maze. However, grandma Victoria held up her hand to silence Maxine.


    "Don''t you dare speak your friend''s name," grandma Victoria scolded Maxine, "I would be too tempted to recruit him to join our clan when he is needed here on your world. And believe me when I say that your world needs him. He can easily act as an extra hand to help you protect Earth. Afterall, your father can''t always look after your world."


    "I know that he can''t," Maxine replied.


    "It''s good that you understand that," grandma Victoria, "Now that we are on the topic of your world, who have you selected as your political advisors?"


    "An existing organization called the United Nations," Maxine answered, "Most of the major nations of this planet, and a lot of the minor ones, are part of it."


    "Oh, my. There must be quite a few of them, but I suppose most of them are non-cultivators. So, it makes sense that you would need that many to help you," grandma Victoria remarked, "Just be careful when handling them."


    "I know that," Maxine said, "I''ve already identified at least six of them that don''t like me for the mere fact that I''m a woman, but it''s more of a cultural thing than any real reason, though."


    "Ah, yes. Cultural differences can be difficult to get around," grandma Victoria agreed, "There are ways to overcome that. And I know you may not like it, but the most primitive way is usually the best. Which is a demonstration of overwhelming power."


    "I''m certain they already know that I''m extremely powerful, but they have false confidence that their cultivators could defeat me if they come at me in enough numbers," Maxine retorted, but an idea popped into her head, "Unless of course, I organize a training session against a hundred or so of their silver stage cultivators, but it will only work if their skill levels are below a certain threshold."


    "That shouldn''t be a problem. Besides those close to you, there are six on this planet that could put up a bit of a fight," grandma Victoria answered, "And I doubt that any of them would stoop so low as to gang up on a single opponent. It would injure their pride. Even if they do, it will only make it a bit challenging for you and you should still come out as the victor."


    "Fine, I''ll ask for a friendly sparring match against their cultivators at the next time I talk to the world leaders," Maxine replied.


    "Good and with your training out of the way, I''ll go spend time with Lucas," grandma Victoria said with a smile, "I so enjoy spending time with that little boy." Yeah, we both know why you like spending time with him. He literately called you ''auntie'' when he first laid eyes on you. I don''t care how old a woman gets. They always like being viewed as younger than they actually are.


    "Enjoy," Maxine said and as soon as grandma Victoria had left the room, she pulled out the crystal that Turan gave her yesterday. I haven''t had a chance to look through this thing since grandma showed up and I really need to return it as soon as possible before Turan gets in trouble.


    Maxine retrieved the knowledge crystal from her dimensional ring before looking at the contents. Are they fucking insane?! She literately watched a shadow lord charge up into the clouds that housed the lightning tribulation and how thirty three lightning bolts attacked him from every direction. However, they only possessed a small fraction of the power than the original three would''ve normally endured. Holy shit! I thought the lightning tribulation got nastier the closer to the clouds you tried to get, but this proves that you can still perform the tribulation before the lightning can fully gather. However, it brings a different kind of tribulation that requires speed and adaptability rather than power and resilience. This method would perfectly suit me. I really need to thank Turan for this later, but for now I need to return this knowledge crystal to him.


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    Once she looked it over one last time, she put it into her dimensional ring and created a portal to a park before walking through it. She looked around briefly to admire the scenery before taking a stroll on the paved path. I might as well enjoy the scenery until Turan shows up.


    It didn''t take long before Turan popped into existence a short distance ahead of her. "Was the information within that knowledge crystal helpful?" he asked with his usual smile.


    "Yes, it was and thank you for letting me look at it," Maxine said as she tossed the knowledge crystal back, "I owe you one."


    "You are most welcome," Turan said with a slight bow of his head.


    "I still feel bad about you taking that risk," Maxine said, "So, is there anything I can do to repay you?"


    "Hmm, let me think," Turan said as a thoughtful expression appeared on his face, "How about we go on a date?"


    "You have to be joking," Maxine said in combination surprise and disbelief, "You know I don''t like you in that way."


    "I''m aware and I''m asking you all the same," Turan said almost pleadingly to Maxine, "I only wish to you to indulge in this fantasy of mine for one evening. It would mean everything to me." Maxine really wanted to tell him no, but she felt a strong need to repay the many debts that she owed him.


    "Before I decide whether to agree to this or not, I want to hear what kind of date," Maxine asked.


    "I''ve heard that it''s rather normal to go out to eat at a nice restaurant and perhaps go watch a movie," Turan offered.


    "I don''t think I can handle that to be honest. I can already see the political bullshit that might happen because I ''fancy an offworlder.'' I really don''t want to deal with that crap," Maxine said, but an idea popped into her head, "But there is something that I can do right now. Just don''t move. I''m not sure if I will be able to go through with it if you do."


    Turan had a curious look on his face as Maxine quickly approached him, but like she asked, he didn''t move. She grit her teeth and slowly brought her face closer to his. But she veered off to the side to give him a light kiss on the cheek before reluctantly hugging him. She could feel Turan tense up, mostly in surprise, but in the next moment, he very carefully hugged her back. She instantly went rigid and had to resist her impulse to break free and punch him. I told him not to move! He''s lucky that I don''t beat the ever living shit out of him! No, I need to calm down. He''s just giving me a hug and doesn''t mean any harm. I''ll just indulge him for now. I just have to think of this as the next step in my rehabilitation. I''ve already gotten to the point that I can tolerate being around men. This is nothing more than the next logical step and Turan is one of the least likely men to ever hurt me. He''s already proven that many times over. So, I should chill out.


    "Thank you, Maxine," Turan said softly into Maxine''s ear before he very carefully removed himself from her embrace, "I know how hard that was for you." And that''s the second time he''s called me by my first name.


    "Just don''t expect me to do that again any time soon. I''ll see you later," Maxine said.


    "That you will. Farewell, Ms. Levings," Turan said with a slight bow of his head.


    Maxine created a portal back home and was suddenly hugged by Hellen once she was through it. "Uh, what was that for?" Maxine asked in confusion as she hugged Hellen back.


    "I''ve worried about you for so long, but I''m just so glad that you''ve taken the next step towards healing," Hellen said in obvious happiness, "Although, I wish you would''ve pick someone else to make that step with."


    "Before I jump to any conclusions, can you tell me what you''re talking about?" Maxine asked.


    "You''ve never taken the initiative to come into such close contact with a man," Hellen said as she broke from their embrace, "For awhile, I thought you would never take that step. I had to constantly remind myself that madam Neshan said that you would, eventually." Ah, so we are talking about my androphobia. Great. But that brings up another question. Why the hell are my parents always fucking watching me?! It''s getting real damn annoying.


    "For one, I trust him a little bit," Maxine said defensively, "And I owe him, a lot actually. He literately betrayed his own people for me when he thought I was going to die and let me look at something that could get him into a lot of trouble. Opening up to him like that was my way of saying thank you. And now that I think about it, giving him a quick peck on the cheek and a hug seems ... inadequate for what he''s done for me."


    "Is that true?! Did that young man really betray his race for Maxine?!" grandma Victoria practically shouted as she rushed to them from the playroom that was recently added onto their home.


    "Yes, it is, mother," Hellen answered, "I saw the whole thing."


    "I''ve done a disservice to that young man," grandma Victoria said to herself, "I need to make this right."


    "You could always try apologizing to him," Maxine offered.


    "I''ll do just that," grandma Victoria said as she swiftly made her way towards the airlock, "I just hope he doesn''t disappear before I can approach him." Good luck on that grandma. He still believes you want to kill him, so that might be a bit hard. Anyways, I need to call the UN secretary. He should be able to set up that battle that grandma suggested, but I''m going to make a few adjustments to what she thought of.


    "Oh! Mom, can I borrow your phone?" Maxine asked, "I need to call the UN secretary to arrange an exhibition match."


    "Sure, go ahead," Hellen said as she handed Maxine her phone.


    Maxine swiftly called the man and only had to let it ring twice before it was answered. "Hello, Ms. Levings. How can I help you?" the UN secretary asked.


    "I''m sorry for calling you like this, but I noticed that several of the UN representatives were very unhappy at my appointment as their representative in the Alliance," Maxine explained, "So, I thought I would show they why with a martial arts competition."


    "An interesting idea. Go on," the UN Secretary replied.


    "It''s not going to be an ordinary competition. I''m planning on sparring with their strongest fighters one at a time without any breaks," Maxine explained, "And if you could, I would like a list of all of injuries that they are suffering from. It''s not for the reason you think it is. I want to heal their injuries so they can''t complain that their warrior lost because of some old injury."


    "An interesting proposition, but what if one of them wins?" the UN Secretary asked. Depending on the rules that you set up, I doubt that will ever happen.


    "Then that person gets to take over my position as Earth''s representative within the Alliance," Maxine answered, "And yes, it''s a legal method to choose a planet''s representative." I may not like being in charge, but anyone else at my level of strength would probably not do as well as me. That means I have to win. In any case, this one on one fighting method against a large number of enemies back to back works in my favor. Horatio Quay was very insistent that I build up a ridiculous level of stamina to compliment my speed.


    "Interesting," the UN Secretary said, "I''ll let the other members know of your challenge."


    "Thank you for setting this up," Maxine said, "And enjoy the rest of your evening."


    "I will, good night," the UN secretary said before disconnecting the call.


    Maxine promptly handed the cellphone back to Hellen. "Thanks, mom. Mine just doesn''t work all the way out here," Maxine said.


    "It''s alright," Hellen replied calmly, "Oh, could you tell your father that lunch is ready? Lucas should be with him."


    "Sure," Maxine said as she headed towards Guan''s alchemy room. When she got there, Guan was in the process of teaching Lucas the various scents and shapes of various herbs.


    "This particular herb is quite useful when you need a small extra boost in speed to outrun any persuers," Guan explained as he held up a small cluster of yellow flowers that had a huge bulb at the base of it''s collective stems, "It can be eaten directly, but to get the most use out of it, it has to be concocted into a potion. Be careful not to mistake it for it''s toxic cousin. They are easily distinguished by the yellow green roots. Whereas it''s toxic cousin has purple and green roots." Lucas was nodding his head while looking intently at the herb Guan was holding.


    "Sorry to interrupt, but mom said lunch is ready," Maxine said and Lucas smiled before bounding out of the room towards the kitchen.


    Maxine turned to follow him, but Guan said something that stopped her cold in her tracks, "Be careful about what you eat and drink around those politicians, Maxine. If I can bypass your body''s immunities, someone else can as well and might do it completely by accident." What does he mean by that? Is someone going to make an attempt to drug me? With what?! Damn it, daddy. Why can''t you be more direct and just tell me? Fuck, I guess he''s trying to encourage me to figure it out for myself, but at least, he gave me a hint. It looks like I''m going to have to prepare my own food and drink for awhile. And it might be a good idea to bring plates, cups and silverware too.

 Chapter 175

    It had only taken the UN secretary a week to organize everything and now Maxine was waiting in a grassland somewhere in Germany while they prepared the fighting grounds. Apparently, they were making sure there were no civilians in the two square miles that they designated as the tournament grounds. This is boring as hell. It doesn''t help that most of the people challenging me are men. Seriously, couldn''t they find more women willing to compete? I count no more than fifteen out of the one hundred challengers. At least, the few that had old injuries will no longer be able to use them as an excuse. And I have to give my compliments to the UN secretary. He was able to hire an array master to harden the ground and blunt our weapons automatically.


    "I apologize for the wait. The formation array master that we hired is taking a bit longer than anticipated, but he will be finished soon. In the mean time, I''ll be going over the reason for your presence here and the rules for this event," the UN secretary said while holding a megaphone, "As you all know, Ms. Levings has issued a challenge to all of you, and through this challenge, she''s going to show you why the Alliance has chosen her as Earth''s representative. Now, onto the rules. First and foremost, intentionally killing each other is strictly prohibited. Any blows aimed below the waist or for the eyes are also strictly prohibited. Weapons are allowed, but be aware that the formation being set will render them quite blunt. We don''t want any accidental deaths to occur. And Ms. Levings, I''m sorry, but transformations are prohibited in any shape or form. You should understand our reasons for this. Multiple challengers can face Ms. Levings at a time, but it will be limited to a maximum of ten. Her powerful bloodlines and her multiple cores grant her physical abilities well beyond the norm. Thus, facing multiple challengers shouldn''t be too much for her. If a group manages to defeat Ms. Levings, the members will have to fight amongst themselves to determine who will represent Earth from now on. And finally, there will be no use of stimulants or poisons of any kind for the duration of this competition." These idiots have played right into my hands. They didn''t even try to limit the use of constructs or elemental abilities. I''ll just summon a few of the stronger ones to give my adversaries a beat down if they come at me as a group. But if shit really hits the fan, I''ve got a new trick up my sleeve.


    "It''ll be another ten minutes before we are ready, so please enjoy the provided refreshments," the UN secretary added after checking his phone.


    After checking the provided drinks with her spiritual sense, Maxine avoided the provided drinks like the plague. There was a set of drinks set inside of a separate cooler and each of them were spiked with a variety of potent and tasteless drugs. The dosage of them alone would be enough to overwhelm her body''s ability to process them and would leave her in a weakened state for at least an hour. I''m not really surprised, especially after daddy''s warning. But who ordered it? Most of the european countries appear to like the fact that I''m the one representing Earth. That doesn''t help too much to narrow down who wants to fucking drug me, though. Damn it, I hate having to constantly keep an eye out for shit like this!


    However, she noticed that her challengers were pulling various snacks and drinks out of their dimensional pouches. She only briefly raised her eyebrow at that, before doing the same. It seems like it''s standard to bring your own food and drink. Either that or their home countries told them to in order to avoid being drugged or poisoned.


    While she ate, she noticed a couple of the women present had large facial scars. It was odd to see an injury like that since modern medicine could remove it, but if it happened after they reached iron stage, their flesh would be too tough for any normal surgeon to even attempt to remove the scarring. She knew that it would be heartbreaking for any woman to have their beauty permanently marred like that.


    [You should really go to St. Louis, Missouri in America and see Emily Herst,] Maxine told them, [Her unique energies can restore scar tissue to healthy flesh.] All of them visibly jerked before looking around. Eventually, their gazes leveled on Maxine before giving her a nod of gratitude.


    "You said any ability right?" Maxine asked the UN secretary in a loud voice, "Does that include summoned creatures and constructs?"


    "Yes, it does," the UN secretary replied, "But you have to bring them into the arena with you."


    "That''s fine. I''ve already brought all the constructs that I will be using today in my shadow," Maxine replied. I wonder how he would react if he knew that I have my dragon and 100 of my shadow wolves within my shadow.


    A few minutes later, the battlegrounds were finally ready for Maxine and the others to begin. Maxine wasted no time to get into position and waited for her first challenger. But her first challenger ended up being a group of ten. How did I know this was going to happen? Oh, well. Time to bring out my dragon.


    Maxine expanded her shadow and with a thundering roar, her silver scaled, golden horned dragon flew out of it. The expression of her opponents were initially ones of surprise, but they quickly focused before scattering into some kind of formation. Thankfully, their eyes were only on her dragon and she used that small opportunity to activate her stealth technique. No point in tiring myself out this early on. Anyone who tries to gang up on me will either face my dragon or my wolves. In any case, the more skilled opponents should show up later.


    Sadly, the fight ended quickly. Her dragon had landed beside the group of ten and ignored their attacks while it swatted them unconscious with it''s tail one at a time. That''s just sad. They only left a few shallow wounds on my dragon. Well, it is a dragon. Even if it''s only a construct, dragon scales are known for their ability to resist damage. Hell, even the weakest dragon whelps at early bronze stage are practically bulletproof.


    She could literately hear the others shouting that Maxine was cheating somehow. But the UN secretary unapologetically replied, "I''m afraid what she did is well within the rules that were set since her ''dragon''s'' claws and teeth are blunted. If any of you had brought a creature to assist you in battle, it would be equally allowed. It''s just your misfortune that you didn''t do proper research on your adversary." With that, a few of them cursed, but otherwise, made no further complaints. Okay, that practically confirms that the UN secretary is on my side. Still doesn''t help me too much to narrow down who tried to drug me.


    After her previous opponents were cleared out of the battlegrounds, she canceled her stealth technique and saw a single asian man approaching her with a katana sheathed at his hip. A samurai? I didn''t expect one of them to show up so early.


    With a thought, Maxine retrieved her twilight iron blades from her dimensional ring, but didn''t get into a stance right away. He stopped twenty paces away from her and studied her with his eyes for a few moments. After seemingly confirming something to himself, he bowed his head slightly to her and she returned the gesture before both of them got into a fighting stance. They stared at each other for a few moments before charging at each other at the same time.


    Maxine was eager to see how well her skill measured up to a japanese swordsman as she charged forward. It was just that there were not that many people that practiced swordsmanship outside of Japan.


    She slashed at him several times, but he dodge or parried every attack masterfully. She smiled to herself and used her next attacks to set him up into a situation that forced him to block in order to destroy his weapon. However when she finally got him trapped and slashed out at him, she felt a pulse come off of his katana and she saw an image of a weeping woman in a kimono flash in her head. Without the slightest hesitation, she twisted her blade slightly and pulled the attack back slightly to make her strike deflect harmlessly off of his katana rather than destroy it.


    Maxine retreated as he counter attacked with a horizontal slash, but she didn''t care about that. Instead, she was furious with him for a different reason. He brought a freshly forged living weapon to a contest?! Doesn''t he understand how fucking rare they are?! And how did something like that end up here on Earth in the first place?! But more importantly, why is she crying? That''s a question for later. First, I need to get her away from that prick! He doesn''t deserve to have such a companion. He''s lucky that a dwarven forge master didn''t see her like this. They would''ve beaten that idiot to death regardless of the consequences. To the dwarven forge masters, living weapons are the pinnacle of their craft and when one is successfully forged, they are treated as precious children to be protected until they are paired with their destined partner.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    Maxine decided at that moment to stop playing around by matching his speed and power. And without giving any warning, she burst into movement and blasted him with her killing intent. He froze for merely an instant, but that was all she needed as she delivered a powerful kick to the side of his head.


    The force of the blow knocked him unconscious as he released his katana and Maxine placed on of her blades into her dimensional ring before grabbing it mid-air. As she landed, she could feel the surprised and terrified gazes of the other competitors, but she didn''t care about that as she approached the unconscious man. She swiped the sheath from his waist and sheathed the katana into it.


    "It''s alright now. You''re safe," Maxine said gently to the spirit within the katana.


    [Thank you for getting me away from him,] the living katana answered timidly via spiritual sense, [Can... can you return me to my father?]


    "I was going to anyways once I am done here," Maxine replied out loud, "Is it alright if I strap you to my back?"


    [Yes, it is,] the living katana answered, [Just, please, do not wield me.]


    "You don''t have to worry about that. I''m happy with the weapons that I''ve got," Maxine stated as she used her energies to create a few straps to hold the living katana to her back. She spotted a few people giving her a disapproving look, but she didn''t give a damn.


    Her next opponent approached as soon as the japanese swordsman was removed. Even from afar, she could tell that he was over seven feet tall, and it made her somewhat nervous to see that he carried a battle ax that had been scaled up to match his considerable size.


    Her instincts were warning her to be wary of him, but she had to deal with an additional problem. Because of how small this large man made her feel, memories of the abuse she received at the hands of Jonathan Levings resurfaced, but instead of feeling fear, she felt almost blinding rage. She hated being reminded of how powerless she used to be.


    This giant of a man stopped nearly fifty feet away from her and as soon as he readied his weapon, she charged at him using her full speed. She felt, but didn''t hear, sonic boom around her before leaping in the air to kick the giant in the face. She knew it was a stupid move, but didn''t care. She wanted to completely crush him.


    The giant of a man swung his ax at her and she kicked at the air above her to create a sonic boom to push her down while flying down at the same time to practically dive towards in order to avoid the strike. Without an ounce of hesitation, she punched the ground to launch herself back up towards this massive man''s face to strike him in the face with her knee. Surprisingly, he managed to retract his ax and put the flat side of the ax head between her and this face. Unfortunately for him, it didn''t stop her attack.


    On impact, an imprint of her knee formed on the ax head and the force of her strike carried through to slam his ax into his face. Instantly, he was launched off of his feet and few through the air several hundred feet. He bounced a few times before skidding to a halt.


    By this time, Maxine had already regained her calm and felt a little bad for hitting the man so hard. It wasn''t his fault that he reminded her of a painful memory. So she waited for him to stand back up so that she could apologize for her conduct. But he remained unmoving. Is he even alive after that hit? Wait, he''s still breathing. That''s good, but when he wakes up, he''ll have one hell of a headache and possibly a few missing teeth. I think I have a potion to help him regrow them.


    Maxine looked at the other challengers, but saw that more than two thirds of them had taken to the skies. She knew that it meant that they had opted out of fighting her in any shape or form. She couldn''t blame them for leaving either after she knocked out that massive man with a single blow.


    Still, no one approached her to fight, and it seemed like they were discussing something. After a few minutes, everyone, aside from six people, decided to leave. However, they looked at each other for some reason. If those six are who I think they are, I will be in trouble if they decide to come at me together. Hopefully, that won''t happen, but if they do, I need to make a plan now. For some reason, she thought of her grandmother and came to a sudden realization. There is no way grandma would do something like that during a sparring match. She''s way to upright to pull such a rotten move, but I wonder how quickly these guys will catch on if I were to do that. If I can take out enough of them, I might be able to pull it off without using my dragon or the other constructs. This''ll be fun.


    Fortunately, she wasn''t forced to fight all six at once and saw a voluptuous latina approaching her slowly with a machete on her hip and a spear in her hand. It''s not the first time that I''ve seen someone carry two weapons like that. Although from the way she moves and the lightness of her steps, she seems to be the speed and agility fighter. The same as me.


    The latina nodded towards Maxine and waited long enough for Maxine to return the gesture before taking up a fighting stance. They circled each other for a few moments before Maxine charged forward. She was met by a flurry of quick thrusts. Each thrust left an afterimage, but Maxine could tell which attack was the real one as she dodged them all while slowly advancing.


    Maxine finally got close enough to use her blades, but before she could, the latina stopped the thrust attacks. Instead, she performed a sweeping attack. Maxine jumped to avoid it and in the next moment, she heard a faint draconic roar as the spear was lunged at her while she was still in the air.


    Maxine swiftly pivoted mid air with her blades to parry the attack and rushed forward before the attack could be pulled back. Once she was in range, she gently tapped the latina on the side of her head with her free blade. That should let her know that I had more than enough time to end her. Still, she threw that nasty finishing move out at the last second. If I couldn''t fly, I would''ve still won, but it would''ve been a lot more difficult.


    "How did you resist being effected by my dragon thrust?" the latina asked.


    "Oh, so that''s what that roaring sound was," Maxine said, "You should know that mild form of dragon fear doesn''t work very well on someone that has seen heavy combat and not at all on anyone with a draconic bloodline in their veins."


    "I see. Thank you," the latina said before turning around and leaving. As soon as she left the battlegrounds, the latina got all sorts of angry glares. It was only a few moments before the remaining five began approaching Maxine.


    When they were one hundred feet away, Maxine caught a strange scent and immediately felt a primal rage blossom within her. What the fuck?! It only took her a moment to realize that someone had sprinkled their clothing with beast incitement powder. It was used to lure large numbers of beasts into one spot to thin them out in one fell swoop. The only problem was it also triggered a primal rage that caused them to attack everything in sight and since it had a similar effect on beastkin and owners of beastly bloodlines, it was a highly restricted substance. She had no idea how those five had gotten their hands on it.


    She never considered that she would be effected by it and had to concentrate to keep her fury in check. At least, I can still think clearly while I''m like this, but I don''t know if I can keep myself from killing these pricks during our match. I need to defeat them quickly once I regain enough control of my emotions.


    She hunched over and closed her eyes to make it easier to keep her fury in check. Unfortunately, it wasn''t working as well as she hoped. Even while concentrating, she felt patches of her body momentarily shift to that of her battle form before shifting back to normal. Damn it. It''s messing with me more than I thought.


    Maxine opened her eyes and scanned each of them for the beast incitement powder with her spiritual sense. To her surprise and fury, all of them had it on their clothes.


    "See I told you it would have some effect on her," a man with a thick arabic accent said with a smug grin in alliance common, "And when she attacks us like the beast she is, we will be forced to kill her." That simple statement made Maxine angrier, but for some reason, it was that anger that made it easier to control of herself. I would''ve liked to fight you fuckers fairly to preserve your pride, but after hearing that bullshit, no mercy.


    Maxine used those few moments of greater control to create a blob at the end of her left blade that was a mixture of various shades of grey and threw it towards the sun. While she did that, the five challengers had surrounded her, but she didn''t give a damn. If anything, it made it easier for her to do execute her plan.


    She watched them while waiting for that blob to explode into a cloud and when it did, she performed several shadow steps in rapid succession. After appearing from each of her shadow steps, she slashed or stabbed each challenger with surgical precision to avoid killing them and didn''t stop until each of them had a dozen wounds.


    Next, she shadow stepped in front of the UN secretary. Whom stumbled backwards and landed on his ass in surprise at Maxine''s sudden appearance. Just from the look on his face, she knew that he wasn''t aware of why Maxine had just snapped.


    "You should get them out of here as soon as possible. I''m surprised that the beast incitement powder that they put on their clothes hasn''t lured every beast within fifty miles to them already," Maxine told him in a strained voice while doing her utmost to remain in control of herself and at the same time, the five challengers before they collapsed while screaming as they finally felt every wound that Maxine gave them, "And next time that someone even thinks about bringing an Alliance such a heavily restricted substance to Earth, I''m killing EVERYONE involved. No exceptions."


    She quickly created an arch that lead to the training room back home and ran through it. Without hesitation, she howled and lashed out wildly at her surroundings to vent her rage within her.

 Chapter 176

    After calming down, Maxine spent the next few days time with Emily and her family, but that didn''t mean she was entirely idle. She sent one of her ravens to hide in the UN assembly area as well as a few of the more suspicious representatives to see if they would have a private meeting with an off worlder. Although, she doubted that they would do something so stupid as to meet up with their off world conspirator any time soon. Still, she figured it was a good idea to cover all of her bases.


    After that, she only took a few hours of searching to find the living katana''s father. The poor thing was never even bestowed a name and only her father could give her one.


    Thankfully, Maxine found the swordsmith that forged the living katana. But he was in the hospital and looked ancient. She could only guess how he was able to forge a living katana at his advanced age, but right now, that didn''t matter. She needed to get to him before he passed on. The living katana needed him to give her a name. And Maxine wanted him to know that he would be remembered for his accomplishment.


    She asked Emily to come along to see if she could help him, but Maxine doubted Emily could do anything for him. The divine attribute could repair damaged flesh, but it couldn''t reverse the flow of time.


    [Thank you both for your kindness,] the living katana said gratefully.


    "You''re welcome," Emily replied with a smile, "And could you limit how much you talk. I''m still a little weirded out that you can actually speak."


    [I''ve noticed that human''s rarely take it well when I talk to them. The man that forced me to be his weapon threatened to destroy me if I didn''t remain silent and the others that laid their hands upon me fled in terror as soon as I spoke to them,] the living katana answered, [Maxine is the only one that didn''t seem to mind it at all.]


    "I still can''t believe that idiot didn''t know how to properly treasure you," Maxine sand and noticed that they arrived at the old swordsmith''s hospital room, "I believe this is your father''s room."


    Maxine walked inside and saw an old man hooked up to various machines. She didn''t even need to use her spiritual sense to know that he wasn''t going to live for much longer. However, she still had to try to help him if nothing more than to wake him long enough to give his ''daughter'' a name. Now, I''m happy that I notified the dwarves about this katana''s existence and a small delegation of them should arrive in a little while. Although, I''m a little surprised that it her father isn''t the best living swordsmith, Yoshindo Yoshihara. This Saito Kimihara is completely unknown and lived in a rural village. I don''t think he has any living family or relatives. Otherwise, they would''ve been here and it''s too late for him to sire any children either. He only has this living katana as a daughter. I have no idea how he even forged her while in his current state.


    She gently scanned him with her spiritual sense and sighed. He had, at most, a few days left to live and she was somewhat frustrated since there was literately nothing wrong with him other than old age. Even if she concocted a vitality boosting potion to help him, it would only extend his life by another six months. But why do I feel as if something is terribly wrong with him? On a hunch, she scanned his bones and discovered why he was able to forge a living katana as an ordinary person. However, she decided that it was best to keep that detail to herself for the time being.


    "Emily, what do you think?" Maxine asked.


    "I can ease his pain, but that''s about it," Emily answered.


    [Is there truly nothing that can be done?] the living katana asked desperately.


    "I can extend his life by, maybe, six months," Maxine answered honestly, "As for saving him entirely, it''s impossible for us. He''s too old and I don''t have access to the materials that can extend his life any more than that."


    [I see. Please, do what you can,] the living katana asked, [And could you lay me down beside my father?]


    "Of course," Maxine said as she gestured with her head for Emily to do what she could, "I''ll start working on that potion."


    Once Emily began applying her energies to the old man, Maxine went straight to making the potion. Although, it was actually an extremely watered down version of the vitality potion and was going to spread out the dosage over the course of a week. If she were to give him a full strength one, it would most likely kill him.


    Thankfully, it only took her a handful of minutes due to the simplicity of the potion and she slowly fed it to him. Within moments, his cheeks regained color and his vital signs vastly improved. But even with that, he was still going to be bed bound for his remaining days.


    After a few moments, Saito Kimihara slowly opened his eyes and spoke in japanese. Unfortunately, Maxine didn''t understand a single word of it. The living katana translated for her, [Father just said ''I think you have the wrong man, miss angel.'']


    [I''m no angel, but I am here to help you,] Maxine told the old man while smiling via spiritual sense, [Your daughter desires a name that only you can bestow.]


    [I don''t have any children,] Saito Kimihara answered mentally.


    [Ah, but that''s where you are wrong,] Maxine replied as she gently pressed the hilt of the living katana against his skin, [Your daughter is a sword, a living sword.]


    Saito Kimihara''s eyes looked at the living katana with wide open eyes. Maxine had no doubt that she was talking to him, but even though she was touching the old man''s mind, she was somehow excluded from their conversation. Eventually, she could hear his thoughts once more, [Asuna, that will be her name. I know it isn''t a proper name for a sword, but I don''t care. She is my daughter.]


    Maxine showed a brilliant smile at hearing. [That is the exact same mentality that the dwarves have and they are coming here acknowledge your feat. Only ten human weapon smiths have ever forged a living weapon, yourself included, in the past million years. They honor each of the smiths before you with monuments depicting them performing their craft with their name engraved at it''s base along with the name of the child that they forged. To them, there is no greater accomplishment for a blacksmith than to forge life.]


    [I will be remembered?] Saito Kimihara thought to Maxine.


    [For as long as the dwarven race persists, you will be remembered,] Maxine answered honestly. Saito Kimihara smiled as he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. I was wondering when he would fall back to sleep. Vitality improving potions give their imbiber a short boost of stamina, along with a one-time small boost to their life span. That boost of stamina rarely lasts more than a minute or two. At least, even if he never wakes, he will know that his name shall be remembered.


    [Thank you again,] Asuna, the living katana, said to Maxine, [Can I stay with him a little longer?]


    [A little? Stay as long as you like,] Maxine replied, [I don''t have anywhere I need to be for the time being, but I need to send Emily back home. She has other obligations to attend to.]


    [You''re very kind,] Asuna replied.


    "I really should head back now," Emily said.


    "I know," Maxine said with a gentle smile and created an arch that lead to just outside of the hospital Emily works at, "Take care and keep an eye out for any suspicious people."


    "I will," Emily replied, "And try to avoid getting drugged again. I''m just glad that you were able to control yourself." So am I. If I had gone full hydra, no one would''ve made it out of there alive.


    "You''re not the only one," Maxine said, "Now get out of here before you''re late to work. And thank you for coming to help."


    "Don''t mention it," Emily said as she was walking through the arch, "Just be sure to visit the clinic and give a helping hand later."


    "I will," Maxine said to Emily''s back before she disappeared completely through the arch.


    Maxine found a seat to sit down in and pulled out a book. It wasn''t long before a nurse showed up, but she left Maxine alone while tending to the old man. After nearly three hours and two alchemy books later, three of ravens tried to get her attention as two middle eastern and the chinese UN representatives began to move towards the same location after they received a phone call. Those old politicians can''t possibly be this stupid. They know that I have some weird abilities and that I''m probably watching them. That means their off world conspirator is forcing the matter. If it was anyone else, this would''ve been a smart move since I couldn''t possibly have formed my own intelligence network yet.


    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    Eventually, those three arrived at their location and Maxine saw who was responsible for smuggling in that beast incitement powder. She had no doubt that it was a member of the Alchemist Association just from the herbal smell emanating off of him. I had a feeling it was them, but I wasn''t certain until just this moment. They''re other people that can make it, but mostly it''s just the Alchemist Association. I''m a little surprised they didn''t send someone that wasn''t a little stronger. This poor fool is barely a silver stage cultivator. It makes me wonder how good of a deal the Alchemist Association gave them. But that''s a question I can present to those three idiots at a later time.


    Maxine immediately pulled out a tamper-proof recording crystal and began recording everything. She had to provide proof if she was to have the Alliance''s law on her side when she makes any accusations about the Alchemist Association.


    "Do you have any idea how risky it is to meet you?" the chinese representative said in Alliance common, "If you hadn''t threatened us, we would''ve never come here. And why wasn''t that powder of yours more effective?"


    "Like I told you before, the beast incitement powder would have a reduced efficacy on Ms. Levings due to her possessing only a beastly bloodline, but it still should''ve worked on her. She must possess an uncommonly strong will. Still, I believe this batch will be more than enough to overpower even her exceptional willpower," the hooded alchemist said as he set a single vial of white powder on the table. However, Maxine wasn''t going to let him live after so blatantly admitting that he supplied them with the beast incitement powder. She didn''t care if the Alchemist Association made a big fuss about it either. The laws of the Alliance were on her side.


    Without giving them any warning, Maxine created spikes to burst out of the alchemist''s shadow to pierce his forearms and shins and used them to lift him into the air. Surprisingly, he didn''t cry out in pain, but looked resigned to his fate. [So, you''re the one that orchestrated that mess and smuggled in a highly restricted substance to my world. By the laws of the Alliance, I''m well within my rights to kill every last single one of you fuckers,] Maxine said via spiritual sense to everyone in that room, [But I''m feeling generous so, I''m going to forgive the three fools that worked with you just this once. I still need them, for now. It''s also clear as day that none of your bothered to read up on the laws of the Alliance. But make no mistake. If this happens again, your heads will fly.] To further make her point, she had a bladed tendril erupt out of the alchemist''s shadow and beheaded him in one motion. The resulting blood spatter covered the faces of three representatives. God, I wish that hadn''t been necessary, but if I don''t make an example out of that prick, these guys would try something like this again. And why can''t those assholes from the Alchemist Association just leave me alone? I already warned them what would happen if they didn''t. Even if I complain, they will just deny that they did, so no point in even trying. But if I do nothing, it will encourage this behavior. I hate to act like a savage, but I''m going to send this fucker''s head to them in a box as a warning. And it will be their last warning.


    With a mental sigh, she watched as the alchemist''s head bounced off of the ceiling and landed on the table directly in front of them. They were frozen in fear for a couple seconds before they scrambled for the door. While they weren''t looking, Maxine retrieved his head and put it in her dimensional ring. She also snatched the beast incitement powder as well as the alchemist''s dimensional pouch.


    Maxine rolled her eyes and retracted her spiritual sense. There wasn''t any point to watch them any further. They would either take heed to her warning or ignore it. But after seeing their reaction, she didn''t think they would build up the courage to try anything as stupid as that again in the foreseeable future. Their replacements, though, might have other ideas. Hopefully, someone competent will show up by then to take over for me.


    Maxine checked on Saito Kimihara, but he was still sleeping with Asuna, the living katana, at his side. It wasn''t until another hour that a nurse noticed her and tried to remove her from her father''s side. Oddly enough, the male nurse immediately released Asuna as soon as he touched her. Maxine didn''t know what Asuna said to him, but the poor man made a point to avoid that side of the hospital bed whenever possible. Then again, maybe he''s freaked out by a talking sword. Yeah, that''s probably it.


    A few minutes later, Maxine felt an unfamiliar spiritual sense scan the building and momentarily focus on Asuna. [Are ye the lass that protects his world?] a man with a deep voice asked to her via spiritual sense.


    [Yes, I am. Are you the dwarven appraiser?] Maxine asked in return.


    [Aye, that I am,] the dwarven appraiser answered, [I can see ye haven''t mistreated this child. But I be curious. Why did ye lay her next to that old man?]


    [That''s her father by her own admission,] Maxine answered, [Although, I can understand your confusion since he''s an ordinary man. But if you check his skeletal age, you will understand.]


    [Oh?] the dwarven appraiser said with curiosity and immediately his tone turned to one of surprise and grief, [Such a loss! He sacrificed his remaining years to forge that young lass. Tis'' such a shame. Regardless, how do ye want to handle this young one while we help her find her partner?] I wouldn''t have realized how old he was either until my spiritual sense penetrated his bones. No one would think it, but this man is only 41 years old. Yet looks like he''s well over 80.


    [I would like a dwarven guardian to care for her after her father passes,] Maxine said honestly, [It''s not because I don''t want to do it myself. I simply do not have the time to help her find her partner.]


    [I will see it done. How long does he have?] the dwarven appraiser asked.


    [I''m not entirely sure, but if I had to guess, less than six months,] Maxine answered.


    [Tis'' a shame,] the dwarven appraiser said sadly, [Do ye have a picture of him performin'' his craft?]


    [I don''t, but with a little searching, I think I can procure a picture of him before he forged Asuna,] Maxine answered.


    [That be enough,] the dwarven appraiser said, [Ah, where are my manners! My name be Throm. I''ll be keepin'' an eye on the young lass while yer gone.]


    [That''s much appreciated,] Maxine replied, [I''ll go find that picture after you arrive.]


    [I''ll be there in but a few moments, lass,] dwarven appraiser Throm replied.


    Maxine began looking around for anything that might tell her where Saito Kimihara lived, but she couldn''t read japanese. I guess I''ll just have to look around for a bit. It shouldn''t take me too long. Asuna gave me a mental image of his smithy and his home. At least, I know that it''s in a rural area. That helps somewhat. I don''t see anyone carting him off to some far away city to have him treated. So, his home must be somewhere nearby. As long as I don''t get distracted, I should be able to find it soon enough. With a sigh, she spread out her spiritual sense in every direction and carefully searched for the smithy that Asuna was forged at while she waited for Throm to arrive.


    While she waited, a sheet of paper appeared in her lap as she heard Turan say softly, "This is the missing page from that book I gave you. Read it quickly and destroy it. I don''t know how long the others will be away." Maxine nodded her head to the air and quickly examined the sheet of paper.


    On one side, there was a drawing of a woman that had almost the same face as Maxine, but there were some key differences. For one, this woman was clearly a shadow elf, but far more evolved. The next few differences was that she seemed to have galaxies within her eyes, had hair that started off white at the roots before fading to black at the ends near her waist, was considerably taller than Maxine, and had a literal black crown in the opaline gem on her forehead.


    Maxine flipped the sheet of paper over and saw text written in elvish, but in a different dialect than the one she knew. So, it took a bit of effort to translate it all. It more or less confirmed a few things for Maxine about the appearance of what the Shadow Lords were looking for, but it also added on the fact that she would be a fused soul. How the hell would they even know that? It''s almost like they had a prophet peer into the future, but I guess he or she saw only what they wanted to. I may not have a galaxy in each of my eyes, but I do have six golden specks in the shape of stars in each eye.


    She read it over and glanced at the drawing one last time before incinerating it. At the same time, she located Saito Kimihara''s smithy. It was nearly forty miles away. A bit far to go, but this hospital is the closest one to that smithy. So it makes sense for them to bring him here.


    With a thought, she scanned his entire home for any pictures of him. She found several and they were taken from many different angles. Most of which were taken a few years ago during some kind of event. She created a series of portals as she gathered them up and managed to grab the last one just as Throm arrived.


    He was four foot tall, had black hair and couldn''t possibly be more muscular as far as Maxine was concerned. His beard was woven in several braids with rings and other adornments mixed in amongst the braids.


    "Here," Maxine said as she handed the photos to Throm, "They are not holograms, but with this many, it shouldn''t be hard for a dwarven craftsmen to accurately craft his monument." Throm gingerly collected them before putting them into a dimensional pouch.


    "Thank ye, lass," Throm replied, "Now that I take a better look at ye, do ye happen to have elven blood in yer veins?"


    "Shadow elf to be exact," Maxine replied honestly, "But I''m mostly human."


    "I figured as much," Throm said, "Now, I got everything handled here. Now, off with ye and attend to whatever business ye have left today."


    "I will and please, alert me if there is any change in his condition," Maxine said, "See you later." Throm simply nodded his head and took a seat.


    Maxine looked at the room one more time and created an arch back home. As soon as she was through the arch, she was immediately ambushed by grandma Victoria.


    "Maxine! Here, look at this," Grandma Victoria said excitedly as she shoved a knowledge crystal into Maxine''s hands, "I can''t believe that there is a living young man that fits your criteria and he''s coming here!" Maxine gave grandma Victoria a weird look before she looked into the knowledge crystal and saw an image of man with only one arm and leg. His face was also destroyed. But he suffered those injuries defending a small city and she couldn''t find anything or anyone that forced him to do it in the information provided by her grandmother. Holy shit! He''s an honest to god, self-sacrificing hero. Wait, just because grandma couldn''t find anything, doesn''t mean that there wasn''t some other reason for his actions. Still, to suffer those kind of injuries and continue fighting, he must either be the real deal or he was protecting someone very dear to him. Either way, I only gave those ridiculous requirements because I didn''t think anyone would ever satisfy them. I couldn''t just tell them that I have no interest in anyone other than Emily. Those fuckers wouldn''t believe me. Regardless, now that someone actually meets those stupid requirements, I should at least give him a chance. Otherwise, I''ll get harassed by even more young masters when they realize my requirements were bullshit.

 Chapter 177

    Maxine kept glancing up at the sky as she waited just outside of the spaceport. She was making a show of being impatient to meet the hero, Vellus Callaran. She still couldn''t believe that someone like him had actually appeared. He had literately survived fighting against hundreds of by himself for quite some time before reinforcements were gathered to aide him.


    After a thorough investigation, grandma Victoria only gave him more praise. At least, this gives me something besides politics to concentrate my energy on. Thankfully, those pricks in the UN are too occupied with going over the contents of the next Alliance meeting to be much of a bother. I wonder if I should''ve told them there was only one relevant item for Earth to be worried about and that''s the low supply of chocolate. I can easily use that as an excuse to acquire more advanced farming techniques and technologies for Earth at a significantly reduced price and I''m fairly certain that the UN members will agree with me on that course of action.


    "There''s no need to be nervous, Maxine," grandma Victoria said as she patted Maxine on the shoulder and when Maxine gave her a confused look, she added while gesturing towards Maxine''s hair, "You only braid your hair when you''re nervous or about to go into a fight." Oh, I didn''t realize I did that, but she''s right. I am nervous, but not for a the reason she thinks. I''m worried that grandma won''t believe my act when that guy shows up. Why did those two decide to join me to greet him?


    "I believe you''re right, mother," Hellen said, "But you shouldn''t get too excited, Maxine. He may fulfill your preferences, but your personalities may not be compatible." At those words, a few of the young men nearby relaxed somewhat. Really? Do these young masters have anything better to do other than stalk me? Well, now that I think about it, they probably don''t.


    "I know, mom," Maxine replied and finally spotted a large transport ship descending towards the spaceport, "At least, I won''t have to wait to see him for much longer. His ship seems to be descending now." As the massive craft descended, she realized that she was unconsciously gripping her braid with both hands. Well, I seem to be more nervous than I realize. It would be best if I kept our conversation as short as possible.


    After the ship landed, Maxine patiently waited fifteen minutes before she finally spotted him. It wasn''t that hard considering he was six foot four inches tall. His brown hair only covered the right half of his head and the other side was a mess of scar tissue. The scarring was so bad that his ear was simply gone. As for his face, he wore an eyepatch over his left eye as well. Finally, she noticed how uneven his gait was. It was, no doubt, due to the fact that he had a cheap prosthetic leg.


    Unfortunately, in the next moment, she heard several of the young masters make insulting comments.


    "Hah! And here I was worried. He''s just a cripple," one of them said mockingly.


    "Yeah, and ugly as hell. There is no way she''ll favor him over us," another said.


    The rest of the comments got much worse after that and it infuriated Maxine. Those motherless assholes. Heroes should be adored and rewarded. They should not be subjected to this kind of bullshit.


    Maxine gave them all an angry glare laced with dragon fear before walking towards Vellus Callaran and flashed him a smile as she greeted him, "Welcome to Earth, hero of Ankara."


    "I''m no hero. I just did what others should''ve done," Vellus Callaran replied in a humble tone.


    "And that''s what makes you a hero," Maxine replied with a small smile, "You saved a great many lives at great risk to your own."


    "I just wish being a hero paid better," Vellus Callaran said jokingly, "My clan could''ve use the income." Yes, grandma mentioned that his clan was rather poor and that his mercenary work is their primary source of income.


    "Well, you don''t have to worry about paying for anything here," Maxine said, "I''ll be taking care of your expenses and that of your clan. Here, take this. It''s a gift." She held out a dimensional pouch with enough currency in it to fully supply his family with enough food and resources to last for a year, but that wasn''t the only thing she left in it. There was also a limb and eye regeneration potions within it as well as nutritional potions to provide the necessary nutrients to nourish him while he regenerates.


    "I can''t accept this," Vellus Callaran said firmly as he tried to hand it back to her, but she wouldn''t let him, "This is more money than can I make in two years."


    "Just take it," Maxine said, "You''re family needs it and you need the potions for yourself."


    "Thank you," Vellus Callaran said with a bow of his head, "I won''t forget this."


    "Just return the favor by being yourself," Maxine replied, "It would mean more to me than you might realize."


    "I''m not sure what you mean by that, but I''ll try anyways," Vellus Callaran replied uncertainly.


    "Good," Maxine said and glanced at her shadow to gauge the time, "Sadly, I''ve got a few other things to do today today and I can''t stand here to chat anymore. Go to the Ice and Fire guild headquarters if you need help finding a place to stay. The leaders of that guild are old friends of mine."


    "Thank you again," Vellus Callaran said.


    "Think nothing of it," Maxine said, "I''ll try to talk to you some more later on today." She created an arch and turned to leave. However as she turned around, she saw both Hellen and grandma Victoria had big smiles on their faces. Well, it seems my act held up to scrutiny. Although, their smiles seem to be a bit too big.


    "Until later," Vellus Callaran said with a warm look in his remaining eye just before Maxine walked through the arch.


    As soon as the three of them finished walking through the portal, Hellen asked directly, "You like him, don''t you?"


    "I haven''t known him long enough to figure out how I feel about him," Maxine answered honestly.


    "You feel something for him," grandma Victoria boldly stated with a huge smile plastered on her face, "You wouldn''t have waited so long or treated him so courteously otherwise. And that''s not even including the gift that you gave him. Although, I''m curious why you said you had other things to do. As far as I know, you have to go to that clinic for a few hours to spend time with Emily. You could''ve spared another hour to entertain him." I left because I was getting stressed due to the fact that I was afraid that my act would be seen through. But I can''t actually say that now, can I?


    "Mother, that''s enough," Hellen said firmly, "Just look at Maxine. Can''t you see that whole experience was very stressful for her?" Or that I''m still a little androphobic?


    Grandma Victoria quickly gave Maxine a closer look and immediately apologized, "I''m sorry, Maxine. I didn''t realize." Without any warning, Maxine was hugged by grandma Victoria.


    "It''s alright, grandma," Maxine said, "I know that you''re just super excited to see me interested in a man."


    "Yes, I believe that''s an apt description," Hellen agreed.


    "Perhaps, both of you are right," grandma Victoria said, "But can you blame me? I was fully prepared to die of old age before Maxine found someone that fit her criteria and out of nowhere, this young man shows up that fulfills it perfectly."


    "That just gives him a chance, grandma," Maxine reminded her.


    "Indeed, and you know how unforgiving Maxine can be when it comes to others making mistakes," Hellen said and she made a point of glaring at Maxine as she continued, "Even when they were under the influence of an outside source."


    "Mom, he could''ve controlled himself if he wanted to," Maxine retorted, "Hell, he should''ve realized that he was under the influence of those damn parasites."


    "Could one of you tell me what this is about?" Grandma Victoria asked.


    "Oh, a young man that Maxine seemed to like stole a kiss from her while being under the influence of some nasty brain parasites," Hellen replied, "He completely lost her trust after that stunt." As soon as Hellen finished speaking, Maxine could see the fury in grandma Victoria''s eyes. Damn it, mom. You shouldn''t have mentioned that in front of grandma.


    "And what is that young man''s name?" grandma Victoria asked with a tone that was calm, yet fury danced in her eyes.


    "I''m not telling you," Hellen answered, "Maxine has already punished him for his poor choice of actions and that will be the end of it. I don''t want another poor soul to suffer your cruel verbal assaults."


    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    "Very well," grandma Victoria said calmly, but Maxine knew her grandmother better than that. If she ever found out it was Jason Markham, she wouldn''t spare him. I know grandma is just being ultra-protective of me, but she doesn''t have to be. I can defend myself against most threats.


    Thankfully, Lucas chose that moment to hug tackle grandma Victoria''s leg and asked, "Play?"


    "Of course, I''ll play with you," grandma Victoria said happily, "What game shall we play today?"


    "Spar," Lucas said happily. I wish he would use full sentences more often. He''s been using single words to convey what he wants whenever possible.


    "Then let''s get to the training room," grandma Victoria said, "I don''t think you''re sister will mind."


    "Thanks, grandma," Lucas said with a smile as he slowly swished his tail back and forth merrily. The two of them promptly headed towards the training room.


    Maxine took a few calming breaths before opening up an arch and went to the hospital that Emily worked at to help out at the free clinic. She rather enjoyed spending time around Emily and healing women and children. Everyone else took care of the men since they knew that they made her very uncomfortable.


    Before reaching the examination room assigned to her, she attached her spiritual sense to the walls, floor and ceiling inside of it to make sure no one spied on her patients. With that out of the way, she opened the door and walked in to wait for her first patient.


    After a couple hours, Maxine had already seen a dozen patients and finally got a surprise visitor. Vellus Callaran had walked into her examination room. How the hell did he even know I was working here?! Nevermind that. The better question would be how he managed to convince the receptionist to let him in here. She knows that I refuse to see male patients.


    "I didn''t mean to intrude on your work hours, but you didn''t mention which of those two potions should be consumed first," Vellus Callaran asked innocently. That''s a dumb question. Unless, of course, he wasn''t given a proper education on the matter due to the fact that he was forced to work before his education was complete. Damn it. I should''ve considered that when I set that gift up. Ugh, I really need to start paying more attention to the small details.


    "Um, are your eyelids intact on your left side?" Maxine asked, "I can''t really tell with your eyepatch in place."


    "Not entirely. They were badly damaged and can''t close properly after I lost my eye," Vellus Callaran replied honestly.


    "Then, you should drink the limb regrowth potion first. It''ll heal your damaged eyelids and restore your skin as it regrows your limbs," Maxine said and had a sudden realization, "Do you have anyone to help you out while the potion does it''s thing?" His prosthetic leg will be useless the following day after he drinks that potion and it''ll take at least two weeks for his arm and leg to regrow. It was at that moment that Maxine sensed several different spiritual sense probes forcibly enter the room. Rude, inconsiderate assholes. Do those young masters think they can get away with this kind of shit on my turf?


    "No, I don''t," Vellus Callaran answered, "In truth, I wasn''t expecting your generosity. I thought that you wouldn''t treat me with hostility like the others,, but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the kindness that you''ve shown me."


    "I see," Maxine said and contemplated what to do, "I know of a few people that can assist you while your limbs regrow, but I''ll only arrange it if you believe that you''ll need it."


    "I can take care of myself, but I would enjoy it if you cooked me a meal or two while those potions take effect," Vellus Callaran admitted as he scratched the back of his head.


    "I''ll think about it," Maxine said with a smile. Hmm, I think I can feel the jealously of those young masters from here, but they should know better than to try anything stupid while he''s still on Earth. And when he fails to gain my love, they''ll probably mock him too. I''ll have to figure out a way to prevent that.


    "That''s all I ask," Vellus Callaran said and he looked directly at the spiritual sense probes just above Maxine''s head, "It''s rude to eavesdrop."


    "Yes, it is very rude to eavesdrop," Maxine agreed and formed a hammer with her spiritual sense before attacking the spiritual sense probes with it. She sense several of them rapidly retreat, but a handful didn''t manage to escape in time. As she crushed them, Maxine heard several distant cries of pain.


    "I''m curious. Why didn''t you form a blade when you did that?" Vellus Callaran asked.


    "If I used a blade, I would''ve caused permanent damage," Maxine answered honestly. If I had done that, I might''ve accidentally infused my blade energy and it wouldn''t be pretty. Memory loss is the lightest injury that they would suffer.


    "Ah," Vellus Callaran replied, "Well, I best head out. Oh! Before I do, could you tell me when you plan to finish up here? I would love to have another chat today."


    "One more hour," Maxine answered, "After that, I''ll be free until it''s time to make dinner. Unless, my girlfriend wants to spend time with me."


    "Ah, yes, she might," Vellus Callaran said in obvious discomfort, "We''ll see what happens then."


    "That we will," Maxine said, "Now, go."


    "I''ll see you in an hour, then," Vellus Callaran said as he swiftly retreated out the door. She rolled her eyes at him with a half-smile on her face and moved to prepare for her next patient.


    [So, that''s what the visiting hero looks like,] Emily commented via spiritual sense, [I''m a little surprised he came here to see you, though. Did you two hit it off or something?]


    [I''m not sure,] Maxine answered honestly, [But he''s a lot better than those other assholes that keep bothering me and so far he''s been a gentleman. I think I''ll give him a chance.]


    [Are you being serious?!] Emily asked in surprise.


    [Yes,] Maxine replied simply.


    Emily somehow sighed via spiritual sense as she added, [Alright, but if I don''t like him-]


    [His ass will be kicked to the curb,] Maxine finished Emily''s thought.


    [Good,] Emily said, [Do you want to do anything later?]


    [I was thinking about cooking up a meal for you and Howard,] Maxine answered.


    [That sounds amazing,] Emily said happily, [The things you make always taste delicious.]


    [There''s just one small problem,] Maxine commented, [Vellus Callaran wants to spend some time with me after I''m done here. Any ideas on how I should let him know that I''ll be busy?]


    [Just spend half an hour with him,] Emily answered, [It''s not like it takes you that long to cook dinner.]


    [Alright,] Maxine said, [But you''ll have to spend some time with him too at some point.]


    [I know that, but I won''t for now. He has to at least get you interested in him. Otherwise, what''s the point?] Emily replied, [It seems like you have a patient incoming. I''ll leave you to them. Talk to you later.]


    [I''ll talk to you later,] Maxine said in return before their spiritual sense connection ended.


    Maxine spent the next hour treating five different patients. None of them had anything particularly nasty, but it felt nice to help others for a change instead of fighting.


    After she was done with her last patient, Maxine left the clinic and saw Vellus Callaran wandering around outside. However, she noticed dozens of people were looking at him and whispering amongst themselves.


    "I only have half an hour before I need to leave," Maxine said as she walked up to him, "So, would you like to take a walk with me?"


    "I would love to," Vellus Callaran said with a genuine smile. Although, she wished he hadn''t smiled. The scarred half of his face twisted in such a way to make him look very sinister, but it didn''t bother her. Everyone else nearby, on the other hand, gave him a wide berth.


    "I know just the place too," Maxine said as she created an arch to a nearby park, "Shall we?"


    "After you, my lady," Vellus Callaran said with a slight bow. Maxine smiled at him as she walked through the arch.


    Once they were on the other side of the arch, Maxine saw the familiar winding path going from one end of the park to the other and without wasting a moment, she began to slowly stride down it while admiring the scenery. It made her feel relaxed being surrounded by nature. However, that feeling diminished greatly when she felt a very familiar gaze land on both of them. I''m not surprised that grandma decided to spy on us. I just wish she hadn''t started doing it this quickly. It''s just a simple walk. It''s not like we came here to fuck in the bushes.


    "I''ve never seen trees with red leaves before. I can see why you wanted to come here," Vellus Callaran commented.


    "Those particular trees only turn that color during the autumn months," Maxine said.


    "Still, they are beautiful," Vellus Callaran said as he walked beside Maxine, "Unlike, myself."


    "You shouldn''t worry about how you look around me," Maxine said, "I don''t care that much about your physical appearance. I care about what''s inside more than anything else. I thought that much was clear already."


    "I know and appreciate it. But you don''t have to force yourself to be near me," Vellus Callaran said out of nowhere, "I know you''re uncomfortable."


    "It''s not because of you. It''s because my grandma is watching us," Maxine said as she gestured with eyes towards the sky, "She should really learn not to do that, but I can''t blame her for being over protective. My childhood wasn''t exactly pleasant."


    "I''ve heard," Vellus Callaran said as a small trace of anger was present in his voice. Yeah, it''s been nearly a decade since word got out that I was the daughter of Poison Emperor Guan, so I shouldn''t be surprised that rough my childhood has become common knowledge among my suitors.


    "There''s no need for you to feel angry about it," Maxine said surprising herself with how calm she sounded, "I don''t. At least, not anymore."


    "He should''ve been the one person that, above all others, protected you from harm, yet he was the one that hurt you the most," Vellus Callaran half-growled, "I don''t care if he realized you weren''t his. It wasn''t your fault that you didn''t have his blood."


    "You have no idea how many times I wish he realized that and return to being my loving father," Maxine admitted sadly as memories flickered within her mind, "That or some hero would come to save me, but no one came. In the end, I took a chance by reaching out to Emily for help and her grandfather came to my aid."


    "I''m glad that he did," Vellus Callaran said with a kind smile, but it shifted to one of curiosity, "I hope your sister didn''t suffer a similar trial growing up. It''s bad enough that one of you had to go through it. Although, I confess that I''m curious about her childhood as well."


    "What my sister went through during her youth is a private matter," Maxine said firmly.


    "I''m sorry. I didn''t mean to pry," Vellus Callaran apologized. Yes, you did. Otherwise, you wouldn''t have mentioned it.


    "It''s alright. Just don''t ask about it again," Maxine said firmly.


    "I won''t. I promise," Vellus Callaran replied. Unfortunately, what followed was an awkward silence as they continued their walk. She didn''t mind it overly much, but it seemed to bother Vellus Callaran quite a bit.


    However, neither of them said another word as they walked and when they reached the other side of the park, a half of an hour had already passed. "I should really head back home now," Maxine said, "Oh! And let me know if there are any weird side-effects after you drink those potions."


    "I will and have a good evening," Vellus Callaran said.


    "Thanks, I will try," Maxine said as she took flight and flew straight for Emily''s house. She would''ve normally used a portal, but she wanted a few minutes to think before she got there. It took me awhile to realize it, but he doesn''t make me nervous like most other men do. I wonder why that is. Thankfully, I have plenty of time to figure it out.

 Chapter 178

    I still I can''t believe Emily talked me into wearing this. Maxine mentally sighed as she stared at her reflection in a full length mirror while standing in a small changing room at the Kavros Clan''s compound and she was irritated was for one simple reason. Emily had insisted that she wear a red bikini while they went for a swim. I wish I hadn''t promised to wear this thing.


    It just showed off too much of her athletic frame for her to feel comfortable wearing it. It wasn''t a big problem while she was fully clothed since it made it hard to tell just how physically fit she was, but the bikini that she was wearing made it very apparent. In my past life, I would''ve loved to see this kind of eye candy since I preferred a physically fit woman, but I don''t want to be stared at like that. I know Emily wants to help me heal from that bullshit Jonathan Levings put me through, so I''ll just have to think of this as another stage to my recovery. I just wish that I didn''t feel so ... exposed while wearing this damn thing. No, I need to stop stalling. It won''t do me any favors and I''ve already kept Emily waiting long enough. But why did she have to invite Vellus Callaran along for our swim? I may be comfortable around him, but not THAT comfortable.


    As soon as Maxine left the changing room, she saw Emily wearing a one piece swimsuit with a lot of coverage. That swimsuit looks really good on her, but I think she would look great in a bikini as well. So, why is it that I''m the only one that''s wearing a bikini? Maybe, I should''ve asked her to wear one too.


    However, her gaze was quickly directed to her right as Vellus Callaran rolled towards them on a wheelchair while only wearing a pair of shorts. She caught herself staring at his fully restored face as well as his muscular frame and noticed that there was still a fading scar present on his left ribs. That must''ve been one nasty wound for for there to be some remaining scarring in that spot.


    Thankfully, that was the only scar tissue left. The rest had been healed over the last couple days and even his ear was halfway regenerated. His arm and leg, though, had only regrown a few inches in the past couple days. He still wore his eye patch, but his remaining eye kept bouncing back and forth to look at them as if he couldn''t decide who to keep his gaze on. Finally, his gaze rested on Maxine, specifically her abdominal muscles. Um, does he actually prefer physically fit women? Hmm, that''s something to keep a mental note of.


    "By the maker, the both of you look gorgeous," Vellus Callaran said softly.


    "Really? You think we look that good?" Maxine asked in surprise.


    "Yes, just how I envisioned the savage beauty of an amazonian princess and a wingless angel of mercy," Vellus Callaran answered.


    "Charmer," Emily said as she soaked up the praise.


    "That, he is," Maxine agreed and asked her via spiritual sense, [Is that why you invited him? So he could turn the charm on?]


    [Of course not,] Emily replied, [I invited him to test him. If he tries to flirt with any of your female clan members, he''s not worth our time. I don''t want him to hurt you or me by being unfaithful.]


    [I don''t think that''s very fair,] Maxine disagreed, [You''re setting him up to fail.]


    [That''s the point,] Emily replied, [If he can''t control himself for even an hour, what do you think will happen if some girl that''s more aggressive comes along?]


    [I see your point, but I still don''t like it,] Maxine replied, [Now, we best head to the pool. I know it''s only been a second for us to talk like this, but that kind of pause is really long for cultivators at our level.]


    "Let''s get to the pool before everyone wonders where we are," Emily announced without skipping a beat. Maxine, on the other hand, went behind Vellus Callaran and pushed his wheel chair. I know he can probably do it himself using his energies, but I don''t think he''ll complain about this kind of service.


    However, when they entered the pool area, Maxine''s jaw nearly dropped at what she saw. As far as she could tell, there were at least thirty or more very beautiful women present and only a handful of men. If it weren''t for those men being present, I would''ve thought this was a women''s only pool. And why are they all these girls wearing revealing swimsuits?! I thought women from the Kavros clan were supposed to be very conservative! It shouldn''t matter if we''re indoors or not. They shouldn''t be wearing those things. Did their time on Earth corrupt them?


    It was grandma Victoria that answered her internal question, [Ah, I see you''ve found our more immodest clan members. They seem to fit in on Earth quite nicely, though. In fact, I''ve taken a peek at some of the more, ahem, revealing swimwear that your fellow earthlings have developed. I''ve never knew such a shameless people existed. It makes me grateful that you''re as modest as you are.]


    [Relax, grandma. I may be more brazen than you''re used to, but I downright refuse to wear anything more revealing than this bikini,] Maxine replied, [In fact, I''m only wearing this thing to make Emily happy. Oh, and how are you talking to me right now? I thought this building would have someone shielding it against spiritual sense.] It''s just not cost effective for someone to shield a room of this size. Daddy can afford shielding the training room at home since he''s ridiculously wealthy.


    [And who do you think is shielding it?] grandma Victoria said, [I wouldn''t trust Zephyr to perform such a task. I don''t think he could resist peeking at the young women swimming in there every once in awhile. He is a young man, after all. It would be like throwing a bloody steak infront of a hungry tiger and not expect it not to eat. In any case, just enjoy yourselves and be careful while you push that young man around. Your breasts are mere centimeters from touching the top of his head.]


    [So, do you know why Emily insisted that I bring him here?] Maxine asked while ignoring her grandmother''s remark.


    [Yes, I know and I approve of it. Your grandfather had to undergo a similar test when he was courting me,] grandma Victoria said, [How else could he gain access to that room while it is filled with such beauties from our clan?]


    [Not you, too, grandma,] Maxine said in exasperation. She never expected her ultra-conservative grandmother to pull a move like this.


    [I was the one that suggested it to her,] grandma Victoria replied, [But I believe that young man won''t be tempted to do much more than give them a brief look before his eye returns to admiring you and Emily. Now, go. Enjoy your swim.] Maxine didn''t replied to grandma Victoria as she sighed mentally as their spiritual sense connection was severed.


    Still, Maxine managed to find a spot that Vellus Callaran could see the whole pool from since he couldn''t swim with only a single arm and leg. "If you need anything, let me know," Maxine told him before jogging towards the pool and diving into it. Emily had already gotten into the pool and was swimming at a leisurely pace.


    She slowly swam in the pool and periodically glanced over at him. His full attention was on both Maxine and Emily. He went so far as to practically ignore all of the female Kavros clan members when they tried tried to flirt with him. I almost can''t believe well he is ignoring their advances. Hell, his expression changed only a little bit when he saw me and Emily in our swim suits and I know for a fact that most clans are quite conservative. So, why was his reaction so mild?


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    Maxine climbed out of the swimming pool and laid down in a lounge chair beside Vellus Callaran. "How are you so relaxed while surrounded by half-naked women?" Maxine asked bluntly and saw his ears redden ever so slightly.


    "A few years ago, I was given a request to provide assistance to a small tribe of Amazonians," Vellus Callaran said, "At the time, I was too inexperienced to realize what that entailed. The whole experience left me somewhat numbed to skin exposure of young women." Oh, shit! No wonder he is so relaxed and at the same time, it explains where his amazonian princess comment came from. Although, that makes me wonder if his dick even works anymore. Amazonians are not known for being gentle during their ''mating'' practices.


    "I''m not sure if you''re very lucky or unlucky," Maxine commented.


    "You''re not angry?" Vellus Callaran asked in surprise.


    "Not really. It happened in the past," Maxine answered, "But I expect you to keep your dick in your pants while you are courting me."


    "I have no problem with that," Vellus Callaran replied honestly, "In fact, wasn''t the whole purpose of bringing me here to test my resistance to other women?"


    "It was my grandmother and girlfriend''s idea to test you like this, not mine," Maxine answered.


    "What are you two talking about?" Emily asked as she walked up to them.


    "Nothing of importance," Vellus Callaran answered and gesture towards Maxine reclined on a lounge chair, "I''m just enjoying the view."


    "And you thought he wouldn''t find your figure attractive," Emily pointed out.


    "I think he has a thing for amazonian women," Maxine said teasingly and noticed Vellus Callaran got uncomfortable.


    "He''s not alone," Emily stated, "There are a lot of men that prefer more physically fit girls."


    "Oh? Is it in fashion to be athletic?" Maxine asked in genuine curiosity.


    "It has been ever since cultivation became more wide spread," Emily replied, "It''s too bad that I don''t have enough time to get myself as fit as you. The most I can do is maintain my figure. You have no idea how worried I''ve been about getting fat."


    "You''re not fat," Vellus Callaran stated firmly, "In fact, you''re both perfect the way you are."


    [Oh, my. He''s quite the smooth talker, isn''t he?] grandma Victoria commented so suddenly that Maxine nearly jumped.


    [Not now, grandma,] Maxine said and she sensed that her grandmother was chuckling at her.


    "That''s very sweet of you to say," Emily said happily and messaged Maxine via spiritual sense, [You''re right. He''s way better than those idiotic young masters.]


    "It''s only the truth," Vellus Callaran said calmly.


    "I believe you," Maxine chimed in, "Now, are you going to join us in the pool or not?"


    "I don''t know how to swim," Vellus Callaran replied and gestured towards his missing arm and leg, "And as you can see, I''m in no shape to learn."


    "That''s too bad," Maxine lamented, "We''ll just have to wait until your arm and leg grow back to teach you."


    "I don''t know what to say to that," Vellus Callaran said uncertainly.


    "Just say ''thank you,''" Emily said, "And you should really be happy. Aside from her brother-in-law, I''ve never seen Maxine this open and relaxed around a man before."


    "Emily was it really necessary to tell him that," Maxine said in exasperation as she pinched the bridge of her nose.


    "Well, it''s true," Emily replied with her hands on her hips, "And I''m happy to see this change in you." Maxine twisted in the lounge chair and sat up with her legs dangling over the side of it.


    "So, am I," Maxine said just loud enough for Emily to hear, and continued to speak normally, "Let''s get back in the water. I still haven''t gotten my fill of swimming yet."


    "Alright," Emily said happily as she took a few steps back and leapt backwards into the pool. Maxine moved to join her and saw a young girl''s top come undone to reveal her rather impressive bust for only a brief moment before she was able to cover her self. But it was long enough to let someone see everything. Damn it, grandma. I can tell that was staged. That girl is even showing a perverted smile while her back is facing us. She''s fucking exhibitionist.


    Maxine glanced back and saw that Vellus Callaran was turning away with his hand infront of his face. Good, he''s acting like a gentleman. I hope this proves to grandma that he can be trusted. She didn''t even bother seeing if he had a reaction to the the exposure to skin before she dived into the pool.


    [After I heard him say that he had a stay with some Amazonians, I was worried that he preferred men or that his manhood was damaged by rough use. But I don''t anymore,] grandma Victoria chuckled lightly as Maxine was swimming away from Vellus Callaran.


    [Grandma!] Maxine replied angrily.


    [Fine, I''ll leave you to your date,] grandma Victoria replied.


    [Thank you,] Maxine replied as her spiritual sense connection ended.


    [So, is your grandma responsible for that bout of exhibitionism?] Emily asked.


    [She indirectly admitted it. I think she wanted to make sure his manhood still worked,] Maxine replied in annoyance, [Thankfully, she won''t be pulling a move like that again any time soon.]


    [Good,] Emily answered, [But it looks like Vellus is staring at you more than he is me.]


    [Yeah, I noticed that. I think I was right earlier when I said he was probably into physically fit women, like the Amazonians,] Maxine said calmly.


    [You''re probably right,] Emily said as she swam up beside Maxine, [Now, let''s stop talking and enjoy our swim.]


    [Fine by me,] Maxine agreed and their spiritual sense connection was severed.


    For most of Maxine''s swim, she kept feeling Vellus Callaran''s gaze, but the places that his gaze landed confused her. He was focusing her legs,, butt arms, back and abdominal muscles. He hardly looked at her breasts. This is making me a bit uncomfortable, but it''s not as bad as I thought it would be. Still, he keeps focusing most of his attention on the wrong places. It''s odd. Hmm, I need to test something.


    Maxine swam towards the edge of the pool that was directly infront of Vellus Callaran and climbed out of the pool before using her energies to pull the water out of her hair. She walked with every ounce of grace that she had and used her spiritual sense to see where Vellus Callaran''s gaze landed.


    His gaze was running over every inch of her skin, but it mostly remained on her face, abdomen, legs, back and butt. He didn''t so much as glance at her breasts. Wow, he really is into muscular women and I may have inadvertently let him know that I don''t mind him looking.


    To her surprise, Emily climbed out of the pool beside her and did something similar to what Maxine did. Unfortunately, she didn''t get anywhere near as much attention as Maxine had and she seemed almost disappointed that Vellus Callaran didn''t pay more attention to her.


    [Jealous?] Maxine asked playfully.


    [Of him?] Emily asked, [Not a chance.]


    "Good," Maxine said out loud before kissing Emily, "Now, do you want to head out? Or do you want to swim some more?"


    "I think I''ve had enough and the three of us could go out to eat for lunch," Emily said.


    "Sounds good to me," Maxine agreed and turned to Vellus Callaran, "What do you think?"


    "I''m fine with that," Vellus Callaran replied.


    "Alright, let''s gets get changed and meet out front," Maxine said and headed for the changing rooms. It only took Maxine a few moments to change and she ended up having to wait for the Emily and Vellus Callaran to come out.


    "So, where we going to eat at?" Emily asked as she pushed Vellus Callaran out of the Kavros clan''s compound.


    "I''ve been craving a reuben sandwich," Maxine announced, "So, Arby''s?"


    "That sound good to me," Emily said.


    "Arby''s?" Vellus Callaran asked in confusion.


    "It''s a restaurant," Maxine explained, "I think they specialize in sandwiches and burgers."


    "Okay," Vellus Callaran said uncertainly, "I have no idea what those are, but as long as you two help me pick something out that tastes good, I''m fine with it."


    They made their way to the closest Arby''s restaurant and made their order. Emily was busying herself with eating a mediterranean chicken wrap and Vellus was simply staring at a half pound beef sandwich.


    "What? I thought you were a big meat eater," Maxine said as she took a bite out of her reuben sandwich, "Mmmm, that''s delish."


    "I am," Vellus Callaran said firmly before taking a bite out of his sandwich and his eyes widened briefly before he slowly chewed with a blissful look on his face.


    "It''s good, isn''t it?" Maxine asked with a smirk on her face and continued with her own meal.


    "Very," Vellus Callaran said in between bites.


    "It''s still not as good as some of the things Maxine has made before," Emily commented and Maxine saw a hopeful look in Vellus Callaran''s eye. Who wouldn''t want to have a home made meal after hearing that?


    "I guess I could cook tonight," Maxine offered, "How does breakfast pizza sound?"


    "Oh, yes! But you need to use essence enriched ingredients," Emily agreed promptly, "It makes it taste so much better."


    "Breakfast pizza?" Vellus Callaran asked.


    "Trust me it''s good," Emily said, "She makes her own crust, but it''s not a pizza crust. It''s something different, but it tastes way better."


    "It''s not that good," Maxine said.


    "I''ll have to be the judge on that," Vellus Callaran said with an eager smile. So, he''s a foodie, and I''m fine with that. I''m a foodie too. Hell, I learned how to cook in my past life because I loved to eat delicious food.

 Chapter 179

    Maxine looked on with a dumbfounded expression on her face as Vellus Callaran practically inhaled the breakfast pizza that she made. I didn''t think it was THAT good, but I guess it''s possible that he hasn''t had a decent homemade meal in quite some time. At least, Emily, Howard and myself got a slice of it before Vellus decided he would eat the rest on his own.


    Maxine turned to look at Emily and saw a similar expression on her face. "Slow down, young man," Howard said calmly, "We''re not in a warzone, so there is no need to eat so quickly. You should savor the meal that Maxine went through the trouble of making."


    Vellus Callaran looked up from his plate as shame flashed across his face. "Sorry," Vellus Callaran said, "I didn''t mean to behave like such a glutton. It''s just that it''s been so long since I''ve had such a good meal." Now, I feel bad for him. He must''ve been living off of those bland survival rations sold at the Mercenary guild.


    "It''s alright," Maxine said, "I know you''ve rarely had a chance to slowly eat a meal. And if I had known you would eat that much, I would''ve made more. I''ll just have to double up the portions for next time."


    "Does that mean you will make me another dinner?" Vellus Callaran asked hopefully.


    "I don''t see why not, but next time, try to leave some for my shadow lord bodyguard," Maxine said.


    "You have a bodyguard?" Vellus Callaran asked, "I havn''t seen her. Where is she?"


    "You would think that the Shadow Lords would send a woman to perform that task, but they sent a man without doing any research on me. And he likes to remain invisible most of the time," Maxine said, "But he''s smart enough to give me some privacy. Right now, he''s standing outside keeping watch. I know this due to the fact that I saw faint depressions of his feet in the grass just before we came inside."


    "You must have amazing eyesight," Vellus Callaran complimented Maxine, "I didn''t see anything like that."


    "It''s more like I''ve gotten used to looking for the signs that he''s there," Maxine said offhandedly.


    "I can''t say that I like the idea of you having a bodyguard that''s a man, though," Vellus Callaran said with obvious discomfort, "I can''t even imagine how it is for you."


    "It''s not that bad. I''ve known him for roughly a decade and he''s one of the few men I trust enough to let him get within arm''s reach," Maxine said honestly.


    "And you''ve known me for only a few days, yet you trust me," Vellus Callaran pointed out, "It can''t be just because you see me as a hero."


    "You make me feel at ease," Maxine replied, "I don''t know any other way to explain it than that."


    "Then do you trust him enough to hold your hand?" Howard asked out of nowhere.


    "I don''t know," Maxine answered honestly, "Maybe? I''m not repulsed by the idea, but it makes me feel a little uncomfortable at the same time." Howard simply nodded his head at her response.


    "That''s more than I was expecting," Howard said to himself, before turning to Vellus Callaran, "Maxine was kind enough to let me see some of the information that her grandmother dug up on you. I have to say that your exploits are impressive."


    "Thank you, sir," Vellus Callaran responded respectfully and Howard gave him an approving nod. However, Maxine found it odd that they didn''t say another word to each other. Ugh, they must be talking via spiritual sense. I wonder what those two are talking about that can''t be said openly.


    After a handful of second, Howard finally spoke, "So, do you have anything else planned tonight, Maxine?"


    "Not really," Maxine answered honestly.


    "How about a movie?" Emily offered.


    "I''m game," Maxine said happily. Although, I hope it isn''t an action movie. A lot of the allure in those things comes from the fact that they perform all sorts of amazing feats of athleticism, but I can do anything that that those actors can do, then some.


    "Awesome. I''ll help you guys clean up in a minute. I need to, um, powder my nose," Emily said before she walked out of the dining room.


    "Just sit right there, Vellus," Maxine said firmly as she picked up his empty plate and silverware, "I don''t think Howard will hold it against you for not helping. You''re still in recovery."


    "Are you sure there is nothing I can do to help out?" Vellus Callaran asked.


    "Trust me. You would just get in the way in your current condition, but the next time, you will be helping. You should have both of your arm and leg fully restored by then," Maxine replied as she created a couple shadow clones to help cleaning off the table, "Just wheel yourself to the TV room. We''ll be in there in a few minutes."


    "Alright, so long as you''re certain," Vellus Callaran replied as he wheeled himself into the TV room. Once he was out of earshot, Howard approached her while picking up the empty pizza pan.


    "I was never in favor of your and Emily''s relationship and I like the idea of you and her being in a polygamous relationship with that young man even less," Howard said bluntly as the two of them walked to the kitchen. But you did nothing to stop us from exploring that relationship. You have no idea how grateful I am for that.


    "I figured as much," Maxine replied.


    "Then, why did you bring him to my house?" Howard asked with obvious anger as he roughly dropped the pizza pan into the sink.


    "First off, I actually like him, so does Emily after a fashion," Maxine answered honestly, "Second, he seems too good to be real, so I wanted to know what you thought of him. And before you ask me, neither of my fathers would like him on principle and my mothers are just be happy that I''ve found a boy that I like. Out of everyone that I know, you''re the one that can look at him more objectively than anyone else."


    "I see your point. As far as I can tell, he seems alright, but that doesn''t mean much," Howard answered, "I''ve known men that could behave like perfect gentlemen in public, but do utterly horrible acts of violence and cruelty in private. The best course of action is to observe him as long as possible before you take things to the next step. Which brings me to a question. How long are you intending on getting to know him before you''re satisfied that his intentions are as they appear?"


    "I don''t know," Maxine answered, "A few years, at least." Probably more.


    "Good," Howard said calmly, "But don''t take too much longer than that. I want to be able to hold my great grand children before my time in this life runs out." And there is his motivation for letting this happen.


    "If it wasn''t for Emily being stubborn, you might have one on the way already," Maxine said with a smirk and gently patted her belly.


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    "Oh, yes. I forgot about those ''potions'' that your father made," Howard commented and at that moment, Emily walked into the kitchen.


    "Uh, did I miss something?" Emily asked.


    "No, nothing at all," Howard said as he moved to leave the kitchen, "I''ll keep an eye on our guest while you two finish up in here." It only took Maxine and Emily a few minutes to clean and dry the dishes.


    When they finished, they walked to the TV room. Unfortunately, neither Vellus or Howard had picked out a movie yet. So, the boys are going to let us pick a movie. That''s awfully sweet of them.


    Emily reached to grab the remote when Howard said, "I think we should do something else for now."


    "Such as?" Maxine asked.


    "Vellus asked if he could see your ability to disguise yourself," Howard said.


    "Why?" Maxine asked with a suspicion.


    "Idle curiosity and I thought it would be much better than watching some movie," Vellus Callaran said honestly.


    "I guess that''s alright," Maxine said, "Do you guys have any requests?" And it''s not like I use that ability that often, even when I should.


    "I''ve always liked it when you look like a kitsune," Emily suggested. Like is a weak word for how you react when I make myself look like a kitsune. You practically purr as you rub face on my extra fluffy tail when I take that form.


    "As you wish," Maxine said as she used her energies to conceal her ears and make a pair of fox ears appear on top of her head as a very fluffy fox-like tail sprouts out of her lower back, "So, what do you think?" Maxine spins around to give everyone a better look.


    "That''s amazing," Vellus Callaran said softly in wonder, "You look just like the real thing."


    "Feels like the real thing too," Emily practically purred as she stroked her hands across Maxine''s tail.


    "Any other requests?" Maxine asked.


    "How about an asura?" Vellus Callaran asked. Maxine undid her illusion and began to build the new one. Two sets of arms sprouted out of her shoulders and just below her armpits as a pair of small blunt horns began to protrude out of her forehead.


    "Come on. Give me something hard," Maxine said with a smirk.


    "A cyclops with a particularly big eye," Howard said calmly. Of course, he would ask that. He knows what my limitations are and that''s beyond them. It''s very hard to change my facial structure too much using illusions. It just wouldn''t look right.


    "You know full well that I can''t do that," Maxine said flatly.


    "How about a lamia?" Emily suggested.


    "Alright, just give me a little bit of room," Maxine said as she undid the illusion that she was an asura.


    Maxine put her legs together as she wove her energies around her legs and extended them to create a twenty foot long tail. Next, she arched her back and legs and lowered herself as her new ''tail'' started to form serpentine scales. She added a few cosmetic scales on the sides of her face and neck and made it appear that her pupils had become vertical slits to complete the illusion.


    "There," Maxine said, "It''s a good thing that I''m so flexible. Otherwise, this would be very uncomfortable and you would be surprised how much pressure this is putting on my waist. No wonder lamia have such developed abdominal and back muscles. It takes a lot of effort to keep themselves propped up like this while they move around."


    "Quick question," Vellus Callaran spoke up, "Would you feel it if I stepped on your tail?"


    "No, I wouldn''t," Maxine replied as she slowly undid the construct woven around her body, so that she wouldn''t fall flat on her face, "For that to happen, I would have to create faux nerve fibers and connect them to my own. I tried to do that once and it hurt like hell. Needless to say, I''m not going to try it again."


    "You better not," Howard said firmly, "You scared Emily half to death when you started screaming out of nowhere."


    "I know and I said I was sorry," Maxine said apologetically, "I honestly didn''t think it would hurt THAT bad. And like I promised before, I''m not going to do any kind of experiments like that anymore."


    "Can we talk about something else, please?" Emily interrupted.


    "Alright," Maxine said as she turned to Vellus Callaran, "I was wondering. What kind of weapon do you use? I havn''t been able to figure it out. I know it''s some kind of polearm just from the calluses on your hand."


    "A glaive," Vellus Callaran replied simply.


    "Isn''t that just a blade at the end of a pole?" Emily asked.


    "That isn''t all there is to it, but yes, in essence, that is what it is," Vellus Callaran said.


    "I can see how that weapon could be very effective on either people and beasts," Maxine commented.


    "That it is," Vellus Callaran agreed and he frowned for a moment, "I know that you use two blades, and that requires you to get much closer to your opponents than I would have to. It also increases the chances of injury and it''s a small miracle that you are not covered in scars. So, that made me wonder about something. Are you concealing your scars or did you use potions to make them go away?"


    "Neither," Maxine said with a smirk, "My bloodlines make it damn near impossible for any scar tissue to form. My regenerative abilities are strong enough that I could loose a limb and if the cut is clean enough, I could just reattach it by doing nothing more than sewing it back on. I would probably regain partial use of it after a few hours and full use after a day or two. Although, if retrieving my limb wasn''t possible, it would regenerate on it''s own given enough time."


    "That''s a rather handy ability," Vellus Callaran pointed out.


    "But not one I like to test out. I lost about a foot off of my tail while in my battle form before and it was not a fun experience," Maxine admitted, "Thankfully, it grew back, but I was worried that it wouldn''t for awhile." Howard raised his eyebrow at Maxine, but did nothing else.


    "You were just worried you could''ve been paralyzed from the waist down if you reverted," Emily said.


    "Wait, why would she have been worried about that?" Vellus Callaran asked.


    "At the time, I wasn''t aware of how my tail was formed," Maxine admitted, "I hadn''t actually watched my skeletal structure change after transforming before then. So I was worried that my vertebrae had lengthened rather than new ones being formed out of my tailbone. I now know that it wouldn''t have crippled me. Instead, it would''ve just clipped the end of my tailbone. Still I rather err on the side of caution than risk partial paralysis like that."


    "I would have to agree with you there," Vellus said as he gestured towards his stumps, "It''s a lot like loosing a limb."


    "Thankfully, that wasn''t the case," Maxine said happily.


    "Indeed," Howard said.


    "So, are we going to watch a movie or are you going to show off some more?" Emily asked.


    "Let''s watch a movie," Maxine said.


    "How about ''Free Guy''?" Emily asked, "It''s a comedy about a NPC that gains self awareness."


    "That sounds interesting," Maxine said.


    "Uh, this may be a dumb question, but what is a NPC?" Vellus Callaran asked.


    "Non-player character," Howard answered, "Think of them as the very lowest form of artificial intelligence within a computer or video game."


    "Is that particularly safe to use artificial intelligence like that?" Vellus Callaran asked.


    "Completely, they have no self-awareness and have no chance of ever achieving it," Howard replied calmly.


    "Then it''s a misnomer then," Vellus Callaran said, "It''s more akin to a virtual intelligence since they posses no real decision making abilities aside from those programmed into them."


    "Exactly," Maxine said, "And while I would love to continue this discussion, I would much rather enjoy the movie and not pick apart it''s premise."


    Within a few moments, the movie was put on and Maxine did her best to enjoy it. Unfortunately, she kept hearing crunching sounds as if someone had just stepped on a bug. Out of annoyance more than curiosity, she extended her spiritual sense to find out the cause. She found the remains of more than a dozen ant-sized spy drones with traces of Turan''s energies on them. Why am I not surprised that those pieces of scum would try this shit?


    She extended out her spiritual sense even further and found the culprits more than fifty miles away. She immediately roared into their minds, [You will stop spying on me. OR, I will break every bone in your body, heal you and do it again.] She didn''t hear a reply, but she saw them scrambling to key in commands into their data pads. Good, I really didn''t want to actually have to do that. Fully healing every bone in their body with any kind of speed would be both expensive and time consuming.


    With that out of the way, she could finally enjoy the movie. It wasn''t quite as engaging as she hoped, but she still found the infrequent fight scenes within the movie amusing. All in all, it was a nice movie.


    "I think I should head home," Maxine announced as soon as the movie finished, "I have to get up early tomorrow for the UN assembly. I''ll need to be fully rested to deal with the issues that they''re probably going to bring up."


    "I see," Vellus said, "I''ll head back to my hotel as well then."


    "I''ll create an arch for you to save you a few minutes," Maxine announced as she got behind his wheelchair and helped him out of the house.


    "I enjoyed the time that I''ve spent with you," Vellus Callaran said once they were outside, "In fact, ever since I''ve been on your world, it''s been like a fanciful dream that I don''t wish to wake from."


    "Charmer," Maxine said and she created an arch that lead to Vellus Callaran''s hotel, "There''s your portal back to your hotell."


    "Good night, Maxine," Vellus Callaran said in turn before he wheeled himself through the portal.


    "Good night, Vellus," Maxine said happily. If he keeps this up, I may end up actually falling in love with him. Now, I better say good night to Emily and Howard before heading home. I do not look forward to the UN assembly. I know that they will agree with my plan to get additional agricultural technologies for Earth, but for some reason, I have a feeling they will try to strongly advise me to vote on something that might piss somebody off.

 Chapter 180

    Maxine massaged her temples with her eyes closed while doing her best not to loose her temper. Just like she had predicted, a few of the UN members insisted that she vote for a proposition that would change a law. Specifically, it would change the consequences of a cultivator harming a non-cultivator. Are these guys stupid? Those laws are set to protect the weaker people, like them, within the Alliance from the wealthy or cultivators confident in their strength.


    "We need to vote for this!" one of the UN representatives shouted at her, "It''s very important for our future!"


    "And why exactly do I need to vote for this?" Maxine asked angrily, "Because from my perspective, it doesn''t make any sense for me to vote for it. It would literately change the punishments for killing a normal person to either paying a massive fine or be required to take on a high-risk mercenary contract without pay. That would put you at the mercy of the extremely skilled and wealthy. It''s obvious that you''re not insisting on this if someone else wasn''t forcing you to. So, who is it that thinks they can screw with Earth''s political stance? And if you were dumb enough to actually sign a contract with them to ensure my vote, you should know that it can''t be enforced since you''re not the representative of Earth as a whole. The most they can do is demand that you return whatever they gave you as a bribe."


    "I have no idea what you are talking about," the UN representative said firmly, but she sensed through her spiritual sense that he was nervous.


    "Oh? Don''t tell me that you already used it?" Maxine asked in surprise and due to her irritation, she decided to remind them all of a certain law, "You could be turned into a debt slave for doing something so idiotic. Although, I doubt they would do that to you, specifically. You''re far too old for it to be worth the trouble, but one of your grand children would be a different story. And I hope to god that you don''t have any beautiful grand daughters. They would be prime targets for them to use as debt slaves. You would be surprised how often the ''young masters'' from large clans use them as practice so that they can better pleasure their future wife." Deep down, she was disgusted that such a practice was common within the Alliance. If there had been any propositions that would eliminate such practices, I would vote for them in a heartbeat.


    "I think that''s enough, Ms. Levings," the UN secretary said, "But I do believe that such slavers would have no right to do that here."


    "That''s where you are wrong," Maxine said coldly, "The law that involves debt slaves is an Alliance spanning law that even backwater planets like Earth must adhere to and if one of my advisors is dumb enough to fall for such a trap, it''s their own fault. However, I won''t let an innocent suffer due to the stupidity of their elder. So if you''ve done something like this, I''ll bail you out, but this will be the only time that I''ll do it. After that, you will reap what you sow."


    "It shouldn''t matter since I''ve never taken any bribes," the UN representative in question retorted, but she could still sense his fear. So, he''s being blackmailed then.


    "Fine, but my stance on the matter won''t change," Maxine stated firmly, "I will vote against any proposition that directly or indirectly harms anyone that lives on Earth and I will do my best to get as many benefits for Earth as a whole as possible. So if you can''t give me a good reason to change my mind, I will continue with that stance."


    "I''m sure the others understand that. Thankfully, we are in full agreement that we should acquire as much technology for ourselves as we can in the next Alliance assembly," the UN secretary said, "It''s unfortunate that the chances of us getting anything other than agricultural technologies is dismally low."


    "But you forget, Mr. Secretary," Maxine retorted, "Our scientists can still derive other technologies from what I''ll be asking for. For instance, they may be able to gain some inspiration for better alternative power sources or a cheaper and ecologically friendly alternative to some of the more toxic elements that are used in manufacturing."


    "Considering the differences in our technological development, that may prove to be a near impossible task," the UN secretary countered.


    "Perhaps, but I think that you''re severely under estimating our scientists," Maxine stated firmly, but since her patience was at it''s limit, she decided it was time for her to leave, "So, are there any other topics that you need me to be present for?" Thankfully, they''ve figured out I don''t care how each government leads their people.


    "Not at the moment," the UN secretary, "Thank you for you time."


    "You''re welcome and have a good day, gentlemen," Maxine said as she ended her video call. She felt like screaming in frustration. Three hours. Three FUCKING hours where I had to argue and shoot down each of their ''ideas'' to get Earth more power. Those idiots don''t realize just how insignificant Earth actually is. If it wasn''t for the fact that we produce a luxury food, the Alliance wouldn''t give a single shit about us.


    Maxine turned around in her chair and saw Amanda come in with a steaming cup of hot cocoa. "I heard your shouting match with the UN and thought you would need this," Amanda walked in with a cup of hot chocolate. Just what the doctor ordered.


    "Thanks," Maxine said gratefully as she took the cup of hot chocolate and began drinking it slowly. Ahh, chocolaty goodness soothes the soul.


    "You definitely needed it," Amanda said with a smirk.


    "Yes, I did," Maxine said in agreement as she took another sip of the hot chocolate, "I know how busy you are, and I know that you would''ve normally sent an assistant to deliver this. So, what was important enough to warrant this treatment?"


    "There is a Avena Zeelie from the Zeelie Clan asking for you," Amanda said directly, "I told her that you were occupied with your advisors in preparation for the next Alliance assembly."


    "I don''t know who she is, but if she''s still here, I''ll go see her after finishing my hot chocolate," Maxine said calmly, "I need to be calm when I meet up with her. I don''t want to offend someone that could pose a problem for Earth later."


    "There is that, but I think she''s here for different reason than you are thinking of," Amanda said with a knowing smile on her face. Oh?


    "Are you going to fill me in or am I going to have to guess?" Maxine asked.


    "She said she''s here to talk to you about getting some chocolate, but I think that''s just an excuse," Amanda said, "She seemed a little too eager to meet you and it would''ve been easier to contact a distributer to get the quantities she wants."


    "So, you think she has some romantic interest in me?" Maxine asked without really being surprised and Amanda simply nodded, "It took those clans long enough to figure things out."


    "Indeed," Amanda said, but she added, "But I also heard a rumor that there is a man that you''re actually interested in. Any truth to that?"


    "Yes, there is," Maxine answered honestly, "He fits my preferences almost perfectly, but there in lies the problem. No one should be able to fit my preferences that closely. It''s like someone crafted him out of nothing after watching me for years. Don''t get me wrong, being around him is a dream come true, but at the same time, I''m afraid that he''s been acting this whole time."


    "Stop lying to yourself," Amanda told Maxine.


    "What do you mean?" Maxine asked.


    "I''ve known you for a long time and I can tell when you''re lying," Amanda stated calmly, "But about what specifically, I have no idea. You''ll have to figure that one out on your own."


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    "Perhaps, I should talk to Madam Neshan about it," Maxine said to herself and saw the look of confusion on Amanda''s face, "She''s like a therapist, but for cultivators."


    "Yes, you should definitely talk to her whenever you can," Amanda agreed.


    "Anyways, thanks for the hot chocolate," Maxine said as she finished off the hot chocolate, "Now, I''ll go see what Ms. Zeelie wants."


    "Alright, I''ll talk to you later then," Amanda said before both of them left the small room and went different directions.


    Maxine made her way to the ground floor and spotted a very young, blonde woman. She looked like she could barely contain her excitement when she saw Maxine. Please, god. I don''t need another stalker in the form of a persistent fangirl. Just let her be a lesbian that I can scare away by brutally rejecting her.


    "Hi, I''m Avena!" Avena Zeelie said excitedly, "I can''t believe I''m actually talking to you!" Avena squealed in excitement immediately after she finished speaking. Fuck! She is a fangirl.


    "Is there any particular reason that you wanted to talk with me?" Maxine asked cautiously.


    "Do you want to join the Guardian Mothers?" Avena Zeelie asked. They just want cheap and easily accessible potions. I won''t fall for that shit.


    "No," Maxine said coldly, "I tried to work with the Guardian Mothers once before. Our talks ended poorly."


    "I''m know and we''re very sorry about that!" Avena Zeelie said apologetically.


    "Does it look like I care about that?" Maxine asked coldly.


    "No," Avena Zeelie said with a downcast expression, "Isn''t there anything we can do to change your mind?"


    "Even if there was, I have no intention of making extra potions," Maxine said firmly, "You can go to the Kavros clan''s auction house on my world like everyone else."


    "But those potions are so expensive!" Avena Zeelie complained.


    "That''s because my potions possess a high level of purity and that purity increases the efficacy of my potions tremendously," Maxine retorted, "I thought that much was common knowledge."


    "It is, but it doesn''t cost you that much to make them," Avena Zeelie said, "You have such a high profit margin that you could easily show some charity."


    "I''m sorry, but my charity is reserved for my people," Maxine countered, "I have to take care of my own people before I concern myself with others." And I have to do even that anonymously. Otherwise, my fellow earthlings might get lazy or demand that I give them more.


    "I... understand," Avena Zeelie said in a downcast tone before looking at the ground.


    "But, I will help if their lives are in danger," Maxine said gently, "I don''t want to see any child suffer and die when I can do something about it. But you must let me examine them first hand so that I can see if I can even help them." I may be kind, but I''m not stupid. It would make it too easy for someone to scam a potion off of me with some crocodile tears.


    "Thank you!" Avena Zeelie said gratefully, "I''ll let the other members know about this."


    "Just don''t have them go overboard," Maxine cautioned, "If you take advantage of my kindness, I may change my mind."


    "Yes, I understand," Avena Zeelie said happily and she seemed to squirm in place for a few moments.


    "What is it?" Maxine asked.


    "Um, could you give me your autograph?" Avena Zeelie asked hopefully.


    "Just this once," Maxine said with a sigh.


    "Thanks," Avena Zeelie said excitedly as she thrust a picture of Maxine singing forward. Maxine swiftly signed her name on it and returned it to her. Avena Zeelie proceeded to hug it to her chest.


    "If that''s all, I have to meet up with someone," Maxine said.


    "Is it with Vellus Callaran and Emily Herst?" Avena Zeelie asked.


    "Have you been following me?" Maxine asked suspiciously. Fucking fangirls are just as bad as stalkers.


    "Everyone knows who you''ve been spending time with," Avena Zeelie replied.


    "You mean those jealous fools are spreading rumors around," Maxine retorted, "Let me guess, it''s about me and Emily having frequent threesomes with Vellus?"


    "Threesomes?" Avena Zeelie asked in confusion, but a moment later, she blushed fiercely, "Oh, no. Nothing quite like that. But you''re right. They are spreading rumors that you''ve slept with him and that you prefer men that are not whole. I don''t believe it, though."


    "I would appreciate it if you reminded them that my personal life is none of their business," Maxine said calmly, "And it should be clear to them that spreading such rumors says more about them than me."


    "I agree!" Avena Zeelie said instantly.


    "Now, I best get going," Maxine said and created an arch, "Perhaps, we can talk another day." Hopefully after you''ve matured significantly.


    "Bye!" Avena Zeelie said happily just as Maxine walked through the arch. She looked around the park, but didn''t see either Emily or Vellus. Oh, I must''ve gotten here ahead of them. I can just wait around for them.


    While Maxine waited, she sat down on a nearby bench looked around calmly. She frowned as she looked to the side when she thought she saw something familiar out of the corner of her eye. In the next moment, however, she had to stop herself from acting impulsively. Thirty feet away were the men that had raped Orianna and killed her baby in the other timeline. I know they''re not the same people, but I can''t help it. I want to rip them apart.


    She forced her gaze off of them and saw five women with a few small children nearby those five men. Yes, they have families and turned out to be good people in this timeline. The turn of events that lead them to becoming evil men didn''t happen in this timeline. Now, I just need to take a few deep breaths to calm myself. That''s it. In and out.


    "Maxine? What''s wrong?" Emily asked with concern.


    "Remember my dreams?" Maxine asked, "Let''s just say those men did some very horrible things in them." It''s a good thing that we talked about the code word for my ''prophetic visions'' was before this shit happened.


    "To you?" Emily asked worriedly.


    "Yes," Maxine answered, "You know which ones that I''m talking about. I''ve had to remind myself that those men are not the same as the one''s that I saw."


    "Thank goodness, you didn''t attack them," Emily exclaimed before hugging Maxine.


    "Did I miss something?" Vellus Callaran asked as he wheeled towards them.


    "Yes, but I''m not comfortable with sharing what just yet," Maxine said as Emily released her from the hug and sat beside her. Hell, I''ll probably never tell him. It''s too dangerous. Prophets are treated very well, but they have very few freedoms. A comfortable cage is still a cage afterall.


    "That''s fine," Vellus Callaran said in an understanding tone, "So, what are we going to do today?"


    "For now, we''re just going for a relaxing walk," Maxine said, "It''s a little ritual of mine after I talk with my political advisors. They can offer sagacious advice, but sometimes, they act like complete fools. It tests my patience to the limits."


    "Just focus on the moments that they give you sagacious advice," Vellus Callaran offered.


    "Sadly, that''s becoming less and less frequent as of late," Maxine complained, "They''re being manipulated by offworld powers. I may just tell them that they''re out of the job if they keep this up."


    "That''s your choice," Vellus Callaran said.


    "That it is," Emily agreed.


    "Now, let''s stop talking about this and get to our walk," Maxine stated, "Do you want me to push your wheelchair, Vellus?"


    "I doubt any sane man in my situation would say no to that," Vellus Callaran said with a small smile.


    "I''ll take that as a yes," Maxine said as she got behind his wheelchair and began pushing it along the paved path, "So, what have you been up to today?"


    "Admiring the scenery and unique architecture of your world," Vellus Callaran answered, "That massive arch for instance is a wonder. How did they construct such a landmark without the use of the more advanced technologies?"


    "Careful planning and some ingenuity on the part of the engineers," Maxine answered, "I believe they cooled the outside walls with water to spread the two halves of the arch in order to install the last part."


    "How clever," Vellus Callaran complimented.


    "You have to be when your tech level is at the level of Earth''s and build something like that," Maxine said calmly, "Still, I hope to improve our tech level, at least in the agricultural department, during the next Alliance assembly."


    "Yeah, you talked about that," Emily remarked, "What do you think your chances are of succeeding?"


    "More than ninety percent," Maxine replied, "Chocolate is in very high demand, afterall. They would do just about anything to improve the supply. It''s too bad that coffee was labeled as a low-end narcotic and it''s trade has been restricted for medicinal use outside of Earth."


    "That just means more for us," Emily said happily. Yeah, you would say that. You''re an avid coffee drinker. I can''t stand the stuff. It just makes me feel too jittery after only one cup.


    "It''s more like there is more for you to drink," Maxine retorted, "You know that I prefer tea."


    "Exotic teas from other planets," Emily corrected, "Some of those taste really weird."


    "Some of them are an acquired taste, but the rest are absolutely divine," Maxine replied, "What''s your opinion on that matter, Vellus? Coffee or tea?"


    "I like the drink called Coca Cola," Vellus said innocently, which caused both Maxine and Emily to laugh.


    "I guess that proves that everyone has their own preferences, so let''s leave it at that," Maxine said with a smile and stopped walking for a moment when she saw the park''s playground, "Oh! This is my favorite spot. Do you mind if we stop here for a moment?"


    "I''m fine with that," Emily said.


    "Not at all," Vellus Callaran said in the next moment.


    Maxine sat down in a nearby bench that faced a playground and watched several small children play. A smile spread across her lips when she heard their laughter. I couldn''t ask for a sweeter music than that of a child''s innocent laugh. I just wish I could sit here and listen to that all day, but I can''t. There is just so much that needs my attention, but for next couple hours, I can relax and enjoy myself.

 Chapter 181

    Maxine examined Vellus Callaran''s limbs in the clinic''s examination room and nodded approvingly to herself. He''s healing much faster than I expected him to. His leg has already regrown past the knee. Although, I expect it to slow down quite a bit when it reaches the more complex bone structure of his feet. There are just so many small bones in that area. As for his left arm, it''s in a similar state to his leg.


    "So, how are my limbs doing?" Vellus Callaran asked.


    "Good, very good," Maxine said, "Your limbs are regrowing at a impressive pace without any defects."


    "That''s a relief," Vellus Callaran said, "I thought there might be a problem since they''re regenerating faster than I expected."


    "A worry that I shared when you pointed it out," Maxine answered honestly, "But it was a needless one since you''re okay."


    "Interesting," Guan said suddenly from behind Maxine, "Did you know that he''s emitting a very subtle and unique pheromone? And his body seems to be producing it naturally. That explains how he managed to get close to you so quickly." Pheromone?! What the hell is he talking about? I would''ve detected it if something like that was in the air.


    Maxine whirled around and glared angrily at Guan. "What are you talking about?" Maxine asked, "And why are you here?!"


    "I only came to check on you because I suspected that he was using a method that I''m unfamiliar with to covertly charm you, but now, I know that isn''t the case," Guan told Maxine, "If you don''t believe me just scan your surroundings with your spiritual sense." Maxine humored Guan and found the pheromone that he was talking about. The only problem was that it was very dilute and only prolonged exposure would have any effect. What the fuck?! I thought pheromones were meant to attract a mate through smell. This one, however, only makes women feel more at ease and safe around him. I guess indirectly it would make women lower their guard around him. Which I sort of have. Combine that with his previous feats of valor and he would literately be the perfect person to get close to me in a short amount of time. That would make it much easier for him to covertly spy on me or set me up to be kidnapped. FUCK! Why couldn''t daddy have just kept his mouth shut? I was just starting to trust Vellus, too.


    "Uh, hello, sir," Vellus Callaran said nervously and while he was distracted with Guan, Maxine slipped one of her ravens into Vellus Callaran''s shadow. God, I wish I wasn''t so paranoid and could take Amanda''s advice. But I can''t possibly do that after daddy dropped that bomb on me. I need to be sure that he isn''t here for another reason. It would drive me crazy not knowing.


    "Hurt my daughter in any way and you will suffer in ways you can''t possibly imagine. Understood?" Guan asked firmly as his eyes literately glowed with hostility. Not the best way to meet daddy, but it''s better he knows about daddy''s stance towards him. Oh? Daddy seems to be pressuring Vellus with his killing intent. No wonder he looks like he''s about to shit himself.


    "Y-yes, sir," Vellus Callaran said in an uneven voice as he visibly sweated.


    "Daddy, was that really necessary?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, it was," Guan answered simply.


    "Maybe to you, but not to me," Maxine said grumpily.


    "Believe what you will. I''ll see you back at the house," Guan answered and seemed to grab the air as if he was trying to tear open the air itself. To her surprise, he did just that and a spatial rift leading back to their home was torn open infront of him. The fuck?! Did daddy just strong arm the laws of space!? And what''s scarier is he did all of that without making a sound. If this is to intimidate Vellus even more, mission accomplished. Any sane person would be experiencing pants filling terror.


    "Is your father always like that?" Vellus Callaran asked with a shaky voice.


    "Do you mean absolutely terrifying?" Maxine asked and after seeing Vellus Callaran nod, she continued, "He doesn''t act like that around me or mom as far as I know. In fact, he dotes on me, but I imagine he reserves his scary side for people he doesn''t like."


    "If he''s like that to people he doesn''t like, I don''t want to see how he treats someone he hates," Vellus Callaran said fearfully.


    "It''s best not think about it. It might give you to have nightmares," Maxine said honestly, "In any case, you should head out, so I can see the other patients."


    "Yes, I understand and thank you again for seeing me on such short notice," Vellus Callaran said as he slowly wheeled his way to the door.


    "Think nothing of it," Maxine said as she opened the examination room''s door to let him out and receive her next patient. As he wheeled out of the examination room, she stared at his back with conflicting emotions. I hope I''m just being paranoid, but I can''t take that risk. It''s not only me who will suffer if I''m not.


    Even though it made her feel guilty, Maxine split a small portion of her mind to monitor Vellus Callaran while seeing patients. He didn''t do much beyond looking at the sights and eating various foods. The longer this innocent behavior went on the guiltier she felt about the whole thing, but she persevered. She needed to keep an eye on him for a few days at the minimum. If someone was spying on her, they would demand daily reports.


    She was asked several times if she was okay by her patients and by the time the time she finished, Emily walked up to her with a look of concern written across her face. "What''s wrong?" Emily asked, "You look terrible and I know for a fact that you can''t get sick."


    "I''m having an off day," Maxine replied, "I''m going home and lay down."


    "Alright," Emily said with concern, "Just take it easy, okay?"


    "I will," Maxine said as she quickly left the clinic and created an arch to return home. She promptly ran to her room and laid down in her bed. However, she never stopped watching Vellus Callaran. Thankfully, he returned to his hotel around the same time that Maxine got home and it was at the moment that she saw his face riddled with guilt.


    She struggled not to make any assumptions when she saw that look. She almost sighed in relief when he pulled out a vibrating communication disk. Maybe, he feels guilty about leaving his family behind to come here. But when she saw the face of the very same alchemist that tried to kidnap her some time ago appear above the communication disk, that thought instantly crumbled to dust.


    "Report," the alchemist demanded.


    "I don''t think I can do this anymore," Vellus Callaran said while avoiding eye contact.


    "I don''t care what you think you can do or not. Now, report," the alchemist snapped.


    "Fine," Vellus Callaran said in a downcast tone, "Maxine''s emotional defenses are just as firm as they were the last time we talked. She absolutely refuses to come into physical contact with men, myself included. And I doubt she will ever trust any man again once she finds out about what I''ve been doing."


    "Keep your opinion to yourself," the alchemist commanded, "But is that really all you have to report? Don''t you care about your family?" Vellus Callaran''s head whipped up and glared fiercely at the alchemist.


    "And I wonder what would happen if Maxine or her father were to discover what you''re trying to do," Vellus Callaran snapped, "Her father literately promised me that he would make me suffer unimaginably if I were to hurt Maxine. Do you really believe that a person with his reputation would spare my family after giving a threat like that? Your threats are practically harmless in comparison. At least, if I come to him with what I know about you, I might end up dying painlessly without implicating my family and you would''ve made a dangerous enemy."


    "Are you done?" the alchemist asked, "Because we both know you won''t do that. You wouldn''t risk ruining your relationship with Guan''s daughter. I''ve seen how she comfortable she is around you and you appear to be rather smitten with her as well."


    "Perhaps, you''re right, but I no longer need to say anything to her. She already knows," Vellus Callaran said sadly as he looked straight at Maxine''s raven within his shadow, "Isn''t that right, Maxine?"


    "Yes, it is," Maxine said calmly through his shadow, but her mind was a mess. I want to be angry at him, but I can''t. Vellus was just trying to protect his family, but I trusted him. I let him get past my walls and he took advantage of my emotions to spy on me. I would''ve even try to help him if he told me that he was being forced to spy on me. But it''s still not really his fault. It''s the fault of the fucker that has his family captive and the Alchemist Association for looking the other way while he does this shit. I''m done giving them chances to change their ways.


    Maxine felt her rage climbing and felt the beast within her reared it''s head. It''s primal fury mirrored her own in that singular moment. To be more precise, it felt as if the beast within was sympathizing with her. So, in this moment, she chose to willingly embrace the beast within her, instead of fighting it like she usually did. On some level, she knew that she would need it''s savagery for what she must do. It almost came to her as a surprise that she was able to retain full control over herself.


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    Maxine transformed into her battle form and used her energies to extract every last drop of her venom from her claws. Simultaneously, she grabbed dozens of alchemical ingredients from her dimensional ring for making various poisons. While she was doing that, she felt that something was off with her balance, but only took a mental note of it to look into later.


    With a thought, she created six shadow clones and had them begin making various poisons. She couldn''t act against the Alchemist Association until those items were ready, but the people manipulating the members of the UN could be dealt with in the mean time.


    She spread her spiritual sense through one of her ravens inside of the UN and found that they were having an unannounced meeting. It seems the majority of the attendants in this private meeting are the people that give me the most trouble. Time to crash this meeting and find out who is manipulating them. I''ve put up with this shit long enough.


    She shadow-stepped into a darkened room at the UN building and began to make her way to the UN assembly room. In the back of her mind, she had a brief thought that the shape of her shadow was wrong, but she was too angry to care about it at that moment.


    When she finally saw the door to the UN assembly room, a few men blocked her way while shouting at her in a language that she wasn''t familiar with and they were brandishing their guns at her. She was undeterred. It''s not like a bullet could hurt her at this point.


    They opened fire when it was clear that she wouldn''t stop approaching and she kept walking forward as the bullets bounced harmlessly off of her skin. She responded by simply raising her eyebrow at them. To their credit, they didn''t run, but super-imposed themselves infront of the doors. She calmly walked up to them and while making sure not to kill or injure them, she swatted them to the side with a simple motion of her energies before heel kicking the doors hard enough to render them into fine splinters.


    The UN members were already halfway to their emergency exit when Maxine walked in and she sealed the exits with a motion of her energies. "Hello, gentlemen," Maxine said in a polite tone, "I clearly remember many of you complaining that I never came here in person. So here I am and all I get for my trouble is gunfire and you lot running away. I can''t help, but feel insulted at such a reception."


    "Ms. Levings?" the UN secretary asked in disbelief, "Is that really you?"


    "Who else would it be?" Maxine asked while raising an eyebrow. I know that they''ve seen my battle form in either holographic or video format.


    "Is this a new transformation of yours?" the UN secretary asked fearfully, "Or have you always been able to take this form?"


    "I''m surprised you didn''t know I could transform into this state. You always appeared to be well informed," Maxine said calmly as she spread her spiritual sense to touch the minds of the UN members, "But let''s talk about my transformations another time. I''ve come here with a simple question: Who are the people that think they can mess with Earth''s politics?" Like she expected, the UN members thought of the people manipulating them from the shadows and she saw five different faces. To her surprise, she also discovered from their thoughts that those people were currently in Earth''s orbit. That simplifies things. I''ll scan their ships with my spiritual sense and retrieve any Earthlings onboard before destroying those ships. Or better yet, disable them and bring them down for us to study.


    "I don''t know," the UN secretary said.


    "I believe you, and I must also apologize to everyone here. I read all of your minds just now when I asked that question, so I know who has betrayed the trust of the people. This is your only chance to resign your position before I publicly reveal what you''ve done and we can all imagine the kind of scandal that would cause in your home countries," Maxine said calmly as she walked closer to them and switched to talking to them via spiritual sense, [If you don''t believe that I''m able to read your thoughts, just look at my lips right now and tell me that I''m wrong.]


    As she turned to leave, she unconsciously frowned in confusion when she got a better look at the UN secretary. He was shorter than she was. He seems a bit shorter than I thought he would. Now, that I think about it, so those guards were all rather small as well. However, she swiftly dismissed it since she needed to eliminate those trying to mess with Earth''s politics.


    She sent her spiritual sense through her ravens to scan the skies above Earth and found over a dozen ships in orbit. But, she recognized most of them as being merchant ships due to their size. It only took her a moment to spot six smaller ships and one of them was swiftly breaking orbit that had an insignia for the Alchemist Association. However, no one on board any of those spacecraft exceeded silver stage. I should''ve known they would send disposable people here.


    Maxine shadow stepped onto a mountain that gave her a clear line of sight on all of those ships and pulled out her bow. She gathered nearby energies, along with her own, to form six arrows while her mind calculated the most effective angle and location to strike the ships to disable them. With a swift motion, she fired the six arrows and smiled when the ships'' engines stopped functioning.


    She raised her left hand up towards the skies as she formed six extremely long tendrils that reached reached out of Earth''s atmosphere and wrap around the disabled spacecrafts. Those tendrils slowly reeled in the six spacecraft down to Earth to an open field infront of Maxine and she ordered her shadow wolves to appear in that field just before they touched down on the ground.


    Once the ships were in place, Maxine flew towards them and raised an eyebrow at several cultivators that tried to make a run for it. Unfortunately, for them, her shadow wolves caught them and pinned them on the ground. She landed beside the one that was closest to her.


    "You can''t get away with this, monster!" a very tan woman with green hair screamed while Maxine''s shadow wolves held her on the ground.


    "I believe I can," Maxine said simply as she landed beside her, "You were technically inside of Earth''s thermosphere and that counts as being in Earth space. That fact gives me every right to detain you for questioning. The fact that you tried to flee suggests some form of guilt."


    "I wasn''t doing anything wrong!" the very tan woman screamed at Maxine and Maxine swiftly stomped on the woman''s knee. The woman screamed in agony as Maxine felt her kneecap shatter. At the same time, she felt the beast within smile with approval.


    "I disagree. I have evidence that you, and the others present, were manipulating my people and I can''t have that. So I''m going to an example out of you and the rest of the rest of these fools," Maxine stated calmly, "I''ll send what''s left of your bodies back home to be buried if for no other reason than for them to understand that my world is not to be trifled with." The very tan woman paled and Maxine stomped one of the woman''s feet into a meat paste. Maxine ignored the resulting screams as she continued stomping the woman''s extremities into paste and slowly worked closer to the torso. Unfortunately, the woman lost consciousness before Maxine got that far, so Maxine finished her off by collapsing her chest with one final stomp.


    Maxine turned to the others and showed an angry glare that promised that they would suffer a similar fate and she delivered it to them with a cold expression on her face. She saved the man from the Alchemist Association for last and slowly approached him leaving bloody foot prints in her wake. The poor man had already soiled his pants, but he, somehow, still managed to look defiant while stewing in his shit-caked britches.


    "Where are Vellus Callaran''s kin being held?" Maxine asked him coldly.


    "Why? You''ll just stomp me to death if I tell you," the alchemist said.


    "You''ll wish I had stomped you to death if you don''t tell me what I want to know," Maxine said as one of her shadow clones finished making a particular poison.


    "Eat shit!" the alchemist roared.


    "I gave you two chances to answer my question. Now, you will wish you had been more cooperative," Maxine said emotionlessly as one of her freshly made poisons appeared in her hand, "This solution will increase the sensitivity of your pain receptors by several hundred times. In other words, it will make the mere feeling of your clothes will feel like someone is dragging jagged blades across your skin. The mildest itch will be an agony almost too great to bear. The worst part is that it takes months to work it''s way out of your system and since it''s made using components from my venom, there is no antidote. Are you absolutely certain that you don''t want to talk?" She didn''t even bother waiting for his response before opening the vial and dipping a single needle into the mixture. She briefly brandished the needle infront of his face and waited a moment to see if he would talk.


    "They''re at the main headquarters," the alchemist said with a trembling voice.


    "Thank you," Maxine said with a smile and jabbed the needle into his thigh.


    "But, you said that you wouldn''t do that," the alchemist said in horror.


    "I never said that. I merely said that you''ll wish that you had been more cooperative," Maxine said with a cold expression, "If you want someone to blame for all of this, blame the leaders of the association. They''re the ones that started this and they know what they have to do to end it. I would say more, but you won''t be cognisant for much longer." She could already see his face twist in pain and had her shadow wolves release him. There wasn''t any further point in having him restrained. The pain that he will soon experience will render him completely immobile within the next few moments.


    She took the time to collect the remains of the others and put them into her dimensional ring. She sent their dimensional pouches and rings into her room via a portal before pulling out her cellphone. She contacted a few people in the military to alert them to the location of these downed spacecraft. Afterwards, she scanned the interior of the ships with her spiritual sense, but didn''t find anything of interest.


    Maxine released a sigh and wished she hadn''t needed to do such violence. However, something had bothered her earlier. Everyone had given her terrified looks and they were shorter than they were supposed to be. She knew that the appearance of her battle form was common knowledge amongst the members of the UN. The other worlders also behaved in a similar matter. If anything, they should''ve known exactly who she was the moment they saw her, regardless of which form she took. So, why did they act like they''ve never seen it before? Is it different somehow? It''s possible that my battleform has changed again. It might''ve been a significant change for them not to realize that it''s me. I might as well take a look at myself to see how monstrous I am this time. Maxine spread her spiritual sense out to cover herself and nearly stumbled at what she saw.


    Somehow, her height had increased to just over six feet without her noticing, and she had grown another set of arms below her original ones as well as eight snake-like things hanging off of her upper back. They literately reached down just past her knees and due to new growths, her shirt had been practically destroyed. Leaving her tattered sports bra as the only thing that was covering her breasts. I can understand how I missed the height increase if it happened slowly enough. But how the fuck did I miss two extra arms and those snake-things on my back?!


    All of those concerns evaporated as she felt barrier that kept her from breakingthrough to gold stage begin to fracture from the pressure of her transformation. Shit! I''m not ready for this! I need to change back to normal before this new form triggers my breakthrough to gold. Maxine desperately tried to revert back to her base form, but her flesh was resisting her attempts. And after only a few seconds, she knew that she wouldn''t be able to make it in time. Fuck! Time for plan B. I hope this portable array that Horatio Quay made for me will be enough to keep me from dying.

 Chapter 182

    Before Maxine could so much as open a portal, she was jerked off of her feet as someone grabbed her tail. She saw the landscape rapidly change as she sped through the air and when it finally turned into an empty wasteland, she was roughly deposited onto the ground.


    Maxine rolled to her feet and looked around as she took a fighting stance with her blades in hand. Instead of an enemy, she saw her Hellen, grandma Victoria and Guan floating more than a mile away from her.


    Guan was behind her while grandma Victoria and Hellen were guarding infront of her. All of them were scanning the horizon with their backs to her. It only took her an instant to realize they were there to prevent anyone from interfering with her breakthrough. Daddy must''ve been monitoring me. Or he noticed it when I pulled those ships out of the sky. I was emitting a lot of power when I did that.


    Without any hesitation, she had her shadow clones stop what they were doing and deployed the portable formation array. It had been inscribed on a series of special stones and hovered in the air around her. According to Horatio Quay, these formation stones will follow me everywhere that I go while they''re active and are specifically geared to weaken tribulation lightning. It''s worthless against any thing else. I just hope it doesn''t get destroyed half way through. He said that might happen depending on how nasty my tribulation is.


    She took one last glance at the formation floating around her before closing her eyes and was able to breach the barrier separating her from gold stage with little effort since she was already on the verge of a natural breakthrough. However, her instincts that warned her off from doing this in the past hadn''t raised a single warning. The fuck?! Is this new form really that powerful? It better be since I have no fucking idea what these snake-things on my back do or how to manage four arms just yet.


    Dark, angry clouds rapidly formed above her and she launched herself towards them. She could literately see and hear the crackling of the lightning bolts within it as she approached. Don''t get intimidated by that shit! Just stay alert and I should survive this. With a defiant roar, she finally entered the tribulation clouds as she withdrew a single set of her twilight iron blades.


    She couldn''t see anything beyond a few feet around her with her eyes and only twelve feet with her spiritual sense. But she could see enough to feel threatened. The tribulation lighting was forming into an interwoven sphere around her, like a cage. It looks like I won''t be running from this.


    While she waited for the tribulation lightning to gather, she swiftly formed a blade at the end of her tail and extended the handle on her twilight iron blades to grasp them with her second set of arms. Since my movements are going to be awkward anyways, I might as well use these extra arms to increase the power of my strikes to compensate.


    As soon as she finished readying herself, the tribulation lightning surrounding her began to rapidly launch arcing bolts at her one after the other. She instantly slashed with her blades. As she predicted, her movements were awkward due to her transformation and she ended up scattering the tribulation lightning into static clouds rather than cleave them apart. However, she was still able to negate most of their energy with ease, but as a side effect of her awkward strikes, her blades were beginning to slowly heat up. That can''t be all there is to it. It''s probably a simple break before the next phase of my lightning tribulation hits.


    Without warning, the scattered static discharge drilled into her body. It felt she was being both destroyed and rapidly healed at the same time. The pain was so intense that she wanted to scream, but couldn''t. Daddy warned me this would happen. This is just the first part of the mental tribulation. It''s testing my tolerance for pain. If I fail this part, I will pass out and die from the rest of lightning tribulation. The rest of the mental illusions will be targeted at my psyche. I need to do my best to face it without it effecting my mentality.


    After a few more seconds, her pain vanished and she saw a vision of herself cackling with glee while countless innocent people writhed in agony on the ground around her. I need to remain calm and relaxed. This doppelganger is nothing more than a manifestation of my fears and doubts.


    "Who are you kidding?" her doppelganger said mirthfully, "You may act like you don''t enjoy watching these worms suffer, but you do."


    "I enjoy fighting a worthy foe, but I will never enjoy torture," Maxine said firmly.


    "Oh, really? Then explain this," her doppelganger said as she waved her hand and Maxine saw an illusion of Maxwell smiling after he had fed potent aphrodisiacs and hallucinogenic herbs to feline type bests and tied up the men that had raped and killed Alice to boulders with their bare asses in the air. The deserved fate that every rapist should face. It''s the only way they will ever know what it''s like for their victims.


    "That is no longer me," Maxine said calmly.


    "Is it?" her doppelganger asked as she waved her hand again. Maxine saw her face with a tiniest of smiles as she jabbed that foolish alchemist''s thigh with the needle. I don''t recall that! No, this illusion is just trying to mess with me. I am no sadist.


    "Is that supposed to prove something?" Maxine asked in return, "We both know that I''m capable of fabricating something like this." However, the evil version of herself simply smiled. It only took a moment for Maxine to realize why. She may be seeing a vision, but her spiritual sense could still perceive her actual surroundings. And right at that moment, another wave of tribulation lightning was being unleashed at her. It''s a good thing I never retracted my spiritual sense.


    Maxine ignored the illusion around her and used her spiritual sense for sight rather than her eyes while she fended off the tribulation lightning. But that didn''t keep her doppelganger from taunting her.


    "Face it. You are a monster," Maxine''s doppelganger taunted her with a smile, "You revel in killing. You only look for a suitable excuse to unleash your bloodlust. Murders, rapists, pedophiles, or anyone else that tries to manipulate those that you care about. These are nothing more than your preferred prey. You can''t even deny that you don''t take some twisted joy in watching those kind of people suffer and die." Fuck. Ignore that thing, even if what she says makes some kind of weird sense, but that''s how these mental tribulations work. They''re nothing more than a distraction to lower your chances of succeeding.


    "Be quiet. I''m trying to concentrate. Or do you wish to die with me?" Maxine asked calmly while defending herself.


    "And why should I do that?" Maxine''s doppelganger replied with a smirk, "I honestly believe you would welcome death after all that you''ve been through. Loosing your parents, sister and lover all in less than ten years. I''m not even counting the numerous friends that you lost either. It''s no wonder why you were reckless after being reborn as a woman. Part of you wanted to die!"


    Maxine did her best to ignore her doppelganger''s words, but it still effected her enough for her to miss a single lightning tribulation bolt from striking her lower back. Her scales blackened and fell off to reveal her blistered and burnt hide. FUCK! That hurt! However, Maxine continued to slash at every tribulation lightning bolt that came hurtling at her.


    "But you still found a reason to live. It''s quite impressive really," Maxine''s doppelganger continued, "And after awhile, you even allowed yourself to open up to a man. It''s even possible that you could''ve loved him after a fashion. And he betrayed you! Spied on you for another. You can''t deny that part of you wants to take revenge against him for that! So how are you going to deal with him? Are you going to stomp him to death? No, that would be too much of a mercy. Perhaps, you will give him a treat of being raped by the coarse dick of a feline type beast. Or would you prefer that he live the rest of his days screaming?"


    While her doppelganger talked, Maxine''s emotions were becoming more and more chaotic as she continued to slash at the tribulation lightning and she was missing her strikes more and more frequently.


    More than half of her skin was either blistered or burnt and matters were made worse since the lightning tribulation bolts that got through carried a large portion of the scattered static electricity with them.


    One of the lightning tribulation bolts that got through struck her right eye. She screamed in agony as her eye exploded, but never once stopped swinging her blades. I will NOT fall here! I will live!


    "You are a stubborn one. I''ll give you that," Maxine''s doppelganger said in a huff, "But wouldn''t it be so much easier just to let go? You''re pain would be momentary if you simply lowered your weapons. Embrace death that you once longed for." Her doppelganger''s words had the opposite effect on Maxine. Instead, her will to live only intensified as she thought about what the world''s fate would be without her and how heartbroken Emily would be.


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    In a moment of clarity, she realized that the tribulation lightning around her seemed to be loosing energy. She decided to take a gamble and gathered her remaining strength before unleashing all of it in a massive blade storm while roaring defiantly. Her attack shredded the remaining tribulation lightning and scattered the tribulation cloud. Unfortunately, she no longer had the strength to remain aloft and she began to fall.


    As she fell, the remaining static charge gathered within her body, but not to destroy. Rather, it was to enhance and improve every aspect of her body and cores. Sadly, it did little to heal her injuries or purge the destructive tribulation lightning in her body.


    A smile appeared on her face as she realized that she succeeded. She just wished that she didn''t have to get so injured in the process. Oh, god! This hurts! And my eye! I don''t even know how long that will take to regenerate.


    Maxine fell for only a short time before she was caught in a princess carry by Guan. "Good job, Maxine," Guan said as she felt him inject his energies into her neck before he slowly carried her to the ground, "Now, rest. Both your mother and myself will take care of you." Whatever daddy just did, it''s dulling the pain from my wounds.


    "How bad are her wounds?" Maxine heard Hellen asked in a worried tone.


    "Nothing too serious," Guan answered calmly, "Although, her eye may take some time to restore itself. Soft tissue like that takes longer to regenerate."


    "Her face!" grandma Victoria exclaimed and Maxine saw her reach for Maxine''s face.


    "Don''t touch her!" Guan shouted at her, "Remember, her blood is both acidic and a contact poison. I''m the only one here that won''t be effected by it."


    "I know that. I can''t bear to see her in such pain," grandma Victoria said sadly.


    "I understand that, but I''m more concerned that you might drop her if you were to get accidentally poisoned," Guan said calmly and raised his eyebrow as he shifted her weight in his arms, "She''s gotten a bit heavier than I anticipated."


    "I''m... not... fat," Maxine said weakly. She saw both Hellen and grandma Victoria have a look of surprise on their faces before they burst into laughter.


    "Of course, you''re not fat," grandma Victoria said once she recovered, "It''s a side-effect of reaching gold stage. Your body has already reached the limit of strength by rearranging the composition of your cells. The only way to make you stronger now is to increase the density of your cells and thus your weight." Finally, they reached the ground and Guan set Maxine onto a carpet.


    "Maxine, swallow this. It will help," Guan said as he put a small brown pill that was the size of a lozenge up against her lips. Maxine did as she was told and felt it it nourish her depleted body. It was a nutritional pill. I would have to drink ten potions to get the same effect as that single pill. I guess I''ll be making pills in the future, but if I recall, there are some things that still come in potion form at my level. She felt her body exploit the effect of the pill to the maximum as her wounds began to rapidly heal, but she knew that it was impossible to heal quickly from tribulation lightning. It had a nasty tendency to linger in the wounds and inhibit the natural regeneration of those struck by it.


    "Can you undo your transformation?" Hellen asked, "Your blood will remain acidic and poisonous so long as it''s maintained." Maxine tried to revert to her base form again, but her body was still resisting her attempts.


    "Is that bad?" grandma Victoria asked after waiting two minutes without Maxine reverting to her base form.


    "Not necessarily, She may be too drained, both emotionally and physically, to revert to her base form at the moment," Guan announced, "We need to get her large quantities of meat to eat. Now." Oh, he should''ve just said so. I have four hundred pounds of it in my dimensional ring.


    Maxine focused on her dimensional ring, but due to her exhaustion, it turned into a monumental task. However, she still managed to withdraw four hundred pounds of beast meat four seconds after Guan hand said something. Unfortunately, everyone aside from Hellen had already rushed off.


    Hellen wasted no time and started to feed Maxine by hand. "I won''t ask why you keep so much meat in your dimensional ring. It''s more important that you eat," Hellen said while holding a 4 pound Iron Bison steak to Maxine''s lips. The scent of it reminded Maxine just how hungry she was and she promptly devoured it in mere seconds while Hellen held it for her.


    Hellen continued to feed Maxine from the massive pile of meat and was halfway through it before grandma Victoria and Guan returned. Thankfully, by this point, Maxine was able to move on her own and was digging into the meat pile on her own. Guan and her grandmother simply added more to the pile. Unfortunately, most of it was uncooked. It didn''t stop her from eating it, though. In fact, she was getting concerned that she was still hungry after eating so much.


    Maxine estimated that she ate half a ton of meat before her hunger finally began to fade. Unfortunately, burns still covered half of her body, but she could still tell that her recent meal had sped up her regeneration considerably until the healing energies reached the areas directly hit by the tribulation lightning. Shit, I was afraid of that. I have to wait for my body to purge the lingering tribulation lightning before I will heal at my usual pace. Until then, I''m going to be healing at the same pace as everyone else. That also means my eye won''t be regenerating any time soon. l need to find an eyepatch in the mean time. But first, let''s see if I can revert now that I''m feeling a bit more refreshed.


    Maxine focused and sighed in relief as she felt her frame start to shift. When she finished changing, she was back to having two arms and none of those snake things protruding out of her upper back. Oh, thank god. I was worried that I would be stuck like that.


    "Oh, thank the maker!" grandma Hellen shouted happily before she gave Maxine a gentle hug. At least, she''s avoiding most of the burnt areas.


    Maxine gently hugged her grandmother back and looked at Guan, "Um, daddy, how much weight did I gain in comparison to what''s normal?"


    "Most cultivators gain on average a 10 percent increase in overall mass when they reach gold stage and gain an additional 10 percent each time they rank up. You, on the other hand, gained a 15 percent increase," Guan answered calmly, "I believe its due to your bloodlines fusing together since I experienced a similar gain. Do not look down on your increased mass. It grants you far more advantages that you realize." When he puts it that way, it must mean my overall density increased. Having a more dense body means I''ll be both stronger and tougher than others, but it won''t be that much of an edge. If I have this advantage, there are likely others that do as well and they''ve probably had a lot more time to perfect their fighting styles than I have as well. Not to mention that I''ll probably have to do at least a couple weeks of training to get used my increased weight as well as training in that new form to get used to having all of those arms and those snake-things on my back. Having that many extra limbs will certainly be a challenge to say the least.


    "Ah, well, there are definitely worse things that could''ve happened," Maxine said, "I could''ve been stuck like that."


    "Oh, yes. That would''ve been a tragedy," grandma Victoria agreed, "Vellus would never agree to marry you if you looked like that all the time." At that comment, Maxine felt a pang of sorrow.


    While it was true that Vellus only spied on her to protect his clan, it still left a mark on her psyche that made it impossible for her to open up to him again like she had before. Fuck! I''m going to make those assholes from the Association regret pulling this stunt. Why couldn''t they have just let me be happy? If they want daddy''s knowledge so badly, I''ll let them witness what it can do when wielded by a vengeful woman!


    Suddenly, Hellen swat Guan upside the head and said, "Isn''t it about time that you left? We need to bandage Maxine''s wounds that can''t be healed by your potions and we can''t do that while you''re here ogling her."


    "Oh, yes. You''re right, dear," Guan said before he left. As soon as he vanished into the horizon, grandma Victoria formed a dome over them.


    "That was the thing that I least expected to see today," Maxine admitted and she looked to grandma Victoria, "You wouldn''t happen to know where I can get a fashionable eyepatch, do you? I need one until my eye regenerates," After slowly pouring water over Maxine, Hellen started to peel off Maxine''s charred clothes. Still, some of Maxine''s skin came off with her charred clothes. Which caused her to wince in pain.


    "No, but I can have someone find you one later. It''s such a shame about your face. If you didn''t heal so well, I would be afraid that you would be permanently scarred," grandma Victoria said as she retrieved a roll of aromatic bandages and a jar of salve, "It''s been sometime since I''ve had to apply bandages, so don''t expect perfection."


    "I don''t think it matters, mother," Hellen said as she helped grandma Victoria, "They''ll just have to be changed tomorrow anyways. Anyways, what caused your new transformation, Maxine?"


    "This is what caused it," Maxine replied as she sent the memory of Vellus Callaran''s conversation with the powerful alchemist as well as her feeling of subsequent rage to Hellen and grandma Victoria, "Although, I''ll admit I didn''t even notice it until it was forcing me to breakthrough to gold."


    "Maxine, I''m so sorry," grandma Victoria said apologetically, "I''ll make that cretin pay for this!"


    "Don''t grandma," Maxine said firmly, "We both know he didn''t do that voluntarily. I''ve decided to help him free his family, but after that, the most he can hope from me is my friendship."


    "Fine, I won''t do anything to him and I''ll tell your father about your wishes as well. You know what he''ll do if I don''t," grandma Victoria said calmly while she continued to apply salve and bandages to Maxine''s wounds, "But that can wait for later. You may not realize it yet, but your father performed some strange technique on you. I believe it''s blocking out the vast majority of the pain that you should be feeling. Techniques of that nature rarely last longer than an hour, so you''ll have to brace yourself for when that happens."


    "It''s already starting to wear off," Maxine said as she felt he wounds starting to burn ferociously, "Finish up treating my wounds and help me get dressed before it wears off completely." I know which technique he used. It''s normally reserved for patients in a lot of pain. It gives them enough clarity to drink a potion or swallow a pill that puts them into a deep healing sleep.


    She did her best to cooperate to speed up the treatment of her wounds, but they weren''t fast enough. She was gritting her teeth to keep herself from crying out, but couldn''t stop the tears from flowing down her cheeks when they finally managed to clothe her in loose robes.


    Guan returned shortly after she was dressed and pressed a small pill to her lips. "Swallow this. It will help you sleep for a time while you heal," Guan said gently, "When you wake up, the pain should be more manageable." Maxine promptly consumed it and shortly after, she began to descend into a blissful slumber. Thanks, daddy. I hope I wake up before the Alliance assembly.

 Chapter 183

    Maxine woke up slowly from her deep slumber and groaned in pain when she shifted her weight. That''s right. I''m covered in burns. Ugh, why did it have to be my dominant eye that got zapped? This feels so awkward.


    Maxine sighed in frustration as she slowly scanned her surroundings. She never realized how much she relied using two eyes, but she was thankful that she was in her room rather than somewhere else. Time to take stock of my injuries. I need to know if I can move around without worsening my wounds.


    She promptly scanned herself with her spiritual sense and internally complained when she saw that she was only wearing a pair of panties while a thin sheet covered her. But her lack of clothing became a dim concern when she saw the state of her hands. Her palms and fingers were covered in second degree burns. When did that happen?! I don''t remember my hands hurting at all, but I guess it makes sense. I remember noticing that my blades were heating up early on during my lightning tribulation and the adrenalin flowing through my body must''ve dulled my pain enough that I didn''t notice it until now. The rest of my injuries are about what I would expect. Now, that I think about it. I never got to use my breakthrough potion. I didn''t expect that I would have an almost unheard of natural breakthrough. I''ll just give my breakthrough potion to Orianna. Physically speaking we''re practically identical so it should work on her.


    When her stomach growled, Maxine turned her head and looked at the time and date. I''ve been out cold for five days. That explains why I feel so damn hungry. Enough stalling. I need to get out of bed, get dressed, eat a large breakfast and go to that Alliance meeting. After that, I''ll give Emily a call. She''s probably worried about me.


    Maxine started to get out of bed and nearly screamed as she fell back into it when her bandages pulled at the various burns covering half of her body. THAT was a bad idea. Change of plans. I''ll just form some clothes using my energies. It wouldn''t even be necessary if I could set up an avatar for that virtual world beforehand. But no, they have to scan the body of the person and what they are wearing to generate an avatar. Sure, I can alter my clothes once I''m there. It doesn''t matter how fast I work. Someone will still see me.


    Before Maxine could form the clothes, grandma Victoria opened up the bedroom door while holding a tray. "Oh? You''re awake!" grandma Victoria said happily as she approached Maxine''s bed and sat beside her, "Your father said you would wake up soon and I thought you would want to eat some breakfast."


    "Thanks, grandma," Maxine said gratefully, "I could use something to eat right about now. By the way, why am I only wearing a pair of panties?"


    "I didn''t want your clothes to chafe at your burns. It would only aggravate them," grandma Victoria said as she set the tray down, "Anyways, it''s not like we will let your father or Lucas in here without either me or your mother to supervise. Now, time for you to get some food into you." She began to feed Maxine a massive pile of scrambled eggs a forkful at a time.


    Maxine went along with it and ate the scrambled eggs, eight pieces of bacon, four slices of toast and a cup of the foulest concoction Maxine had ever tasted. "Ugh, that''s got to be the nastiest thing that I''ve ever tasted," Maxine complained.


    "It''s an ultra dense form of your nutritional potion. You''ve been living off of it for the last five days," grandma Victoria said calmly.


    "Well, that explains why I wasn''t feeling nearly crazed with hunger," Maxine said and a thought popped into her head, "What happened to Vellus?"


    "He''s still alive and on Earth," grandma Victoria said simply, but Maxine could almost feel the temperature in the room drop, "But he hasn''t left his hotel room since your breakthrough to gold."


    "I see," Maxine said sadly, "Has anyone tried to contact me?"


    "Emily and the UN secretary," grandma Victoria answered, "But your mother told them you were indisposed for some reason or another. I wasn''t paying that much attention to their conversation."


    "I''ll call them later. Could you help me get dressed?" Maxine asked, "I need to go to the Alliance''s virtual assembly room."


    "No, you do not," grandma Victoria stated firmly, "Guan will go in your place. He has that authority since he''s your father and he is already aware of the technologies that you want for your homeworld. So, don''t need to worry about it. You need your rest."


    "I''d still rather be the one to go," Maxine said stubbornly.


    "Fine, but I won''t help you get dressed. It''ll aggravate your wounds, so you''ll just have to form clothes using your energies," grandma Victoria replied and she seemed to remember something as she pulled out an emerald green eyepatch, "How''s this look? I made sure that it was your favorite color." At first, Maxine thought the eyepatch was made of snake skin, but it was actually made of tightly woven arachne silk. Each of the scales had been perfectly woven into the perfect shape and lacquered to give them the glossy look of actual scales. It''s so beautiful.


    "It''s awesome. Thanks, grandma," Maxine said as she used her energies to put it on over her bandaged right eye. Next, she formed an emerald green dress over her body and additional bandages with blood stains on them to make it look like she was more heavily injured than she was. This way the Alchemist Association won''t expect my retaliation any time soon when their representative sees my current state.


    Grandma Victoria raised her eyebrow at Maxine before she said, "I''ll go help Hellen look after Lucas. Just call out if you need either of us."


    "I will, grandma," Maxine said before grandma Victoria left the room.


    After grandma Victoria left, Maxine retrieved her communication disk out of her dimensional ring and connected to it mentally. She felt a slight jarring sensation before she was projected into the virtual room that the Alliance used. At least, my movement in here is unaccompanied by pain.


    She looked around and saw several representatives give her a look of concern. "I apologize for my appearance, everyone," Maxine said as she bowed her head slightly and without missing a beat, she walked towards her assigned seat to wait until the meeting started.


    She scanned the whole room with her left eye and failed to notice anyone paying much attention to her. I guess it''s too much for them to betray their emotional states so easily. These guys are far too old and experienced for that to happen.


    "Everyone, please, take your seats," a gender neutral voice above them requested, "The first topic is on a recent development with the Hive. They have requested a peaceful dialog and have sent a single humanoid drone with which they will use to converse with us. Should we hear them out or should we exterminate this creature?" This must''ve been a very recent event. It wasn''t on the itinerary that I received a couple weeks ago.


    "I say we hear them out," Maxine said as she stood up, "I know many of you don''t trust the Hive, but this is an opportunity to establish peace with them. They''ve already proven their intent by sending us a humanoid drone, as you put it, to make us feel more at ease while conversing with them. And it costs us very little to hear them out aside from a little time. Whereas continued hostility will cost us lives and money. What say you, my fellow representatives?" Maxine promptly sat back down as soon as she finished speaking as was the protocol in this situation.


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    The next person to stand was the Alchemist Association''s representative. It was an elderly old man with almost snow-white beard reaching halfway down his chest. "While I am loathed to admit it, the young lady is correct," he said calmly and clearly, "The war with the Hive is costly in more ways than one and hearing them out costs us virtually nothing at all. If their intent is truly that of peace, we can divert the resources used to combat them to battling the evil races threatening our borders."


    As soon as he sat down, another bearded man stood up. "Why are we even talking about this?" the bearded man asked, "These creatures cannot be trusted. They are beyond cunning. This could be nothing more than a clever plan to have us divert our forces away, so that they can mount a sneak attack to further expand their territory." Of course, there is always one of those guys, but he is right. It is a possibility, albeit a small one.


    After he sat down, no one else stood up to speak. "Since the people that have wish to speak have done so, please cast your votes." A trio of small buttons appeared on Maxine''s right arm rest. One button was red, one was yellow and the last one was green. She promptly pressed the green one to vote for hearing the Hive matriarchs out. The buttons vanished an instant later.


    "The votes have been tallied and we will be hearing them out in one standard month," the AI stated, "The next topic is the luxury good chocolate and it''s lack of supply. Ms. Levings of Earth, as the planetary guardian of the world with this commodity, do you have any suggestions to increase chocolate production?"


    "Yes, I do," Maxine said as she stood up once more, "As some of you know, my world isn''t as advanced as many others and thus, we do not have access to the agricultural technologies to enhance the growth and production of the trees that bear the cocoa fruit. From which, chocolate is made. So, I request access to more advanced agricultural techniques and technologies. While it may not show immediate results, it will still increase our means of producing more chocolate in the future."


    "Why don''t you simply expand the orchards?" the Alchemist Association representative asked.


    "I''m afraid that is not possible at this time," Maxine replied, "The cocoa tree requires a tropical climate and the beasts in those areas are quite prolific and extremely territorial. Any attempt to expand the fields will result in immediate retaliation and since my world is still relatively new to cultivation, we don''t have the means to prevent them from inflicting heavy damage to our existing cocoa fields such retaliation." Not to mention the environmentalists would go nuts at the destruction of the rain forest.


    "I do not understand why you''re so resistant to allowing such a harmless technology to be given to an underdeveloped world, Alvin," a middle aged woman said.


    "Enough," the AI said firmly, "If you do not have something relevant to say, please, do not speak."


    "My people are willing to donate soil enrichment and enhanced plant growth technologies to Earth," a younger man in one of the upper rows stated.


    "That is much appreciated, sir," Maxine said as she bowed her head towards him. In return, he simply smiled and sat back down. However, no one else seemed to be willing to donate any more technologies. Well, it''s not as much as I hoped for, but that tech will definitely not go to waste. I just wish I didn''t have to sit through the next eighty, or so, topics that need to be gone over. I just wish the one pertinent to Earth didn''t appear so swiftly. I''m going to be so bored. Maybe, I''ll get lucky and get to watch the Alchemist Association''s representative get embarrassed. I doubt it, though.


    The next five hours in this virtual world were as boring as she anticipated. Most of the topics discussed involved arguments over ownership of certain planets, trade disputes, and a few limited war requests. It''s not like I''m even needed here, but it would be considered extremely rude if I were to just leave without a good reason.


    "Our meeting has adjourned," the AI stated after the last issue was resolved, "Until next time." Maxine didn''t waste even an instant and immediately logged herself out. She rather lay in bed than to listen to stay there for another instant.


    Maxine opened her eyes and saw Emily looking back at her. "Hey, you," Emily said lovingly as she brushed Maxine''s hair to the side with her left hand, "How are you feeling?" Grandma or mom must''ve brought her here. And it''s obvious mom kept Emily appraised of my situation.


    "I''m aching everywhere," Maxine replied honestly.


    "I don''t doubt it," Emily said sadly, "Fifty-seven percent of your body is covered in second and third degree burns."


    "That sounds like a lot," Maxine said as she mentally winced.


    "It is," Emily said, "In fact, you should''ve been taken to a burn unit immediately after your tribulation, but Guan said that you didn''t need it. And that you would be completely healed in a month and a half."


    "Daddy''s rarely wrong, but if you think I need to be there, I won''t argue," Maxine said honestly.


    "Too late for that," Emily complained, "The most dangerous time has already passed and you''re not in intolerable agony. So, I really don''t see a point in dragging you into the hospital now. Anyways, Vellus has asked about you a few times. Do you want to see him?"


    "Not until my injuries heal enough that I can walk on my own," Maxine said and paused for a moment before she asked, "Did mom tell you what he''s done?"


    "Yes," Emily said with pursed lips, "But we both know that he didn''t spy on you voluntarily."


    "I know that and I''ve already forgiven him for it," Maxine said honestly, "But, I''m not sure if I can trust him like I had before."


    "I''m not surprised," Emily said, "You''re grandma''s taking it harder than anyone else. She wants you to have a ''traditional'' marriage."


    "Yeah, she''s like that," Maxine complained, "Still, it''ll be awhile before she insists that I talk to any men for awhile after this fiasco."


    "That''s true," Emily agreed.


    "Now, tell me what been going on since I was out cold," Maxine said, "And don''t tell me that my new form wasn''t seen. Footage of it has probably already been ''leaked'' by the nations that don''t like me."


    "You''re right and they found what was left of those men and women at the crash sites," Emily said and looked frustrated before she continued, "The things they''re saying are utterly ridiculous."


    "Let me guess. They''re saying that I lost control of my beastly heritage and partially ate them, even though there was no evidence that I did," Maxine said calmly, "And that my increased aggression in that form is making me behave increasingly more violent and erratic. Which calls for drastic measures to be taken against me. Is that about the gist of it?"


    "More or less," Emily said grumpily, "At least, Guan grabbed that screaming alchemist and knocked him out. What did you do to him by the way? I couldn''t find anything actually wrong with him."


    "I gave him a solution that increased the sensitivity of his pain receptors by an absurd amount," Maxine answered honestly, "It''ll wear off in less than a month, and the pain that he''s going through should be gradually decreasing."


    "Jesus," Emily exclaimed, "Was that really necessary?"


    "It was. It''ll discourage anyone from willingly spying on me," Maxine stated, "I wish just yelling at them would be enough, but it isn''t. Daddy''s inheritance is too much of a lure for them."


    "Then give it to them," Emily said.


    "I wish it were that easy," Maxine said in frustration, "I can already see them claiming that I didn''t give them everything, even if I do. You would be surprised how simple his teaching methods are. Would you believe it if I told you that I created a personalized alchemy technique? Those assholes in the Alchemist Association wouldn''t. They would literately believe that daddy scrounged up an ancient alchemy technique that''s perfectly suited for me, even if one doesn''t exist."


    "That''s ridiculous," Emily said in disbelief, "Why would you deceive them?"


    "To have an edge over the competition. That''s how they would see it, anyways," Maxine answered simply, "Their greed would blind them to the truth."


    "How can you deal with people like that?" Emily asked.


    "There are two ways that I know of," Maxine began to explain, "The first method is the dumbest. All I need is overwhelming power. The Alchemist Association only messes with me because I''m too weak to be much of a threat to them as a whole. The second method is to either hurt very badly or scare them. I don''t even have to kill anyone." I''ll just render a large portion of alchemists in a heavily defended location unable to practice their craft without intolerable pain. The best place to strike is their main headquarters. Unfortunately, my aerosol poisons are easy enough to counter if they react fast enough, so I''m unlikely to get more than a handful of gold stage cultivators with it. But for my first hit on them like this, I''ll just use a potent knockout gas to give them a good scare and I think it''ll be funny to see their reactions. The best part is that I''ll have proven that I am capable of hitting them where they are the strongest. I really can''t think of a better deterrent than that. Still, if they insist on coming after me even after I do that, I''ll just have to annihilate their means of making money.

 Chapter 184

    Maxine was finally able to dress herself after three weeks of recover, but she wasn''t able to walk very far since her burns were only half healed. She had tried to busy her mind during that time by watching TV, but she made the mistake of putting on the news a couple days ago. The newscasters were doing their best to demonize her. The UN secretary said that he would try to mitigate the bullshit. It seems like he failed miserably or he didn''t even try that hard. I guess its about time that I made a public appearance. This way they''ll see that I''m no longer ''monsterized'' as they put it and covered in bandages. And the public knows about my rapid healing rate. It''ll make them wonder what kind of injuries that I had to sustain to be still bandaged up after three weeks.


    However, that wasn''t the only thing she had been doing. She had been discreetly sneaking her ravens and a handful of new constructs into the shadows of anyone leaving Earth. Thankfully, she got lucky yesterday and found a ship heading straight towards the Main Headquarters of the Alchemist Association. She expected them to find her ravens once it landed, but she doubted they would find her new constructs. They were the size of a small spider and were hiding in the small shadows on each person''s clothes. Those thing should work. I''ve never made a construct that small before and I doubt anyone will find them even after I release my knockout gas.


    Maxine put on her emerald green eyepatch over the gauze that was taped over her empty eye socket and very slowly walked towards the dining room table to eat breakfast while wincing at every step when her bandages rubbed ever so slightly against her burns. She reached the dining room table just as grandma Victoria came out of the kitchen with a tray heaped with a high protein breakfast.


    "Hey, grandma," Maxine greeted her as she sat down slowly, "I thought I would eat at the table today."


    "You should still be in bed," grandma Victoria admonished Maxine, but a look of helplessness flashed across her face as she set the tray down infront of Maxine, "But you''re too stubborn for that. Just try not to over do it and worsen your injuries."


    "I won''t, grandma," Maxine said, "I''m getting a little stir crazy, so I''m going to take a short walk outside. After that, I''m going straight back to bed."


    "Fine, but I insist on going with you," grandma Victoria said firmly, "You''re in no shape to defend yourself."


    "Sounds good to me," Maxine agreed readily since it was easier than arguing with her grandmother and began to eat her breakfast. However, grandma Victoria didn''t join her. Instead, she walked out of the room. I wonder what she''s off to. Now that I think about it, where Is everyone else? Maybe, they''ve already eaten.


    Just as Maxine finished up her breakfast, Grandma Victoria walked back into the room while pushing a wheelchair and Maxine gave her a look of confusion. "What? You didn''t think I would let you walk the entire time, did you?" Grandma Victoria asked, "We both know that you can''t walk that far in your condition and it will be far from sufficient to allay your feeling of being cooped up."


    "You got me there," Maxine admitted, "But could you put that away until I need it?"


    "Of course," Grandma Victoria said and waved her hand as the wheelchair vanished, "So, where are we going for a walk?"


    "In my favorite park," Maxine replied honestly, "I like to hear the laughter of the children at the playground there."


    "Whenever, you''re ready, then," grandma Victoria said as she sat down while waiting for Maxine to finish her breakfast. It didn''t take Maxine long to do just that and she cleaned her fork and plate with a simple motion of her energies before putting them away.


    She stood up and opened up an archway portal to the park and walked through it with grandma Victoria right behind her. She smiled as she saw the familiar landscape. She could even faintly hear the laughter of children at play.


    Maxine didn''t waste any time and carefully walked along the winding path that lead to the playground. Sadly, she didn''t get very far before her bandages began pulling at her wounds. As soon as sweat began to form on her brow, a wheelchair appeared just off to her right side.


    Maxine only spared her grandmother a glance before sitting down in it and lowering the footrests. "Just sit there and relax. I''ll take care of the rest," grandma Victoria told Maxine and she began pushing Maxine along in the wheelchair, "Those little ones are just up ahead."


    Maxine thought she saw some movement to her left, but when she looked, nothing was there. However, there was a partial footprint at the edge of the paved path that seemed to follow them.


    "Turan, I know you''re there," Maxine said out loud, "Please, if you''re going to join us for a walk, do so visibly."


    "I have no intention of harming you, young man," grandma Victoria said calmly, "I know what you did for Maxine."


    "My apologies," Turan said as he appeared to Maxine''s left, "But I was erring on the side of caution considering Maxine''s injuries."


    "That''s quite alright, young man," grandma Victoria said, "But, next time, reveal yourself right away. If Maxine hadn''t called out to you, I may have killed you to protect her from what I would''ve perceived as an assassin."


    "Understood, ma''am," Turan said respectfully, but his tone changed to one of concern when he asked Maxine, "How are your wounds?"


    "They''re still healing," Maxine answered honestly, "It''ll be another three weeks before I''m fully healed. Although, some of my injuries have already healed such as the burns that were on my hands."


    "Your hands were burned?!" Turan asked in alarm, "How did that happen?"


    "It happened when my blades became scorching hot from scattering tribulation lightning," Maxine explained.


    "Oh, I see," Turan said in much calmer tone, "That sometimes happens, but I never imagined that it would happen to someone with your level of skill."


    "I was forced to go through with the tribulation in a form that I wasn''t familiar with," Maxine answered, "Hence, why I got burned so badly."


    "Is that the same form that they showed on the television?" Turan asked.


    "Yes," Maxine answered simply and she perked up when she saw finally got to see the playing children. Unfortunately, there were only a few of them there due to how early it was.


    She barely got to watch them for more than a handful of minutes before she felt a dozen gazes lock onto her as if she were a piece of meat. She instantly spread out her spiritual sense and saw a dozen different reporters practically running towards her with their camera men trailing behind them. Shit, I didn''t expect them to show up that fast. Someone must''ve made a call as soon as I walked out of that portal. However, they seemed to slow when they got closer.


    "Wait, she''s too tall to be Ms. Levings and her ... ahem ... other attributes don''t match up," one of the reporters said.


    "But that blonde, grey elf is here," another reporter stated, "He only shows up when she''s nearby. So, that must mean that they girl in the wheelchair is Ms. Levings."


    "But she''s covered in bandages," the first reporter pointed out, "How do you suppose she got so badly injured?"


    "That''s a question that I intend to get out of her," the second reporter said as she rushed towards Maxine.


    "No comment," Maxine said as soon as most of them were within earshot, but they kept approaching her all the same.


    "Please, just answer one question," the female reporter said as she shoved a microphone in Maxine''s face.


    "No comment," Maxine said calmly, "Grandma, let''s go back home. I''ve had enough fresh air. See you later, Turan." Maxine saw grandma Victoria use her energies to gently push the reporters away from them and Maxine created an arch that lead back home before she was pushed through it. She closed it as soon as both of them were home.


    "On any other planet, that harassment wouldn''t have happened," grandma Victoria complained, "Then again, your world is still relatively new to cultivation. They don''t realize yet how easily you could hurt them in a moment of anger, but they''ll get it, eventually."


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "I don''t think it would matter, even if they were aware," Maxine commented, "A story on how I was injured is too big for them to pass up."


    "They sound suicidal to me," grandma Victoria said.


    "From their perspective, its worth the risk," Maxine said, "If they get a hold of a story no one else has, it will boost their reputation and very likely, their pay."


    "I see. Still, it''s admirable at how persistent they are," grandma Victoria complimented them.


    "That it is," Maxine agreed, "I just wish they chose a different target, but it can''t be helped after my recent actions. I guess I''ll have to set up a press conference to answer some questions or they''ll make stuff up. As it is, they''ve already started to make wild conjectures about me."


    "Very well. I''ll let you handle your world''s politics, but I''m coming with you when you have this ''press conference,''" grandma Victoria said calmly.


    "That''s fine," Maxine acquiesced since she didn''t want to argue with her grandmother over this, "I just need to make a few phone calls to get everything set up. Oh, could you get mom''s phone? I sort of need it to make those phone calls."


    "Of course, I''ll let her know," grandma Victoria said as she walked out of the room. A few minutes later, Hellen came in and handed Maxine her phone.


    "Thanks, mom," Maxine said and she dialed Amanda''s phone number.


    "Hello, this is Mrs. Maze speaking. Who is this?" Amanda answered promptly.


    "Hey, Amanda. It''s me," Maxine greeted, "I''d like to ask you for a favor."


    "What kind of favor?" Amanda asked cautiously.


    "I need you to help me set up a press conference," Maxine said bluntly, "As you''ve probably noticed, they''ve been making wild conjectures about me as of late. I would like to clear up some of their misconceptions."


    "I saw that crap on TV and you''re in luck," Amanda answered, "I''m holding a press conference myself in five hours about my guild political stance. I normally wouldn''t do this, but the other guilds are forcing the matter after the recent news reports. It might''ve helped if you had made an appearance in the last three weeks, but as far as I know, you basically disappeared after showing off your new form. Why did you disappear, now that we are on that topic?"


    "You''ll understand why once you see me," Maxine answered honestly, "In any case, I''ll see you in a few hours."


    "Alright, see you then, but you have some explaining to do," Amanda said firmly as she disconnected the call.


    Maxine handed the phone back to Hellen. "Thanks, mom," Maxine said.


    "Don''t mention it, sweetie," Hellen said with a gentle smile, "What are you going to say at this event?"


    "I''m going to announce that I''ve broken through to gold stage, but in the process, I was injured," Maxine answered.


    "Just be prepared for difficult questions," Hellen suggested.


    "I am," Maxine said calmly, but internally, she was nervous.


    To calm her nerves, she turned on the TV to watch something while she thought of various questions that might be asked. After roughly four hours, she was confident that she could answer most questions or accusations thrown at her without screwing up too badly. The only problem was if they did asked her something she hadn''t thought of.


    With a thought, Maxine put on a veil before she created an arch and felt a small jerk as grandma Victoria simply appeared behind her as she pushed Maxine through it. She looked at Fire and Ice guild while they made their way up the ramp towards the front doors. They received a few stares as she came in, but otherwise, no one paid her much attention. Which suited her just fine.


    They took the elevator to the second floor and made their way to Amanda''s office. Amanda opened the door just as they arrived and gave them both a weird look.


    "Maxine!? What the hell happened to you!?" Amanda exclaimed as soon as she realized that it was Maxine infront of her.


    "I achieved gold stage and the lightning tribulation kicked my ass," Maxine answered calmly.


    "Mind your language, Maxine," grandma Victoria admonished Maxine.


    "Sorry, grandma," Maxine apologized.


    "What the hell is a lightning tribulation?" Amanda asked before she came to a realization, "Is it that thing that happens in those cultivation novels? Are you telling me that stuff is real?!"


    "Yes, it is," Maxine said.


    "Damn," Amanda curse and after a second, she had a thoughtful look on her face as she looked at grandma Victoria, "You don''t look like Maxine''s grandmother. You look more like her aunt."


    "Thank you," grandma Victoria said with a big smile.


    "Anyways, we best head to training room three. It''s been set up for the news conference," Amanda said as she gestured for them to follow her.


    "Don''t we have a little bit before it starts?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, but I need to have someone set up a microphone for you," Amanda said as she gave Maxine a quick glance, "The ones we have are already hooked up to a podium."


    "I''m able to stand if that helps," Maxine stated.


    "And can you do that without pain?" Amanda asked.


    "I can stand without much pain, but don''t ask me to walk around," Maxine said calmly.


    "Then, you should stay in your damn wheelchair," Amanda said firmly, "And how badly damaged is your eye? Because I have a feeling that someone will claim that you''re faking your injuries to get sympathy."


    "My eye is quite literately gone as are my eyelids," Maxine answered bluntly as she shifted her eyepatch and removed the gauze covering her right eye to reveal the damage, "So as you can see, there is just a void where my eye used to be."


    "Oh, shit," Amanda said softly in surprise before she regained her bearings, "I know you can heal from just about anything, but is it even possible for you to regenerate your eye?"


    "I''m fairly certain that I can. If not, I can make a potion that can," Maxine said calmly as she shifted the bandages and her eyepatch back into place.


    "There''s that, at least," Amanda said as they reached the training room, "Oh, it looks like everyone is here. Could you stay out here until I call you over?" Maxine glanced inside and the basketball court sized training room was packed with reporters. A podium with microphones mounted on it was set up on the far end of the room.


    "Not a problem for me. What about you, grandma?" Maxine asked as she glanced over her shoulder.


    "That''s fine," grandma Victoria said, "But try not to make us wait too long."


    "I won''t," Amanda said as she walked inside and stood behind the podium before addressing a large group of reporters, "Thank you all for coming. I''m here to tell every last single one of you one simple thing: I will always support my friend. My reasoning for this is very simple. It''s that she''s done more for this planet than any other single person, alive. She''s given us a cultivation technique perfectly suited for us, opened up trade with other worlds by exposing them to chocolate, and got her grandparents'' clan to protect us while we build up our forces so that we can protect ourselves. What''s more, she did all of that without asking for anything in return. She even wanted to refuse being Earth''s representative due to her inexperience! She should be hailed as a saintess for her selfless actions! So why is it that you''re all so quick to judge her for doing what she thought was necessary? Why not ask her why she killed those off worlders so brutally?"


    "If it were that easy, we would have," a female reporter retorted.


    "Well, now''s your chance," Amanda said firmly and she looked right at Maxine, "That''s your cue, Maxine."


    Grandma Victoria began pushing Maxine into the crowded room towards the podium. She felt the curious looks of reporters as she was wheeled past them. As soon as she was infront of them all, a small microphone stand was placed beside her.


    "Hello, everyone," Maxine greeted them in a friendly tone, "I apologize for not showing myself in recent weeks. As you can tell, I''m quite injured and it''s only recently that I was even able to sit up without assistance. Now, let''s get to the questions burning on your minds. You there in the back. What''s your question?"


    "Can you explain what that recent transformation of yours was? And what triggered it?" a rather young reporter asked.


    "I''m not completely certain, but I believe that transformation is simply the final step in the maturation of my hydra bloodline," Maxine responded smoothly, "Sadly, I have no idea how that transformation was triggered. My injuries have prevented me from investigating the cause in detail." I wonder if they will buy that half-truth. It''s not like I can say that I lost my temper after I found out that my ''boyfriend'' was spying on me for some off world assholes.


    "Why did you bring those space ships to ground and brutally kill their occupants?" a female redheaded reporter asked.


    "The occupants of those ships were trying to manipulate Earth''s politics and that''s unacceptable," Maxine answered bluntly, "And that wasn''t the first time that they tried something of that nature. The previous times I warned them in private not to do it again to avoid publicly embarrassing them, but they took advantage of my good intentions. Any other questions?"


    "Are those injuries real? How did you get them? And are you a cannibal?" an older reporter with greying hair asked directly. Maxine glared at him for a moment in anger, before she took a deep breath to calm herself. I knew that question was coming, but it still pisses me off to hear it.


    "I am not a cannibal. It''s extremely insulting that you even feel the need to ask that. The very thought of such a practice sickens me. As for the legitimacy of my injuries, I suggest that those of you whom are squeamish turn away," Maxine said calmly and she removed her eyepatch and the gauze underneath it for only a few seconds before putting them back in place, "I got these injuries when I broke through to gold stage. Sadly, I wasn''t fully prepared for the following lightning tribulation. Which lead to lingering traces of that lightning to remain in my wounds. It''s significantly hampering my regenerative abilities. Anything else?"


    "Were you able to attend the Alliance assembly?" a blonde reporter asked, "And were you able to secure any agricultural technologies?"


    "Yes, I was on both counts," Maxine answered, "The technologies that I acquired should be arriving in roughly a week and I will make sure it will be available to all the nations of Earth."


    "What about your relationship with that man from another world?" a young reporter asked.


    Maxine glared at him for a moment before answering, "I would appreciate it if you refrained from asking about my personal life, but since you asked, he is nothing more than a friend." That reporter immediately backed off.


    "Is there any truth to the rumors that you intimidated several UN representatives into resigning?" the older reporter from before asked.


    "If you want to know why they resigned, you should ask them yourself," Maxine responded.


    "I think that''s enough questions for Maxine," Amanda said as she walked infront of Maxine, "She''s still recovering from her injuries, afterall. If you have any other questions to present to her, they can be asked at a later date."


    Grandma Victoria wasted no time and pushed Maxine towards the exit. Meanwhile, Maxine nodded her thanks to Amanda as she was pushed past her. That should answer some of the questions on their minds, but I have a feeling that they will still demonize me. I basically admitted to stomping those people to death, but I really don''t care if they call my methods brutal. I just hate being accused of being a cannibal.

 Chapter 185

    Why does it have to fucking itch so bad?! Maxine was struggling not to scratch at her mostly healed wounds. Even after applying fresh salve to them, they itched to an almost intolerable degree. She had to constantly distract her mind in order to tolerate it. At least, I can walk without my burns hurting like hell.


    "I wish I could do something else for the itching," Emily said apologetically, "I know that it can get rather annoying."


    "You have no idea," Maxine said as she unconsciously scratched at her eyepatch and forcibly put her hand down as soon as she realized what she was doing, "It''s driving me insane."


    "I''ve heard similar complaints from others that had some nasty burns, but scratching at it won''t help it heal," Emily admonished Maxine.


    "I know. It''s just been getting harder to ignore it these past couple weeks," Maxine complained.


    "What do you expect?" Emily asked, "The only way to minimize the itching is with painkillers or topical creams, but they barely have a chance to work before your body metabolizes them. So, you just have to tough out the remaining week until your wounds heal."


    "Fine," Maxine said through grit teeth and tried to distract herself, "How''s Vellus?"


    "His limbs have finally regenerated and is relearning how to walk," Emily said after hesitating for a moment, "It will probably be another month before he can walk smoothly. His recovery would probably go faster if he wasn''t so worried about his family. The Alchemist Association hasn''t contacted him even once since you found out about him spying on you."


    "He won''t have to worry much longer. I''ve found his family and aside from a few minor bruises, they''re unharmed," Maxine said calmly, "It''s only by some small miracle that I managed to sneak some of my constructs into their main headquarters and found them a few hours ago. And considering where they are being held, I don''t think they know what to do with his kin just yet."


    "You''re going to rescue them, right?" Emily asked.


    "I intend to, but first, I''ll try to get the Alchemist Association to willingly release them," Maxine said firmly, "If not, I''ll just abscond with them and leave those pricks a little surprise."


    "Why don''t I like the sound of that?" Emily asked while giving Maxine a suspicious glare, "You''re not going to kill anyone, are you?"


    "I''m not going to kill anyone," Maxine said honestly, "I''m just going to give them a bit of a scare with colored smoke and knockout gas. It''s entirely harmless, but it leaves a clear warning."


    "Which is?" Emily asked.


    "To leave me alone or I will stop being nice," Maxine said.


    "Sending them one of their people screaming their lungs out was nice?" Emily asked incredulously.


    "As far as they''re concerned, that was a playful prank in comparison to the vicious attacks that daddy has done before," Maxine replied honestly.


    "Seriously?" Emily asked in surprise, "I''ve read up on Guan''s past and found nothing as cruel as leaving someone screaming in agony for a month. In fact, most people that were effected by his poisons simply drop dead where they stood."


    "They don''t care too much about a weaker, untalented individual''s pain or death," Maxine answered simply, "The elders are much more concerned about their people as a whole and their own hides. Once they realize that I''m capable of striking at them directly, they''ll most likely back off."


    "Doesn''t that have a chance to backfire?" Emily asked.


    "It does, but they''re alchemists," Maxine replied, "The vast majority of them are cowardly due to the fact that they rarely have to fight, and are far more likely to back off once they realize how vulnerable they are."


    "I can''t really fault you for that logic," Emily said reluctantly, "But you need to keep in mind that they could escalate things further."


    "I know and I''m prepared for that," Maxine said, "I just pray that they don''t."


    "So, when are you going to confront them?" Emily asked.


    "Actually, I''m waiting for them to contact me to gloat that they found my ravens," Maxine admitted, "Thus far, they''ve found eight, make that nine, of the ten ravens that I sent to infiltrate their main headquarters. Honestly, I''m surprised their security is so lax. I never imagined that it would take them this long to find my ravens."


    "Wait, if you sent them knowing they would be found, what was the point?" Emily asked.


    "My ravens were only meant as a distraction, so they wouldn''t find my other, much smaller, constructs," Maxine explained and she felt her dimensional ring vibrate, "Oh, speak of the devil." She retrieved her communication disk and saw a bearded man with a dark blue Alchemist Association badge on the right side of his chest.


    "Ms. Levings -," Maxine cut him off before he could speak any further, "Why are you so insistent on referring to me by that man''s family name? Are you trying to convince yourself that I''m not Poison Emperor Guan''s daughter? Or are you intentionally trying to anger me?" When engaging any kind of negotiations, putting the other side on the defensive is a must. Thus forcing them to fight an uphill battle on a psychological level and I sort of felt like being mean to him.


    "As you wish, Ms. Cinderson," the bearded alchemist said, "I''m Elder Macklen of the Alchemist Association. I was wondering why you felt the need to send your ravens to infiltrate our main headquarters."


    "You know why," Maxine said, "Or are you going to deny that you kidnapped Vellus Callaran''s kin?"


    "I don''t know what you''re talking about," Elder Macklen said calmly.


    "Warehouse fifty-four in the city of Telvas, second floor, fifth room on the left from the southwest stairs. Does that ring any bells?" Maxine asked.


    "I don''t know who you got that information from, but it''s inaccurate," Elder Macklen said firmly.


    "I got that information from the raven construct that you failed to find," Maxine declared, "So, are you going to release his family or not?" Elder Macklen''s poker face finally broke, if only for an instant.


    "The man betrayed you. Why are you going to such lengths to free his kin?" Elder Macklen asked in return.


    "That is my business," Maxine answered coldly, "Now, answer my question."


    "I''m afraid that''s -" Maxine cut off the connection before another word could be said. She didn''t need to hear the rest of it to know that he would refuse her request.


    Emily patted Maxine''s shoulder gently, but Maxine simple closed her eyes in focus. She saw Vellus'' kin through her raven. There were twelve of them. They''re still alright. I''m still pissed that they had the gall to kidnap these people. More than half of their numbers are children for fucks sake. Two of which are under six years old. I best get them out of there before the Alchemist Association erects an anti-teleportation field.


    With a thought, she formed a shell around them. Simultaneously, she created a similar shell infront of Vellus Callaran''s hotel and transferred them to Earth. For a moment, she had expected to be blocked and was honestly surprised that she wasn''t. I guess I shouldn''t be too surprised. I moved faster than they expected.


    But she didn''t drop the shell around his kin. She checked each of them for anything that could turn into a pandemic and thankfully, found nothing. Still, she hesitated before using a motion of her energies to transport a series of vials with a note written in alliance common to their sole elder. It told him to have the children drink the potions to boost their immune systems. I can''t have the little ones dying from the flu because they lack the immunities to fight it off.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    Once that was out of the way, she dropped the shell around them and focused back to the Alchemist Association''s main headquarters. She saw that her other constructs were in position and she ordered each of them to release the compressed knockout gas and colored smoke stored within them out of their mouths. Yeah, if anyone saw this, they would probably freak out. It''s not every day that a bunch of large spiders start spewing out what looks like a deadly miasma.


    As soon as people started dropping, chaos ensued as the alchemists and their servants scattered. Within moments, elders swooped in and contained the colored smoke and knockout gas within a bubble and sent it all skyward to harmlessly dissipate in the upper atmosphere.


    "Emily, could you go take care of Vellus'' family infront of his hotel?" Maxine said, "They''re rather confused and frightened. It''s not helping that no one understands what they''re saying."


    "Sure, just make one of your arches for me," Emily said and Maxine did just that. Emily swiftly walked through it.


    Roughly five minutes after Emily left, Maxine''s communication disk received another call. It was Elder Macklen and he looked as if he could barely contain his anger. "I wasn''t expecting you to contact me so soon, Elder Macklen," Maxine replied as if nothing had happened.


    "Don''t play coy with me," Elder Macklen said hostilely, "We both know what you did. Now, give us the antidote!"


    "There is NO antidote for my poisons. I believe I''ve mentioned that several times already to the association," Maxine replied calmly, "There is, however, a solution which weakens my poisons, but there isn''t anything that completely neutralizes them."


    "Then, give us that!" Elder Macklen roared.


    "Why?" Maxine asked simply as she glared at him, "You''re people have done everything in their power to antagonize me. So, why should I give you anything, besides my contempt?"


    "Please, my great grandson was amongst those effected by your recent attack. Let me help him," Elder Macklen pleaded. This sudden change in his attitude shocked Maxine.


    "He''ll wake up in a few hours with a splitting headache, but otherwise, he should be fine," Maxine said with a gentle expression, "Just know that this is the the last time that I will respond with such restraint. Next time, I will not and your elders will weep bloody tears of regret for not leaving me and those close to me alone."


    "I understand, but the other elders may not heed your warnings," Elder Macklen said.


    "I pray that they do heed my warning. Many people will suffer if they don''t," Maxine replied coldly and ended the call. It''s better to leave it to their imagination on what my retaliation might be. What they think of will be far worse than anything that I could. God, all of this scheming is making my head hurt. What I wouldn''t give for it to be a simple fight. It would make thing so much easier. Enough complaining. I better head to Vellus'' hotel and help sort things out over there. I''m in good enough condition to flee if I have to and I doubt Turan will leave me unattended for more than a handful of minutes. I still haven''t figured out how he finds me so fast.


    With a thought, Maxine opened up another arch and walked through it to a chaotic mess. Emily and Vellus Callaran''s family were being yelled at by an officer.


    "I will ask one more time. Where is their documentation?" the police officer asked forcefully. She sigh before walking up to them and winced when one of her bandages pulled at her wounds.


    "They don''t have any," Maxine said from behind him, "But they are the family members of Vellus Callaran. He is inside the hotel and I can call him down here if you like to confirm this." Shit, I should''ve picked a different spot to send them to, but I guess this is what I get for wanting to show Vellus that his family was safe as quickly as possible.


    The police officer turned around and scowled as soon as he saw her. Thankfully, his tone remained professional as he answered, "Fine, but I will have to take them to the immigration office regardless to register their presence here AND for them to get a full medical check up." Thankfully, his demands were not outside of what she was planning on doing anyways and to her relief, she saw Vellus hobbling towards them rather quickly out of the corner of her eye.


    "Thank you, officer, for your understanding and patience," Maxine said with a slight bow of her head, "And I know how hard and important a job like yours is. Is there any way I can show my gratitude to you and your fellow officers for your service?"


    "You could get your fellow ''cultivators'' to behave," the police officer complained, "My job''s dangerous enough without having to deal with super-powered freaks."


    "I would appreciate it if you don''t refer to cultivators as ''super powered freaks,''" Maxine said politely, "And as far as I know, cultivators have been policing our own as best we can. I would be happy to listen to any suggestions that you might have to improve our response time so that I can pass it on."


    "I don''t know. You could actively scan everyone for their intent," the police officer offered.


    "I''m sorry, but that would violate their right to privacy that''s protected by the Constitution," Maxine answered honestly.


    "Your people could still do better," the police officer complained as he walked away and yelled over his shoulder before he got out of earshot, "And make sure to get those people registered!" Maxine turned her head and saw Vellus Callaran weeping as he kept hugging his family members one after the other. He really is a devoted family man. It''s a shame that I can''t ever fully trust him.


    "Should we go?" Emily asked.


    "Sadly, we can''t," Maxine said remorsefully, "We need to get those folks registered at the immigration office and one of us has to act as a translator. And I know you have other things that you need to do today, so I''ll take care of them."


    "Are you sure that you will be okay with that?" Emily asked.


    "Yes, I''m sure," Maxine said firmly.


    "Alright, then," Emily said before she gave Maxine a quick kiss, "I''ll head out. Just let me know if you change your mind."


    "I will," Maxine said and watched Emily take flight.


    She turned to face Vellus and his family to see they were still hugging each other while crying with joy. She really didn''t want to interrupt them, but she needed to get them all registered as visitors. It''s an inconvenience for situations like this, but I understand the need for it. And the non-cultivators in their group will have to be given a thorough check up. Hopefully, they will take my word for it that they are not carrying any nasty illnesses. If not, they''ll probably call in a doctor that''s at least iron stage to look them over.


    Maxine waited a few more minutes and approaching them. "I''m sorry to interrupt, but we need to get your family registered as visitors at the spaceport," Maxine said.


    "I know," Vellus Callaran replied, "I was about to take them there myself, but it''s a bit of a walk. And could it be something that doesn''t involve warping? You scared them when you brought them here."


    "Of course, I have other means of transport," Maxine said as she formed a share-shaped platform beneath her feet and proceeded to provide railing around her with a small gate on the side, "Although, I''ll admit that this''ll be the first time I''ve actually tried something like this before, but I should be able to handle this much."


    Vellus was the first one to get onto the platform. His family swiftly joined in, but bunched up around him. It would be easier if they spread out some more to balance out the weight, but after what they''ve been through, it would seem almost cruel to ask them to.


    "Alright, everyone, hold on tight," Maxine announced as she slowly levitated the platform before picking up some speed towards the spaceport. Still, she had to go a lot slower than she normally would. Huh? This isn''t draining my strength as fast as I thought it would. Perhaps, it''s due to the fact that I''m traveling on it rather than directing it from a distance.


    Even flying at a slower speed, it didn''t take very long to reach the spaceport and Maxine gently brought her flying platform to the ground to allow her passengers to disembark before dismissing it.


    They immediately went inside and moved towards the registration room. Unfortunately, it was obvious that a cargo ship had recently docked due to the large crowd inside.


    "Go sign in so we can be put into the que," Maxine said to Vellus. Rather than answer, he hobbled over to a sign in station and did the rest.


    Meanwhile, his family sat down in some chairs and when Vellus returned, he reported, "It seems the we''re going to be waiting here for roughly thirty minutes."


    "That''s not too long considering the crowd we have in here," Maxine remarked.


    "I wouldn''t know since I don''t have much to compare it to," Vellus Callaran replied uncomfortably while avoiding eye contact with Maxine.


    "You might as well get comfortable while we wait," Maxine said as she took a seat near Vellus'' family. She had no doubt that they were fearful of anyone outside of their kin at this point. Surprisingly, Vellus sat right beside her.


    Neither said anything for nearly fifteen minutes. Vellus was the one to break the silence. "I''m sorry. I should''ve told you earlier what was going on," Vellus said.


    "Yes, you should have," Maxine replied, "But I understand why you didn''t. You were worried that there were other people being coerced to spy on me and if it became known that you revealed what you were doing, they may have harmed your family in retaliation. Regardless, I felt betrayed when I found out about what you had been doing."


    "I know," Vellus Callaran said as he lowered his head in shame, "If you want, I will take my family and leave as soon as tomorrow."


    "It would be better for them if you didn''t," Maxine said, "Do you think that the Alchemist Association have any intentions of letting you walk away and sully their reputation by telling everyone what they forced you to do? You''ll be lucky to last a week after leaving Earth. At least here, they will have to think real hard if they want to make a move. Because if you get hurt for any reason while you''re on Earth, they know that I will retaliate believing it was them that did it. And they know that I''m quite capable of doing just that. Afterall, I snuck your family right out of their main headquarters before they could stop me."


    Vellus turned to look at her in surprise and disbelief. "Were they really holding my family at their main headquarters?" Vellus Callaran asked.


    "Yes, they were and I left them warning on top of that," Maxine said with a small smirk, "So, are you going to remain here on Earth? Or will you leave?"


    "I''ll stay," Vellus Callaran said calmly, "But what am I going to tell my family about you?"


    "Just tell them I''m your friend and nothing more," Maxine said firmly. Vellus Callaran simply nodded and began speaking to his family in alliance common to relay everything that had happened so far as well as who she was to him. She looked at his back regretfully for a moment before leaning back into the provided seating and let Vellus Callaran reassure his kin that everything would be alright.


    Maxine smiled at that scene, but her expression twisted into extreme annoyance in the next. She no longer had a mental distraction from the abhorrent itching of her wounds. So, she forced herself to think about the upcoming Alliance assembly. The Hive was going to make an appearance, albeit through a proxy, and she hoped that everything would work out for the best. However, in the same moment, she was planning for the worst.

 Chapter 186

    Maxine logged into the virtual room for the Alliance assembly and looked around cautiously with her eye. She didn''t see the humanoid creatures that the hive had sent. Hmm, now that I think about it. I have no idea what they even look like. Hive creatures are so varied that it''s impossible to know what to expect. They could literately be squid-faced with crab-like pinchers for hands or they could be something entirely different from what I can even imagine. Still, it''s nice that they sent a draft for their peace treaty in advance to make it clear what they want. They''re more than willing to trade with us, be confined to their current territory and be observed for five hundred years just to ensure peace. And if they need to expand, they''ll talk it out with the surrounding territories. There''s also a clause that states they will send their warriors out in the event of an invasion from hostile entities, but only if it''s a legitimate threat to the Alliance. Their only demand is for any hive matriarch that is both outside of their area of influence and willing to be moved should be transported into their territory.


    While she thought about that, she walked towards her seat and nodded to the representatives that she sat next to as she passed them. Thankfully, it seemed that almost everyone was present and that she wouldn''t have to wait long before the meeting began.


    A strange flash of light caught her attention and she finally saw the drones that the Hive sent. The three creatures that she saw were technically humanoid, but the way they looked caused Maxine to mentally cringe.


    They were all insectoids and the way they each made a humanoid shape was both unique and disturbing. The first one was essentially a bipedal cockroach that looked like a large bald man in a trench coat. Unfortunately, it''s face was completely static. The next one looked like an an actual attempt had been made to make it look appear human, instead of a disguise. The only problem was that it had huge eyes that took up almost a fifth of it''s face. Unlike the one before it, it had a mobile mouth, but that was it. The last one was clearly an insect. It''s arms and legs were vaguely human in shape and it''s body was hunched over. But out of all of them, it had the most expressive and human face. Yeah, this is definitely not what I was expecting. I was hoping that they would do something very similar to what Kerrigan did and I honestly wish that they had. These things are creepy as fuck.


    "The sole topic for today is for the negotiation of peace between the Alliance and the Hive," the Alliance''s AI announced, "Please, begin discussions now."


    "First off, I would like to apologize for unsightly appearance of our drones," the drone with the woman''s face said, "This is the best we could do with what we had available. Unlike our little sister from Earth, we were not afforded access to a wide variety of insect species on Earth."


    "I don''t hold it against you and I''ll admit that your appearances are disturbing to say the least," Maxine said as she stood up, "And I can ignore that in favor of peace. If someone as young as I can do it, the more senior members of the Alliance with their far greater experience and wisdom can surely do so as well." I wonder if this simple trick will work.


    "What will it take for peace between our peoples?" an elderly elf asked as if Maxine had not even spoken. Woah, I didn''t even notice that guy and for and elf to be visibly old, he must be nearing the end of his lifespan. It''s literately the only time they show their age.


    "We simply wish to remain free and for your ''people'' to stop slaughtering our kind for our exoskeletons and organs," the drone replied.


    "I''m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your kind''s organs are useful medicinal ingredients," the alchemist association representative replied.


    "There are alternatives to those ingredients," Maxine pointed out.


    "Yes, but they''re no where near as plentiful," the alchemist association representative countered.


    "We can provide those organs ourselves," the drone with a woman''s face said, "We can create drones that produce multiple redundant systems and harvest their organs without killing. As for the exoskeletons, our kind sheds them periodically and we see no issue with trading them for other goods."


    "I don''t have any more questions," the alchemist association''s representative stated.


    "We have no objections to this arrangement," the mercenary guild representative chimed in.


    "Nor do we," a dwarven representative stated.


    "The mere fact that they are willing to modify and mutilate their kin is proof enough of their desire for peace," the high elven representative added, "And the alchemist association best recompense them handsomely for their sacrifice or they will have us as an enemy." Following that statement there was hardly a word spoken against the peace treaty, but eventually, there was a pause in the talks.


    "Is there anyone else that would like to say a few words?" the AI asked after nearly three hours of discussion, "If not, we will begin the voting process."


    "I have a question," the Arachne Sisterhood representative stated, "What do you consider a significant threat to the Alliance?"


    "One that has the potential to destroy the Alliance without our intervention," the drone with the human face stated, "If you wish for specifics, I would say that being invaded by a large force from another galaxy cluster would be sufficient to force our intervention. I believe it''s happened at least five times in the one hundred thousand." Wait, what?! I never heard of anything like that, but I don''t really read that many history books. And the ones that I have read don''t go further back than three thousand years.


    "Thank you for answering my question," the Arachne Sisterhood representative said as she bowed her head.


    No more questions were asked and the three buttons appeared on the armrest of Maxine''s chair. She promptly voted for the peace treaty and she silently hoped that those present could see beyond their grudges to see the benefits of peace with the Hive.


    A few minutes later, Maxine wondered what was taking so long for everyone to vote, but her patience was rewarded. "72 percent have voted for the peace treaty. This is enough for the peace treaty to be put into effect," the Alliance''s AI announced.


    "What?!" a particularly emotional representative shouted, "What were you all thinking?! These things can''t be trusted! These things will turn on us the moment we show any kind of vulnerability!" That prick kept on trying to push for harsher restrictions to be placed on the Hive. It was obvious that he was goading them into leaving.


    "If it happens, we will deal with it," the Alchemist Association representative stated, "Now calm down."


    "You want me to calm down around these murderous monsters?" the emotional representative shouted.


    "Is this meeting adjourned?" the Alchemist Association representative asked while ignoring the emotional representative.


    "Yes, it is," the Alliance''s AI announced, "You are all dismissed until the next scheduled assembly."


    Maxine took that as her cue to leave. Thankfully, she realized it was the right one as she saw the emotional representative whirl around to glare at her angrily just before she managed to log out. That was close. I didn''t want to have to deal with that guys accusations. It was clear from the way he looked at me that he held me responsible for the Hive''s request for peace being accepted. It''s a good thing that there was a special clause put into the peace treaty. So, if they get attacked and have proof of the attacker''s identity, they can counter attack without repercussions, but only against the group or individual that attacked them.


    As soon as she opened her eyes, she grit her teeth due to the return of the horrendous itch coming from her right eye. The rest of her still-healing burns were a minor nuisance in comparison.


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    With a deep breath, she stood up and made her way to the kitchen. She saw Lucas sitting in grandma Victoria''s lap as he watched TV when she walked through the TV room. When she finally reached the kitchen, Hellen was in the middle of making lunch.


    "Hey, mom. Do you need any help in here?" Maxine asked.


    "No need for that. I''m almost done," Hellen answered, "You could fetch your father, though. He''s in his training room, but be sure to only knock on his door. Do not go in there unless he invites you. He mentioned that he was going to experiment with a new technique." I hope it isn''t anything particularly nasty. In any case, I don''t think it would matter. He built that thing to withstand several of his full powered strikes.


    Maxine walked towards Guan''s training room and pressed the intercom button on the side of the door. "Daddy, mom said that lunch is almost ready," Maxine said into it. However, he didn''t answer right away as he normally did and she didn''t like that. Guan had always answered her in the past when she had done this, but she knew better than to enter. I''ll give him a few minutes. He might be in the middle of something that he can''t stop in the middle.


    She waited for a couple minutes and just as she turned to leave, Guan finally answered, "I''ll be there in a few minutes, Maxine. Thank you for letting me know."


    Maxine turned around and pressed the intercom button as she replied, "You''re welcome, daddy. I''ll let mom know."


    She returned back to the kitchen and let Hellen know what Guan had said before she grabbed some plates and silverware to setting the table for lunch. Grandma Victoria appeared as she was setting the table and gave Maxine a hand. Once everything was in place, Hellen brought the lunch and Lucas seemed to appear out of nowhere to sit at the table.


    Maxine shrugged and sat down at the table. A few minutes later, Guan joined them and he announced, "I made excellent progress today."


    "That''s wonderful," Hellen said cheerfully, but Maxine was confused.


    "What exactly are you trying to do, daddy?" Maxine asked before she took a bite out of her lunch.


    "I doubt you would understand, even if I explained it to you," Guan answered calmly, "But in simple terms, I''m trying to understand how our universe works down to the most fundamental laws. It''s a very slow process, but I''m getting there."


    "Why is that even necessary?" Maxine asked.


    "It''s in preparation for my ascension into the higher plane," Guan answered, "By understanding these laws, I can better combat the tribulation that I will face before I ascend."


    "Neat," Maxine responded, "Find out anything interesting yet?"


    "As a matter of fact, I have figured out how to create wormholes," Guan answered smoothly, "Although, it''s limited to places that I''ve already been to and anyone below gold stage will not survive it if they were to traverse one that I''ve created. And those in gold stage would have various injuries."


    "That''s actually rather impressive if you ask me," Maxine said, "It''s been theorized that only energy can survive being thrown through a wormhole."


    "That''s true, but cultivators project a energy field around themselves," Guan explained, "That energy field shields them somewhat from the destructive energies within a wormhole. I''m trying to make it so even someone as strong as Lucas could survive the transition."


    "Good luck with that," Maxine said.


    "Thank you, Maxine," Guan said with a small smile, "The bigger concern is if the wormhole were to destabilize while someone is still in it. It could in theory send you to not only a different spot than intended, but also to a different time. That is assuming that you survive the whole process."


    "What now?" Maxine asked in surprise.


    "Wormholes are closely related to blackholes and as you know, blackholes can effect both space and time," Guan explained calmly, "It wouldn''t be much of a stretch to believe that a wormhole could do the same." That sounds dangerous.


    "So, you''re saying that it''s possible to be thrown into another timeline?" Maxine asked cautiously.


    "It''s entirely possible, but it''s far more likely for the person caught within the destabilized wormhole to be utterly annihilated," Guan answered, "The chaotic energies would be too much for even me to endure for more than a few seconds."


    "If their that dangerous, why are you even messing with wormholes?" Maxine asked angrily.


    "Because I''ve detected a spatial anomaly roughly two light years from Earth," Guan answered, "Based on the intensity, it could be an invasion from another galaxy cluster. I could easily hold off such a force by myself until the Alliance''s forces arrive, but I''m more concerned about another possibility. It''s the worst by far. A deity realm expert could be on the verge of descending to our plane. If it''s someone hostile, I''ll need to send you, your sister, and your mother to a safe location, so I can fight them without worry." It frightened Maxine that Guan actually looked nervous while he explained his reasoning.


    "Daddy, what are the odds that it''s something like that?" Maxine asked.


    "Less than ten percent," Guan answered, "The truth is that spatial anomaly was most likely caused by a truly immense space-dwelling creature. And you need not worry about creatures like that. The vast majority of creatures that size are extremely gentle."


    "Then, why this non-sense about using a wormhole to send us away?" Hellen asked, "And why can''t you just use warp stones?"


    "It''s a precaution. Nothing more," Guan answered calmly, "And warp stones are limited by how much mass that they can move. Wormholes have no such limitations." He''s including Kerrigan and Silky as his family. Without either of them in the equation, there would be no reason to take into consideration entities with greater mass.


    "Well, how soon will you know what is causing that spatial distortion?" Maxine asked to change the subject.


    "I''ll know for certain in a month," Guan answered calmly.


    "What a coincidence," Maxine remarked, "My eye should be fully regenerated in that time as well."


    "That it is," Hellen agreed and she turned to grandma Victoria, "Mom, I forgot to ask your this earlier, but how much longer do you intend to stay here?"


    "I''ll be staying for another week," grandma Victoria stated and she reached over to ruffle Lucas'' hair, "And I intend to enjoy every minute of it."


    "Spar?" Lucas asked with a hopeful expression on his face.


    "After we''re done with lunch," grandma Victoria said happily. Lucas swiftly dug into his lunch. Wow, he must really like sparring with grandma.


    "Well, if you guys are going to do that, I''m going to go on a solo hunt," Maxine announced, "You would be surprised how relaxing I find it to track down a large animal without spiritual sense."


    "Just try to get back before dinner," Hellen reminded Maxine, "I don''t know if I have enough meat left to feed your little brother."


    "I''ll try," Maxine said as she finished up her lunch and took her plate to the kitchen.


    Immediately after, she went to her room and changed into her hide clothing since she didn''t want to get blood on her every day clothes. As a last thought, she removed her eyepatch and transformed into her battle form. She tried to push further into the form she took when she became gold stage, but she wasn''t able to. It was as if something was blocking her. I''m not surprised that didn''t work. It is the first time I''ve actually tried to consciously take it on. Hopefully, it is something simple to figure out. If not, it''s not that big of a deal.


    She looked in the mirror and sighed in relief that her eyelids had regenerated enough that she could close that eye. It still felt awkward to use only her left eye, but it wasn''t nearly as bad as it when she first lost it. She had been worried about that. She swiftly put on the special gloves and shoes that sheathed her claws and opened up a portal into a heavily forested area. Let''s get to hunting.


    Once she was in the forest, she trotted through the dense forest while looking for tracks on the ground. Eventually, she found a path that has been commonly used by deer of some kind. She lowered herself to examine the tracks. Well, this has been awhile since I''ve last done this without spiritual sense, but if I use spiritual sense, it would be too easy. Now, let''s see. Some of these tracks are days old, but this one has been made within the last couple hours. And it''s a big deer, probably an essence beast.


    She slowly followed the most recent trail left by the deer, but within a few minutes, she felt as if someone was watching her. Unfortunately, she couldn''t tell from which direction, like she usually could, and it made her little nervous. She spread her spiritual sense out, but didn''t see anyone. Maybe, I''m just being paranoid, but it''s still quite possible someone a lot stronger than me is spying on me. Well, no matter. Only an idiot would try to do anything with daddy being so close.


    She went back to tracking the deer and growled in frustration whenever she lost the trail due to the feeling of being watched distracting her. However, she still managed to find the trail, again. It took her a few hours, but she knew that she was gaining ground on the deer by how fresh the tracks were getting.


    When she finally spotted a group of crystal antler deer in the distance, she leapt up onto the tree branches above her and began soundlessly approaching them through the treetops. It took her longer than it normally would since she had to gauge the distances with only one eye when she had to make a jump to another branch that could support her weight.


    When she was directly over a large buck, she withdrew one of her blades from her dimensional ring and dove down. With a single slash, she beheaded the large buck and the rest of the deer scattered. However, she wasn''t interested in them.


    She swiftly dismantled the body into portions that could be used and aside from the antlers, she left the head of this beast entirely alone. Next, she dug a small, but deep hole, to bury the deer''s head out of respect. She placed the remaining parts into a pile for scavengers.


    She cleaned herself off using a motion of her energies and opened a portal back home. At that moment, the feeling of being watched intensified before it vanished and she looked around in confusion for a moment. What the hell was that about? Maybe, daddy has an idea who was watching me. She walked through the portal back home and went looking for Guan.


    However, just as she closed the portal behind her, Maxine heard a familiar voice, "I love the new look, Maxine." She spun around, but the portal closed before she could get a look at the person who spoke, but she didn''t need to. She already knew who it was. Zabel Nodd, how the fuck did you evade the shadow lords for this long?

 Chapter 187

    It had been a week since Zabel Nodd had revealed himself and Maxine had been on edge ever since. Every last single time that she went to do anything, she felt as if she was being watched within fifteen minutes of leaving home. Thankfully, she had notified Turan of Zabel Nodd''s arrival on Earth and a specialized team to hunt him was on the way. Maxine didn''t see a point in it since Zabel Nodd hadn''t made any aggressive moves, but the mere fact that he hadn''t made her nervous.


    "You have no idea how unnerving it is to feel like I''m being watched," Maxine complained to Emily as they walked around a park.


    "Actually, yes, I do," Emily said, "I had a stalker following me around for a couple months."


    "What?! What does he look like?" Maxine asked with worry.


    "I said ''had'' a stalker," Emily reiterated, "I told Amanda about the creep and that was the end of it."


    "At least, you didn''t have to deal with it for very long," Maxine said, "After awhile, it feels like you''re being stalked by an unseen predator that''s waiting for the perfect moment to strike."


    [Oh? I apologize for making you feel like that. I didn''t know I was making you that uncomfortable,] Zabel Nodd said via spiritual sense. The fuck?! He''s close enough to hear me complain! I should''ve known he would have a superb stealth technique. How else could he have he evaded the shadow lords for this long.


    "That sounds very stressful," Emily said in agreement, but her tone shifted to concern, "Maxine, what''s wrong?"


    "Speak of the devil, and he shall come," Maxine said.


    [I''m not the devil, Maxine,] Zabel Nodd said calmly, [In fact, one of the reasons that I''ve come to see you is to thank you. I don''t know how you did it, but you helped me retain a portion of my sanity.]


    [I had nothing to do with that,] Maxine answered, [But I am curious what the other reasons for you coming here are.]


    "He''s here?!" Emily asked in alarm and looked around.


    [I was concerned after hearing you had suffered injuries, but it seems you''ve nearly healed,] Zabel Nodd answered, [Anyways, I''ve decided to offer myself up as your invisible bodyguard.]


    [Thanks, but I already have one stalker. I really don''t want another,] Maxine replied before answering Emily, "He''s using a very advanced stealth technique. You won''t find him just by looking."


    "How do you know he''s following us, then?" Emily asked.


    [Do you mean that shadow lord that''s following you?] Zabel Nodd asked, [He''s too weak to be your bodyguard. He isn''t even a gold stage cultivator. Whereas I''m stronger than you are.]


    "That''s easy. He''s talking to me right now through spiritual sense and he''s close enough to hear what we are saying," Maxine answered Emily and replied to Zabel Nodd through spiritual sense, [He''s just for show and you know it. Daddy is the one actually protecting me and it''s not like I can''t protect myself either.]


    [And if another immortal decides to kidnap you again?] Zabel Nodd asked. How the hell did he hear about that?


    "Include me into the conversation, then," Emily demanded and Maxine connected to her via spiritual sense as she swiftly filled Emily in on the conversation.


    [Then sed immortal will probably be brutally murdered by daddy. He has zero tolerance for that kind of thing,] Maxine answered, [By the way, Emily wants to join our conversation.]


    [I''m aware on both counts, but that won''t prevent you from being mistreated until he can come to your rescue,] Zabel Nodd said calmly.


    [I would love to see the idiot''s face when they try,] Maxine said with a smirk, [My blood is both highly acidic and poisonous. If they even get a single drop of it on their skin, they will have a really bad day.]


    [How acidic are we talking about?] Emily asked.


    [In my base form, my blood is comparable to sulfuric acid and in my transformed state, it would burn through a half-inch steel plate in a couple seconds,] Maxine answered.


    [But wouldn''t that mean that the man that claims your maidenhead would have his cock would have severely burned right before dying from the deadly toxins within your blood?] Zabel Nodd asked, [I can imagine if this detail became well known the number of your potential suitors would drop significantly.]


    [I think they already know,] Emily remarked, [I heard a few of them mention their plans to avoid that fate if her blood was really that acidic.]


    [Can we, please, talk about something else?] Maxine asked.


    [I think you''re more beautiful while transformed,] Zabel Nodd said.


    [That''s ... sweet, I think,] Emily remarked.


    [I prefer his sense of beauty to be off rather than for him to be homicidal,] Maxine replied, [And I don''t care if you want to look at me while I''m transformed, Zabel, but do not touch me. I may not stop myself from ripping your head off. And ... I''m .. uh.. sorry for how I reacted when you visited me in the hospital. Honestly, it didn''t help that you were exuding the aura of a shadow demon.]


    [What did you do?] Emily asked.


    [She created a portal between my legs as one of her clones tried to thrust the business end of a war scythe up my anus,] Zabel Nodd answered calmly, [Thankfully, I had the foresight to use a shadow clone to visit her. Otherwise, I would most certainly be dead.]


    [And what were you expecting me to do exactly?] Maxine asked, [You were clearly becoming a shadow demon and almost every one that''s appeared so far has been homicidal.]


    [I don''t know what I was expecting to be honest,] Zabel Nodd answered, [I wasn''t in my right mind at the time. Not that I''m any better at the moment. By all rights, I should stay as far away from you as possible with how closely the shadow lords monitor you.] Yeah, he''s definitely a little crazy, but not the dangerous variety. Still, I don''t like him being near me. Even when he''s concealing it, I can still just barely feel his shadow demon aura.


    [Back up for a minute,] Emily said, [Is there any way to cure him?]


    [If there was a way to cure him, I would go for it, but the current ''cure'' involves removing his core,] Maxine replied, [And that''s typically a death sentence and a really mean one at that. It''s more merciful just to kill them on the spot.]


    [I have to agree with Maxine,] Zabel Nodd said, [I would much prefer death over having my core removed and as Maxine mentioned, I''m not homicidal like my predecessors were.]


    [You just need to convince the shadow lords of that,] Maxine pointed out, [And you''ll have to still hide from the Divine Marks and Kavros clans. And to be honest, if you were visible right now, I would probably beat the ever living shit out of you. I nearly died in that war that you caused.]


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    [And I apologized for that,] Zabel Nodd said defensively and Maxine faintly felt a foreign spiritual sense wash over her, [Oh, it seems I''ll have to cut our conversation short. Farewell.] The spiritual sense connection between them was cut almost immediately after he finished speaking.


    "Well, that was sudden," Emily remarked, "Why do you supposed he left so fast?"


    "Because he''s being actively hunted," Maxine answered.


    "But I didn''t notice anything," Emily stated.


    "I doubt you would have," Maxine replied, "I just barely detected their spiritual sense scans. Those people tracking him are very good at their job, but not enough. Zabel Nodd still detected their scans."


    "So, you think that he will get away, then?" Emily asked.


    "Most likely, but I would prefer it if he just left Earth entirely," Maxine stated, "Just his mere presence here could start up a shit storm of trouble."


    "He''s just one person. How much damage could he cause?" Emily asked


    "It''s not him that I''m worried about. It''s the people trying to get rid of him," Maxine explained, "Demons, regardless of their attribute, are extremely dangerous due to how murderous they can be. Hell, they thought daddy was one for a long time due to how vicious he was in dealing with anyone that so much as threatened him."


    "Just out of curiosity, what''s the worst case scenario?" Emily asked.


    "Bounty hunters will start wreaking havoc around Earth as they chase him and won''t really care about the collateral damage," Maxine answered honestly.


    "Wouldn''t they get in serious trouble for breaking Alliance laws?" Emily asked.


    "The Alliance would look the other way so long as they ''killed'' the demon," Maxine answered, "But there are not that many bounty hunters willing to take that risk, so we should be fine as long as Zabel Nodd leaves Earth within the next six months. It also helps that he hasn''t hurt anyone since arriving here."


    "Then, it''s in your best interest to help us find him," a black-haired shadow lord said as she landed infront of them.


    "And you are?" Maxine asked while raising an eye brow.


    "Silva," she said bluntly.


    "Miss Silva, it''s your job to apprehend him, not mine," Maxine said directly.


    "Then, how do you intend to deal with him?" Silva asked in a cold tone.


    "I''ll ask him to leave," Maxine said.


    "And if he doesn''t?" Silva asked.


    Maxine smiled and partially transformed to make her teeth pointed and her eyes snake-like as she answered, "Then, I will just indulge in my primal urge to hunt. Does that satisfy your curiosity?" It doesn''t matter how good his stealth technique is. He still has a scent and I have a pretty good idea how his stealth technique works since it would be something that I would do.


    "Yes and thank you for your time," Silva replied calmly, but she didn''t leave right away. Instead, she began to follow Maxine and Emily when they continued their walk.


    "Is there something else?" Maxine asked in irratation.


    "Not really," Silva stated, "I''m just waiting for Zabel Nodd to return."


    "And he''s unlikely to come so long as you are around," Maxine pointed out.


    "Perhaps if he wasn''t a shadow demon, but we both know it''s impossible to understand the mind of one," Silva replied, "And I suspect you are someone he is growing fond of and he will be compelled to approach you, even if you''re being followed by the ones hunting him." And that is something I''m very afraid of happening. I do not need a fucking male yandere following me around.


    "You shouldn''t make jokes like that," Maxine said.


    "It wasn''t a joke," Silva said calmly.


    "Still, it wasn''t very nice to remind me of that possibility," Maxine said grumpily, "I have enough things to deal with as it is. I do not need an insane stalker on top of it all."


    "Maxine, relax," Emily said gently as she put her hand on Maxine''s shoulder, " Remember it''s just a possibility, not a certainty. And if he ends up being like that, we will deal with it."


    "I still don''t like her following us around," Maxine complained.


    [Neither do I,] Zabel Nodd said. Why am I not surprised that he came back here?


    [Leave Earth,] Maxine told him, [You''ve already been discovered and it''s only a matter of time before they figure out the flaw to your stealth technique. None of them are perfect and you know it.]


    [True enough, but I wished to give you a warning before I left,] Zabel Nodd said.


    [What warning?] Maxine asked.


    [There is a spatial anomaly roughly two lightyears away from here and I know what it actually is,] Zabel Nodd explained, [It''s a failed long ranged teleportation array and it''s causing a rift to slowly form. To where, I do not know, but I know that wherever it opens up to is a place filled with monstrosities.]


    [How the hell do you know that?] Maxine asked.


    [Because I flew my ship past it on the way here and what I saw frightened me,] Zabel Nodd answered, [It''s the reason I wished to be your bodyguard. I don''t want my benefactor to come to harm and I don''t care if I get caught in the process. I need to repay my debt to you.] That''s borderline yandere mentality.


    [Do what you want, but I''m holding you responsible for any damage to my homeworld caused by bounty hunters looking for you,] Maxine replied coldly.


    [That''s fair,] Zabel Nodd replied, [But, hopefully, it won''t come to that. If it does, I will allow myself to be captured before any damage can be brought to your homeworld or it''s citizenry.]


    [That''s... unexpected,] Maxine said in surprise, but she didn''t believe a word of it. She fully expected him to do anything to avoid capture since it would mean his death.


    [You''re my benefactor,] Zabel Nodd replied smoothly, [It would be very poor form to cause you harm in any form after you helped me.]


    Maxine merely rolled her eyes at that and frowned when her cellphone started to ring. Who could possibly be calling me? I better not be another fucking telemarketer. Seriously, how many times do I have to tell them to fuck off before they take a hint?


    Maxine looked at the caller ID and saw it was Hellen''s cellphone. She immediately answered the call, "Hey, mom. What''s up?"


    "Maxine, you need to get home, right now," Hellen said in a worried tone.


    "What''s wrong?" Maxine asked immediately.


    "Just get home quickly," Hellen replied.


    "I''ll be home in a few minutes," Maxine said before hanging up and turns to Emily, "I''m sorry, but I''m going to have to cut our date short. Something has mom spooked and she wants me home."


    "It''s okay," Emily said with a reassuring smile, "Take care of your family."


    "I''ll try to talk to you later," Maxine said as she opened up an arch and walked through it to return home. However, when she got home, she didn''t see or hear anyone. Uh, this is disconcerting.


    "Maxine! Get in here!" Hellen yelled from another room. That sounded like it came from daddy''s training room. What the hell is she doing in there?


    Maxine walked quickly towards towards Guan''s training room and before she could even open her mouth to ask what was wrong, Hellen yanked her inside. She heard the training room door slam shut before she got her bearings and she spotted Grandma Victoria and Lucas sitting in a corner playing a board game.


    "What the hell, mom?" Maxine demanded.


    "It''s for your own safety," Hellen answered, "Guan insisted that we hide in here until he checked that spatial anomaly up close."


    "Why?!" Maxine demanded.


    "He was able to listen in to that conversation that you and Zabel Nodd were having," Hellen answered. The fuck?! How the hell did he pull that off? Zabel Nodd was using a stealth technique and used spiritual sense to talk to me.


    "That still doesn''t answer my question," Maxine said grumpily.


    "The thing that he described was eerily similar to a precursor to a void calamity," Hellen said after hesitating a moment.


    "What the hell is that?" Maxine asked.


    "The void was created in an experiment long ago in an attempt to recreate our universe, but on a smaller scale," Hellen explained, "It roughly the size of a small galaxy and for some reason, the only space dwelling monstrosities were capable of surviving in it. Those things bred with each other and they became hostile to all other forms of life. The last time that it was opened, a dozen worlds were annihilated before it was sealed closed."


    "Damn," Maxine said softly, "How long will it be before we know for certain?"


    "A few hours," Hellen answered, "Your father is terrifyingly fast when he needs to be." He''s able to fly two lightyears and back in a few hours? I''m not even going to question how that''s possible. For all I know, he''s capable of warping space around himself.


    "At least, we won''t have to wait long," Maxine commented as she made herself comfortable, "I wish that you could''ve told me over the phone, so I could bring Silky, Emily and the others in here with us."


    "If it really is a void calamity, your father will probably insist that you leave to another planet with them," Hellen answered.


    Before Maxine could retort, her dimensional disk vibrated. "Yes?" Maxine said when she turned it on and saw Guan''s face a moment later.


    "Good, you''re in my training room," Guan said, "I''m close enough to confirm that it is a void calamity, but we''re in luck. This rift even when it''s matured won''t allow anything stronger than the first rank of gold stage to get through. I could probably hold them off myself until it closes entirely, but due to it''s size, a small percentage will get past me. I need you, your mother and your grandmother to be ready to fight any gold stage ones that get through and for you to inform Kerrigan and the rest to be ready to fend off any silver stage ones that try to make landfall. If we''re particularly lucky, the Alliance will send a large force to aide in the defense of Earth. If not, you can register a high risk mission to the mercenary guild for reinforcements and hope that they get here in time." I''m going to do both. You can never have too many hands in this kind of situation. Hell, I''ll even offer an extra reward for the group that claims the most kills. And I have no doubt that the shadow lords will send some backup as well. Last, but not least, I need to contact the UN so they can have our fighters prepared for this shit.

 Chapter 188

    "Maxine, you need to take a break," Emily said from the entrance to Maxine''s room, "Ever since last week, you''ve been making potions almost non-stop."


    "I wish I could take a break," Maxine said in frustration as she adjusted her eyepatch, "But if I stop, that will mean my funds will be smaller and that will result in fewer defenses and mercenaries for Earth''s defense."


    "What about the governments of Earth?" Emily asked, "Certainly, they can chip in."


    "The wealthier nations could probably hire a few hundred mercenaries apiece, but that won''t be nearly enough. We need tens of thousands of mercenaries. And what about the ones that are poor?" Maxine asked, "Should I just leave the to fend for themselves?" I need to be ready in case the Alliance leaves us on our own.


    "Of course not, but you still need a break," Emily pointed out, "Will it really hurt you if you get a full night''s sleep and eat a decent meal?"


    "Now that I think about it, it wouldn''t hurt me too much. Especially since, I''ve been having trouble keeping my potions at 98% purity these last few hours," Maxine sighed as she finished up the potion that she was working on, "A drop of even a tenth of a percent in quality can reduce the price of my potions by quite a bit."


    "I''m glad that you agree," Emily said with a smirk and physically dragged Maxine out of the room as she basically commanded Maxine, "Now, you are going to eat a large meal and then we will go for a walk in the park to get some fresh air. After that, you will sleep for no less than eight hours before you should even think about making any more potions. Am I understood?" Emily gave Maxine a look that demanded that she obey or else.


    "Yes, ma''am," Maxine said helplessly as she let Emily drag her along, "So, what are we going to eat?"


    "That," Emily said as she dragged Maxine into the dining room and pointed at a table covered in various cooked meats and vegetables. The mere sight of that freshly cooked food made her mouth water and her stomach growl in anticipation. That''s definitely better than the jerky and nutritional potions that I''ve sustained myself with for the past week.


    She swiftly sat down at the table and began devouring the presented food. For some weird reason, she didn''t feel full even after eating half of the presented food and was beginning to get concerned until her hunger was alleviated as she finished off the last plate of food.


    "Wow, I must''ve been much hungrier than I realized," Maxine commented out loud.


    "Hellen told me that you might be," Emily said with a smirk, "That''s why we made so much."


    "Let''s head out then," Maxine announced, "Oh! Is it okay if I drop my potions off to be sold while we are out?"


    "I don''t see why not," Emily said, "But we are going to relax today. So, that will be the only work related thing that you''re allowed to do."


    "Thanks, Emily," Maxine said as she created an arch towards her favorite park.


    "It''s really not that big of an issue," Emily said as they walked through the arch, "But something has been bothering me, though. Why don''t you just ask Guan to pay for the mercenaries?"


    "Well...," Maxine hesitated before she answered, "I don''t like relying on him too much. He could one day decide that I''m strong enough that he no longer needs to come to my rescue. And we both know he will eventually do it."


    "Just not any time soon," Turan said as he appeared three feet behind them.


    "Why can''t you greet us like a normal person?" Emily asked in an exasperated tone.


    "It doesn''t matter how much you complain to him, Emily," Maxine said, "He won''t change his behavior."


    "Seems quite rude, if you ask me," Zabel Nodd chimed in, but didn''t reveal where he was.


    "Is that Zabel Nodd?!" Turan asked in alarm as he looked around.


    "Yes, it is," Maxine said as she pinched the bridge of her nose, "What do you want, Zabel?"


    "I will let you know once Ms. Silva has arrived," Zabel Nodd answered, "What I want to say involves the situation your world is in."


    "Okay," Maxine said with uncertainty as she tried to figure out what Zabel Nodd was up to. All demons are eliminated as soon as they are found. It''s literately an Alliance law. The only way to get out of this death sentence is if he literately threw himself into the frontline of a calamitous event and survives through the whole thing. Oh... Oh, shit! That''s what he had in mind! That fucker! He played me!


    As soon as Silva landed beside them and began scanning the area, Zabel Nodd appeared infront of Maxine and kneeled as he said, "I pledge myself in the defense of this world during the void calamity."


    "This is only a postponement of your death," Silva said coldly, "You will die fighting the void calamity."


    "If that is my fate, so be it," Zabel Nodd replied and he finally looked Maxine in the eyes. His sclera were black, but his irises were red-orange. The fuck?! Demons are supposed to only have red eyes! This is something new!


    "He''s not a demon," Maxine said unconsciously, "At least, not entirely."


    "What?!" Silva exclaimed and looked at Zabel Nodd''s face, "You may be right. I need to consult the elders." Before Maxine could get another word in, Silva flew off.


    "Uh, you do that," Maxine said out loud as Silva disappeared into the distance, "So, shall we head to the Kavros clan''s compound?"


    "We might as well," Emily said as she rolled her eyes and she swiftly pointed at Zabel Nodd, "And you should go back to being invisible."


    "She''s right. You really should go back to using your stealth technique," Maxine agreed, "At least, until word gets around that you''re going to be defending Earth."


    "As you wish," Zabel Nodd said as he faded out of view.


    "I have a feeling my relaxing walk won''t last long, so we might as well go to the Kavros clan''s compound," Maxine said.


    "I have to agree with you there," Emily said in a disappointed tone.


    "We can always cuddle up and watch a movie at home," Maxine offered as she began walking towards the Kavros clan''s compound.


    "That sounds wonderful," Emily said as she took position beside Maxine, "So, when are the world governments going to make the announcement?"


    "I''m not exactly sure. My guess is that they will announce it a couple days before those things get to Earth at the earliest," Maxine answered, "Otherwise, what''s the point? I doubt anyone will believe that there is a swarm of world ending monsters coming right at them from the depths of space without actually seeing it for themselves."


    "I see you''re point," Emily agreed.


    "I just hope that I can use my new form in the upcoming battles," Maxine said, "I still havn''t been able to transform into it on my own just yet."


    "That''s unlike you," Emily said in surprise, "You normally know the ins and outs of all of your abilities within a week of discovering them."


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    "Well, I havn''t figured this one out yet," Maxine complained, "And I have no idea why it''s giving me so much trouble." That''s a lie. I know how to trigger that transformation, but I don''t like how much I loose control of myself when I''m in that form. I literately stomped several people to death for fucks sake. I would''ve still killed them, but not so brutally. Until I''m confident that I can completely control myself while using it, I won''t use it in combat.


    "You''ll eventually figure it out," Emily said reassuringly.


    "Yeah," Maxine said uncertainly, "Anyways, how are things at the hospital? Keeping busy?"


    "Oh, yes, I''m staying very busy," Emily said, "I''ve got to pace myself every day to make sure that I don''t run out of power before the end of the day. If that were to happen, I might not be able to save someone I would''ve normally been able to."


    "That''s good," Maxine said and spotted the Kavros clan''s compound in the distance, "Good, we''re almost there."


    "It seems so," Emily agreed, "Oh, I was wondering. What are you stopping by there for?"


    "I''m going there to trade for as many silver defense arrays for Earth as I can," Maxine answered, "I would buy the gold version of them, but they''re fifty times more expensive. And if you have enough silver defense arrays, it''s possible to kill gold stage cultivators. However, there isn''t a big market for silver defense arrays, so I may end up buying all of the ones within range. The remainder of my funds will go to hiring mercenaries. If that still isn''t enough for Earth''s defense, I will grant sanctuary to any criminals that help fight off the void calamity." It would be pushing my rights at a planetary representative to the limit, but it would be within my rights to do that.


    "You''ve thought about this quite a bit, havn''t you?" Emily asked.


    "Yes, I have," Maxine said, "I don''t want to be forced to witness the people that I care about dying. I won''t go through that again."


    "Again?" Emily asked in confusion, before realization washed over her face, "Oh, I forgot about that. I still can''t imagine experiencing someone else''s life like that."


    [You''re a fused soul?!] Zabel Nodd asked in surprise via spiritual sense.


    "Yes, she has a fused soul," Emily said, "She told me about that years ago."


    "It''s why my people consider her to be a potential shadow queen and not her sister," Turan said calmly.


    "Isn''t she already a shadow queen?" Emily asked.


    "Technically, yes," Turan answered, "But she hasn''t displayed the most important ability of the shadow queen that my people are looking for."


    "And that is?" Emily asked. Maxine also wanted to hear his answer. While she had read the book that described the shadow queen, she hadn''t figured out which ability was the most important to the shadow lords.


    Turan looked straight at Maxine before he answered, "The true shadow queen will be the only shadow element user to take on an elemental state, but I have no idea what that state should look like. It could be indistinguishable from her natural state or she could simply turn into a humanoid shadow. It''s impossible to know exactly what to look for since there are no examples to compare with in my people''s recorded history."


    "Sounds like a headache," Emily said.


    "Well, if you think about it, my full hybrid form could be an elemental state, a life elemental to be precise," Maxine offered, "You know, since hydras heal so damn fast."


    "That is something to consider," Turan admitted as he eyed Maxine''s eye patch, "I''m sorry for staring, but I''m curious as to why you''re still wearing that. Shouldn''t your eye be fully regenerated by now?"


    "It is," Maxine said while looking away from both Emily and Turan, "It''s just that I got used to wearing this thing and that my eye looks weird."


    "Weird, how?" Emily asked.


    "It''s easier to show you," Maxine said as she looked around to make sure no one was present before she slowly took off her eye patch and opened her eye. Her eye had a vertical slit instead of a normal round pupil and her eye color was a golden yellow with six small brown specks in it.


    "That''s a little creepy. I can see why you wear the eyepatch now," Emily said, "Do you have any idea if it will change back?"


    "I don''t think it will change back on it''s own," Maxine answered, "But I have an idea on how to change it back. It''ll just take a little practice with localized transformations. It''s just a matter of practice, which I don''t have a lot of time to do at the moment." After she finished speaking, she put her eyepatch back on. The only reason I thought of that is because I lost it while I was in my full-hybrid form. It might still be stuck in that state. If it isn''t, I''ll just have to learn how to live with mismatched eyes.


    "Well, that''s something," Emily said, "Still, it must be a pain in the ass to wear that eyepatch when you don''t need it. Can''t you just use your energies to make it look like it used to?"


    "Yes, but it would require that I constantly focus on it," Maxine answered, "It''s much easier to wear an eyepatch."


    "She''s right on that," Turan agreed, "You would be surprised how much focus it requires to alter the appearance of your eye. She has to constantly make sure the illusion is in the right place so that it follows her gaze and she has to constantly make sure that it''s appearance remains consistent. My stealth technique is far easier to maintain in comparison." Uh, no. I don''t have to use that much effort to do that. I just don''t need the distraction while I''m making potions and I''m too tired to bother with creating a believable illusion for my eye afterwards.


    "I see," Emily said.


    "Anyways, lets go inside," Maxine announced as they reached the front entrance of the Kavros clan''s compound, "I still need to trade these potions." I know they would give me those defensive emplacements for Earth, but I rather trade for them fairly. And it will save me from owing them a favor.


    "Alright, let''s go," Emily announced and Turan vanished from sight.


    They walked inside the compound and almost immediately Zephyr came out to greet them. "Maxine! It''s been awhile since I''ve last seen you," Zephyr said cheerfully and he looked at her eyepatch, "Your eye still hasn''t regenerated?"


    "It has regenerated, but it looks weird," Maxine admitted, "It''s not something I want to be seen at the moment."


    "Ahh, say no more," Zephyr said, "So, how many healing potions did your bring me?"


    "Seven hundred thirty two silver healing potions and twenty eight recovery pills," Maxine answered as she handed him a pouch, "How many defense arrays can I get with that?" Hopefully, I can get a large number of silver defense arrays. They''re literately designed to simultaneously engage multiple silver-stage entities and a dozen of them can fend off a gold stage entity for a period of time.


    "I would have to scour the local markets, but don''t expect me to find more than five hundred silver defense arrays," Zephyr answered, "I might be able to find one or two gold ones. If I had even another month to get them, I could easily double that number, but with these time constraints that''s the limit of what I can do. Anyways, what do you want me to do with what''s left?"


    "Use it to hire mercenaries," Maxine said, "I know it will have to be a high risk contract, but to attract more of them, you can include in the contract that the group or person with the highest kill count will be given a extra reward, but be as vague about what it is as possible. It will let their imaginations run wild."


    "That will only work on some of the dumber mercenaries," Zephyr pointed out.


    "I know, but it should still be enough to tempt even the smarter ones," Maxine said, "Afterall, I''m still an unmarried maiden and I grew up on a planet that quite liberal in regards to sex."


    "I''m aware," Zephyr said uncomfortably, "What other culture would write a book about sexual positions with visual illustrations included?"


    "Ah, I see you finally found the Kama Sutra?" Maxine asked with a teasing smile. I''m surprised he isn''t showing more discomfort. The pictures in that book are rather explicit.


    "Is that what that book is called?!" Zephyr asked with a look of disgust plastered across his face, "And no, I didn''t find it. One of our clan''s deviants did and decided to share their discovery. I still can''t believe Meilanna suggested that I try some of those positions with her. She knows that I''m married!"


    "That won''t stop some people," Emily pointed out and Zephyr gave her a disbelieving look.


    "She''s right," Maxine said, "There are some men and women on Earth that don''t care if the target of their desire is married or not."


    "Earthlings are crazy," Zephyr said as he shook his head.


    "Tell me something I don''t know," Maxine replied.


    "The rift that Guan was watching over began letting void beasts through roughly one hour ago," Zephyr said.


    "What?! Why wasn''t I told about this?" Maxine asked in surprise.


    "Because the Alliance didn''t see a need to," Zephyr answered, "You knew they would be breaching through the rift sometime today and they didn''t want to distract you from making your preparations. And you should be happy to hear that the Amazonians have send a few thousand of their warriors to aid in the Earth''s defense. The Arachne Sisterhood is sending fifteen of their elders, which are peak gold stage cultivators, and the Guardian Mothers are coming in droves to help protect Earth."


    "The Guardian Mothers?" Maxine asked, "Why are they coming? They''re nothing more than a group young women that love and protect children."


    "They also have a large number of fighters amongst them," Zephyr pointed out, "Sadly, none of them are gold stage, but they are more than enough to attack the void beasts from within Earth''s atmosphere. Oh, and one more thing, there is a hive matriarch coming."


    "What?" Maxine asked in surprise, "That''s amazing!"


    "They said that the situation with Earth is exactly the kind of thing they were willing to help fend off," Zephyr said, "Although, the Alliance didn''t like a hive matriarch leaving the containment area so soon and insisted that only their weakest member would be allowed to come here. The hive matriarch that''s coming is known as Me''Lantra is the one that''s coming and she''s barely gold stage. She''ll make it here a few days before the void beasts reach Earth."


    "I don''t care how weak she is. Her warriors will be numerous enough to take the pressure off of the rest of us," Maxine said, "Do you know what her base species is?"


    "I have no idea," Zephyr answered.


    "Well, I guess we will find out when she gets here," Maxine said. And I REALLY hope that she isn''t some nightmare given form. That''s the last thing the people of Earth need to see when they find out that void beasts are coming. Hell, they may mistake our hive ally as the void beasts. Ugh, I really need to find out what that hive matriarch''s warriors look like.

 Chapter 189

    "Thank you for coming, Me''Lantra," Maxine said gratefully while she hovered over the Pacific Ocean and was trying not to look at the hive matriarch in the eye. Why did Me''Lantra have to be a female version of Cthulhu? At least, she arrived early, but her warriors are nightmare fuel. They look like some kind of starfish and octopus crossbreed with armor plating. It really doesn''t help that they have numerous fanged mouths on the underside of each limb on top of that. I''m just glad that she only asked for a short dip in the pacific ocean to rehydrate herself and her warriors. If they were to spend any more time on Earth, someone might see and cause a fucking panic.


    "Think nothing of it," Me''Lantra answered in a voice that sounded like dozen people were speaking the same thing at the same time, "Me and my sisters agreed to send aide when we joined the Alliance. To do otherwise, would violate our agreement. Also, when will we be assembling to discuss the defense of your homeworld? The void beasts will take a maximum of another week to arrive."


    "I''m aware," Maxine answered, "There is an advisor that has yet to arrive. I asked for this elder specifically from the Alliance since he has experience in facing void beasts and may know some useful tactics to more efficiently face this threat."


    "A wise decision," Me''Lantra said, "Please, notify me of his arrival. I need to know where my warriors can be best used."


    "Of course," Maxine said with a slight bow of her head and turned to leave.


    "OH! One more thing," Me''Lantra said and Maxine looked over her shoulder, "I would greatly appreciate it if you could arrange a face to face chat with Kerrigan for me."


    "I''ll see what I can do. She isn''t nearly as mobile as you are," Maxine replied, "Her nest is rather large."


    "I understand," Me''Lantra replied, "Perhaps, I can visit her through one of your portals."


    "I''ll think about it," Maxine said before flying off. It''s not something that I can allow right away. If any earthlings see Me''Lantra, it could cause a panic.


    As she flew, her dimensional ring vibrated. She swiftly pulled out her communication disk without slowing down and answered the call, "Hey, uncle Zeph. What''s going on?"


    "I''m just letting you know that Nero Selante has arrived and that I''ll be contacting the mercenary guild''s coordinator, Me''Lantra and everyone else that you mentioned to help plan out our defense," Zephyr answered, "They''ll be assembled in roughly one hour."


    "Awesome," Maxine said, "I''ll be there."


    "Oh, one more thing," Zephyr said before Maxine could end the call, "It might help morale if you gave another performance before the attack hits."


    "Really?" Maxine asked, "I thought it might be a little inappropriate for such a thing."


    "Perhaps, but it will give the mercenaries and your fellow earthlings a small reminder why they are fighting," Zephyr pointed out.


    "Fine," Maxine said grumpily, "Just give me a list of requested songs and I''ll sort out the ones that I''ll sing."


    "Will do," Zephyr said as he ended the call.


    Maxine put away her communication disk and altered her course slightly to get to the Kavros clan''s compound. She could create a bubble around herself to teleport herself back, but she wanted to enjoy the feeling of the wind blowing through her hair. Afterall, she had the spare time at the moment to do just that. However, she didn''t have long to enjoy it as Me''Lantra swiftly caught up with Maxine and flew beside her. Of course, she would want to come to the meeting.


    Eventually, they arrived at the Kavros compound and were escorted to a conference room. It was already occupied by several familiar faces, except one. It was an older man covered in scars and he only had only one arm. That must be Nero Selante. I wonder why he never got his face and arm restored. It isn''t that expensive to purchase the related potions.


    "I''m sorry that I''ve made all of you wait," Maxine apologized, "I was a bit of a distance away and I had to mind the local aircrafts." Unfortunately, they didn''t seem to mind her much. Instead, they were staring at Me''Lantra.


    "It''s quite alright," Zephyr said, "We assembled only a few minutes ago."


    "Very well, then," Maxine said as she took a seat, "Mr. Selante, could you tell us about your experience with void beasts?"


    "As you wish," Nero Selante answered, "The void beasts that I encountered had pill shaped bodies with dozens of spindly arms that will force you towards their massive jaws that can tear through most metals like butter. Their hide is almost as durable as dragon scales and they reproduce exceedingly fast once they''ve found a suitable food source. Fortunately, the vast majority of them are relatively stupid and their bodies rarely get much larger than 15 feet long. The smartest of them can only compare to a small child of five or six years old. This means they rarely, if ever, use tactics or strategy of any kind and prefer to simply swarm an adversary until it''s dead. Sadly, this might not be the case with your swarm. They could be a completely different species of void beasts."


    "Is it possible to lure the swarm to a particular location?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, but it would require someone with a insanely potent life force," Nero Selante replied, "For some reason, void beasts of all kinds prefer to attack anything with a powerful life force first such as hydras and other extremely long lived beasts."


    "So, if someone were to possess a hydra bloodline, would that make them ideal to be the bait?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, but it would most certainly be a death sentence for that individual," Nero Selante said, "And it''s highly unlikely that the whole swarm will be diverted using that tactic. Thus, I can''t suggest that course of action."


    "What would you suggest then?" one of the arachne elders asked.


    "Void beasts do not have ranged capability so you should fight them at a distance. Once they get close, they will tear most combatants to pieces," Nero Selante replied, "As you can see, I was one of the unfortunate souls that was forced to engage them up close during the last swarm. The vile thing restrained me and tried to tear me apart with it''s deceptively strong limbs before biting off my arm. It was only thanks to one of my dear friends that I managed to survive. Sadly, he paid for his heroics with his life."


    Me''Lantra spoke up, "My warriors are much larger than these void beasts and can engage them in close quarters combat. Kerrigan''s warriors, while have a lower cultivation level and smaller size, possess superior defensive abilities and physical strength to my own. Thus, I doubt they will have much difficulty dispatching the void beasts if they attack two or three to one. Still, we will need the void beasts to be sufficiently thinned out before they get to that point."


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    "I purchased five hundred thirty seven silver and four gold defense arrays for that purpose," Maxine stated, "And there are few adept archers, myself included, amongst the cultivators of Earth, and a large amount of our normal fighters have some form of ranged attack. I can''t say for certain how effective they will be since our skill sets are extremely varied."


    "Only one in four mercenaries that signed up have a long ranged attack," the mercenary guild''s representative stated, "The rest are mid to close combatants. And we didn''t recruit nearly as many as I would like for this kind of contract, but that''s to be expected considering what we''re going to be facing. No one wants to be eaten alive."


    "No one does," Maxine agreed with him, "But we need the numbers."


    "Excellent!" Zephyr shouted enthusiastically and caught everyone''s attention as they saw him put away a communication disk.


    "What was that about?" Maxine asked.


    "I just got a count on the attacking force and what type of void beasts we will be facing," Zephyr said with a smile, "There are about five million unnamed spikey worm-shaped void beasts. Your father has the vast majority of the swarm occupied and only a few are getting past him at a time. So we should only be facing groups no larger than two hundred thousand at a time and each wave will arrive six to eight hours apart. This is doable, but it will require high intensity combat."


    "That''s great news!" Maxine said.


    "That is it," Nero Selante said.


    "It will still be a hard fight," Zephyr reminded them, "But at least this way, it won''t be a nearly impossible one."


    "And we still need to discuss proper troop formations for our ranged combatants," Maxine said.


    "Agreed," Me''Lantra said.


    "I don''t see why we need to," Nero Selante stated, "Just have the iron stage cultivators stay on the ground and support the silver stage cultivators, whom will act as spotters while both groups attack at extreme range. Meanwhile, the gold stage cultivators will handle the gold stage void beasts and once they''ve dispatched those things, they will assist the iron and silver stage cultivators. It''s the most viable tactic that we have."


    "That arrangement has a very high chance of friendly fire," Maxine pointed out, "Instead, we should let the iron stage cultivators deal with the few that get past the silver stage cultivators and the silver stagers will attack at extreme range. The gold stagers will be doing the same thing as in your plan and this way the chance of friendly fire is drastically reduced." Not to mention that I''m not sure that the iron stage cultivators can even breach the defenses of the void beasts at greater distances.


    "I agree," Me''Lantra said, "Your plan would cause heavy losses to my warriors as well as any silver stage cultivators that were not swift enough to evade in time."


    "And many of my people would cancel their contracts, if we go with your plan Mr. Selante," the mercenary guild''s representative stated, "Mercs may be greedy, but very few of us would be dumb enough to stand in the line of fire when it can be avoided."


    "So, we going with my battle formation, then?" Maxine asked and saw everyone nod their heads, "Is there any other suggestions?"


    "Not at the moment," Zephyr said and when everyone else couldn''t provide one either, they began making their way out of the room. However, Zephyr remained behind. She was about to ask him why when she felt him connect to her via spiritual sense.


    [Do not transform into a hydra,] Zephyr told Maxine.


    [I don''t intend to unless I absolutely have to,] Maxine admitted, [How did you find out that I could?]


    [A wanderer mentioned this strange quilled silvery beastkin that could transform into a hydra. Their description of her lead me to believe that it was you and you just confirmed it,] Zephyr said, [Don''t worry. I paid and threatened him to keep his mouth shut, so you don''t have to worry about him spreading that information.]


    [Thanks,] Maxine said.


    "I believe you will want to look over this," Zephyr said as he handed Maxine a small datapad and saw a long list of songs on it.


    "You got those song requests together awfully fast," Maxine commented as she scrolled through the songs listed, "I''ll let you know which ones I''ll sing as soon as I can."


    "Alright, just don''t take too long," Zephyr reminded Maxine, "You''ll be performing two days before the void beasts arrive."


    "Good, I was worried that you would ask me to perform the day before," Maxine replied, "OH! And make sure there''s a large supply of meat goods available before they arrive. I recover much faster on a full stomach."


    "I''m well aware of the effect of eating large quantities of meat has on you," Zephyr said as he smiled knowingly, "And I agree with you. It''ll save us some money."


    "Don''t I know it," Maxine said in agreement.


    Before Zephyr replied, he glanced to the side for a moment, "Well, I don''t need to talk to you about anything else today and you should head out. Emily''s waiting for you in the lobby."


    "Thanks for letting me know," Maxine said gratefully as she walked passed Zephyr and made her way towards the lobby while wondering why Emily came to visit. I thought she was working today.


    She spotted Emily as soon as she reached the lobby and paused for a moment when she saw Emily was wearing a nice dress that showed off her figure. What the hell is going on? Emily''s even went all out on her cosmetics.


    "Hey, Emily," Maxine said happily, "What''s going on? And why are you dressed up so nice?"


    "I wanted to dress up nice today," Emily said with a smile and twirled around to show off her outfit, "Do you like it?"


    "I love it," Maxine said happily, "And I would love to take you out to eat."


    "Then, let''s go," Emily said as she grabbed Maxine''s hand and practically dragged her along, "I''ve got the perfect place in mind." Okay, Emily''s up to something. She''s rarely ever this forceful, but I won''t complain. I actually like it when she''s takes charge.


    "Alright," Maxine said and let Emily drag her to where she wanted to.


    Emily took flight shortly after leaving the building and dragged Maxine to an upscale restaurant. She wasn''t surprised when they were immediately seated inside. Yeah, Emily definitely planned this. Otherwise, there is no way we would''ve been seated so fast.


    "Ahh, miss Herst, welcome," the waiter said happily and Maxine saw him glance at her, "Will you be ordering the usual?"


    "No, I would like to have your herbal chicken soup today along with some red wine," Emily said.


    "I think I''ll have some of that soup as well, and I would like a water for my drink," Maxine said with a smile.


    "I''ll let the chef know and bring it to you when it''s ready, ladies," the waiter said before walking away.


    "So, are you going to tell me what''s going on or do I have to guess?" Maxine asked with a raised eyebrow and saw the waiter preparing a small candelabra.


    "Maybe, I just wanted to have a really nice meal with you," Emily said.


    "I know you better than that," Maxine said, "Now tell me what''s bothering you."


    "Alright," Emily paused for a moment to gather her thoughts before she started, "I''m afraid that you''ll die fighting those void beasts and I don''t understand why you have to fight them yourself. Can''t you let you let someone else do it?"


    "I have to fight," Maxine said, "A leader always has to be on the battlefield to inspire their troops. If I don''t, they will believe this fight is hopeless."


    "I still wish you didn''t have to fight them," Emily complained.


    "I don''t want to fight either. I really wish they weren''t coming at all, but it is what it is," Maxine said, "The most we can do is enjoy the time we have before they arrive."


    "You''re right," Emily acquiesced and it looked like she was contemplating something before she spoke up, "I know I said that we should wait, but I''ve changed my mind. Let''s have a baby."


    "What?!" Maxine asked in surprise, "Are you sure about this?"


    "You could die in the next few weeks, and I know that you won''t abandon Earth, if things take a turn for the worst, like you would in any other situation," Emily said, "So, yes, I''m sure." She may look calm, but I can still see fear and worry in her eyes.


    Maxine didn''t answer as she stood up, walked over to Emily and lowered herself to Emily''s eye level. "I can send in one of my clones rather than fight myself," Maxine offered.


    "No, you won''t," Emily said in an unconvinced tone, "Your clones do not have exactly the same physical abilities of your main body and that will lower our chances of survival."


    "I can''t get one past you, can I?" Maxine asked.


    "Not a chance," Emily said with a smile. Maxine smiled back and kissed Emily before taking her seat again.


    "You''re not leaving me much choice in the matter," Maxine said.


    "It''s not like I''ll get pregnant with the time we have left," Emily said offhandedly, "Both of our cultivations are way too high."


    "You really like tempting fate, don''t you?" Maxine asked as she pinched the bridge of her nose, "You''re practically asking for it after saying that."


    "You can''t be serious," Emily said as she gave Maxine a flat look.


    "I''m completely serious," Maxine answered.


    "But it''s a stupid superstition," Emily said.


    "Maybe to you, but to me, tempting fate is not wise," Maxine said honestly. Emily just rolled her eyes as their dinner arrived.


    "Let''s talk about that later," Emily said firmly, "For now, let''s enjoy this meal."


    "As you wish," Maxine said with a smile and dug in. While I''m happy that Emily changed her mind, I''m not happy about why she changed her mind. But she is right, there is a decent chance that I''ll die in the following weeks, so I should enjoy what time I have with Emily until they arrive.

 Chapter 190

    Maxine looked into the depths of space beyond the moon towards the void beasts as she floated in Earth''s upper atmosphere. There was still two hours before the first wave got within her archery range, but she wasn''t able to sit still due to her insistence on facing the first wave''s 57 gold stage void beasts by herself. It will further improve morale to the troops to see at least one over powered fighter on their side. Hopefully, I can kill most, if not all, of them before they get within melee range.


    She glanced down at Earth and smiled when she thought about the last week. Emily had been very demanding in her attempts to get pregnant every night, including the one that Maxine had performed in a concert. Her male clone so tired that it spent the majority of the day meditating to recuperate.


    Thankfully, the concert had gone off without a hitch. Although, she was she was disappointed that she couldn''t sing all of the songs that had been picked out in english. Some of them simply sounded better in their native tongue.


    The time that she didn''t spend with Emily was either spent with Hellen or at her birth parents home. Nathan in particular thought that her serpentine, golden eye was ''cool.'' I still don''t know why my eye hasn''t completely changed back yet. I''ve trained in my full hybrid form several times to get accustomed to it, but that only changed the shape of my pupil, not my eye color. I wonder why it''s staying that color. Still, I never realized how much it would bug me that my eyes are different colors. I need to talk to daddy later to make sure this shit isn''t permanent.


    At that memory, she gently reached up and removed the eyepatch. Under normal circumstances, she didn''t need to see to fight effectively, but having only one eye would lower her combat power on an unconscious level. And that could easily result in her death.


    She looked to her left and right to see the vast array of silver defense arrays all aiming into the endless black of space. She had no doubt that they had already detected the void beasts and were already calculating the optimal firing angle. She hoped that there were enough of them to provide a solid defense.


    She also spotted Me''Lantra standing on the nearest platform while her massive swarm floated just below them and slightly further below them just was Kerrigan''s swarm. They must be anxious about this battle as well if they''re already in position.


    With one last look in the direction of the void beasts, she flew down to rest for another hour and a half before she had to get into position. After a handful of seconds, she spotted the large encampment set aside for the mercenaries and flew towards a large tent set aside for the command staff. She didn''t even have to enter it to hear Hellen yelling at everyone.


    Maxine sighed before she walked inside and nearly ran into Hellen. "You''re not going to fight those things alone!" Hellen roared at Maxine, "You''re taking at least five other gold stagers with you at a bare minimum."


    "Mom, relax," Maxine said calmly, "Five of them will be on standby in case I can''t handle it. They should''ve already told you that."


    "I don''t care!" Hellen roared, "You could still get killed before they can reach you!" Maxine knew that Hellen was only worried about her, but something in Hellen''s tone made her feel angry.


    "Mom," Maxine said in a warning tone as both of her eyes stretched vertically, "I know what I''m doing." Damn that I hate it when my eyes do that on their own.


    "I don''t think you realize how dangerous what you''re proposing is," Hellen said angrily.


    "I''m fully aware that if I make a single mistake I could be eaten ALIVE, before anyone could reach me," Maxine retorted, "And I do not want to experience that. So I fully intend to make use of my constructs to defend myself if I get into a situation that I don''t think I can handle. Just because I don''t use them very often, doesn''t mean that they''re not useful." I could do that too, but I won''t. I have something much more efficient in mind. I just hope that move works like I hope it will. It''s not exactly safe to use that attack anywhere near Earth. Or any planet for that matter.


    "I forgot you could do that," Hellen said and a look of relief spread across her face.


    "Finally! Now, can we address how Maxine is dressed?" Grandma Victoria said as she walked up from behind Hellen, "She''s showing far too much skin." Hellen looked confused and appraised what Maxine was wearing.


    "Why does your leather tunic have no back?" Hellen asked.


    "My back isn''t completely exposed," Maxine pointed out, "And I''m only wearing this in case I need to use my full-hybrid form." And the cords criss crossing my back are elastic enough to accommodate any increase in my size and if I had any fabric on my upper back, it would just be annihilated when those serpents burst out of my upper back.


    "I don''t like it," Grandma Victoria complained, "You will end up distracting many of the mercenaries that you hired."


    "If that''s all it takes, they deserve to be eaten by a void beast," Maxine countered.


    "Harsh words, but not unwarranted," Zabel Nodd said as he appeared to Maxine''s left.


    "I was wondering when you would show up," Maxine commented, "Everyone else has been here for hours."


    "Yes, I know. Your beloved Emily is at the healer''s tents getting the other healers psyched up," Zabel Nodd said calmly, "Shouldn''t you do something like that as well?"


    "I don''t have to," Maxine answered, "My fellow earthlings know what''s at stake and you would be surprised how ferocious a man or woman defending their home and families can be."


    "I wouldn''t know," Zabel Nodd replied, "I was never trained to lead others."


    "Nor was I," Maxine retorted, "But I''m still going to be leading the defense."


    "And I will be fighting by your side regardless, unlike that shadow lord," Zabel Nodd said with a smirk, "And I believe he hasn''t been seen for over a week. Did he perhaps flee like the coward that he is?"


    "For your information, I left to get reinforcements," Turan said as he walked into the tent, "I brought an additional twelve gold and seven thousand three hundred silver stage shadow lords to aide in Earth''s defense."


    "That''s excellent!" Maxine said happily, "Thank you, Turan."


    "It was nothing," Turan replied with a gentle smile, "You would be surprised how easy it was to convince them to come."


    "Do they still believe I still have a chance at becoming the ''true'' shadow queen?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes, they do," Turan answered, "And I exploited that fact to get you the additional warriors that you need."


    "How underhanded of you," Zabel Nodd commented, "I approve."


    "I didn''t do it for your approval, demon," Turan said, "I did it for Maxine and no one else."


    "Ahh, so you''re a love struck idiot," Zabel Nodd said, "Although, I will admit. I didn''t expect that a shadow lord of all things would end up as one."


    "I suggest you stop provoking him," Silva said as she entered the tent, "He is our commander for the duration of this planet''s defense and it''s well within his rights to order us to kill you. It could be easily explained that you ''attacked'' us first and we were forced to defend ourselves. Afterall, demons are so unpredictable."


    "Touche," Zabel Nodd said with a smile.


    "What the hell does that mean?" Silva asked.


    "It means that he acknowledges that you made a good point at his expense," Maxine answered.


    "Oh, you have a word for that?" Silva asked in surprise, "What an interesting culture you must have."


    "Earth has a diverse cultural background," Maxine said, "As well as dozens of spoken languages."


    "Your world is very odd," Silva commented and immediately shrugged, "But I''m not here to judge your world. I''m here to help defend it."


    "Thank you," Maxine said and turned to Turan, "How the hell did you end up being in charge of them?"


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    "I have a great deal of knowledge and experience when it comes to Earth, so I was the logical choice," Turan said calmly, "And it helps that my ancestor is also on the grand council of elders."


    "Ah," Maxine said in understanding, "It shouldn''t be too hard to integrate your reinforcements into Earth''s defense. Am I wrong to assume that most if not all of the shadow lords present know how to use a bow?"


    "No, you are not," Turan replied, "All of us have some skill using a bow, but only a third are what my people consider skilled marksmen."


    "Excellent," Maxine said, "Spread them evenly amongst the three battlegroups."


    "Understood," Turan said before he walked out of the tent.


    Almost immediately after, one of the guards poked his head in and said, "Ma''am, the press would like to have a word with you." I was wondering when they would show up. Then again, the leaders of the world didn''t reveal what kind of danger we''re in until a couple hours ago to minimize the rioting. It''s not surprising that it would take them this long to track me down.


    "I''ll be right out," Maxine answer and the guard nodded before leaving the tent.


    Maxine took a deep breath before walking outside. The reporter was a beautiful redheaded woman and she moved towards Maxine. However, she paused in surprise when her gaze locked onto Maxine''s eyes. I sort of expected that reaction. It''s not a well known fact that my eyes are mismatched.


    Not surprisingly, the reporter recovered very quickly. "I''m Cindy Callahan from CNN. Ms. Levings, what are void beasts, where do they come from and how many of them are approaching Earth?"


    "I''m not sure what you''ve been told about void beasts, but they come from an isolated pocket dimension. And they have an unrelenting hate for anything outside of it. As for how many are approaching Earth, I can''t be certain of their exact numbers, but in the incoming wave, there are approximately one hundred seventy thousand of them. As for their total numbers, it''s in the neighborhood of five million."


    "How strong are these creatures?" Cindy Callahan asked.


    "Equivalent to a peak silver stage cultivator, but I don''t suppose the means much to the average person," Maxine answered as she thought for a moment, "Think of it as them having the ability to throw attacks with the same destructive power as the nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And there are hundreds of them that are even stronger than that."


    "What... what are our chances against such a force?" Cindy Callahan asked.


    "If you had asked me an hour ago, it would''ve been sixty to seventy percent chance," Maxine said, "But we got a surprise reinforcement from the Shadow Lords. They are considerably more powerful than most cultivators so it bumped our chances right up to eighty to ninety percent chance of victory." That''s only if the situation doesn''t change. It could take a turn for the worse far too easily. And I''ll be damned before I say it out loud. I refuse to be the jinx that screwed everyone over.


    "Could you explain how you intend to arrange our forces for the viewers at home?" Cindy Callahan asked.


    "Of course," Maxine said calmly, "The first and outermost layer of our ranged defense is comprised of over five hundred defensive satellites that will unleash a barrage at the approaching void beasts once they''re in range. Simultaneously, silver stage cultivators with long range capabilities will hover in low orbit and they will unleashed their own barrage of attacks. I will be amongst them. If we''re lucky, they''ll be wiped out before they can get within melee range. If not, we have an allied hive matriarch, as well as local one of our own, that will send their warriors out to fight them up close and personal along with our own close combat experts. If any of the creatures get past them all of that, there is a large gathering of iron stage cultivators more than capable of eliminating them through sheer overwhelming numbers."


    "But that''s only if events play out as you expect them to," Cindy Callahan stated, "If several of these waves combine, what would our situation look like?"


    "I have a contingency plan, if that happens," Maxine replied, "Hopefully, it won''t come to that." I have two contingencies to be precise, but I do NOT want to use them. Creating a portal strong enough to hurl a piece of the fucking sun at the void beasts is stupid dangerous. If I make a single mistake, I will end up destroying Earth along with the void beasts. The only other option is for me to go full hydra. I can only hope that both my regeneration is able to keep up with that kind of abuse AND that I can return to normal before targeting the other defenders.


    "And that is?" Cindy Callahan asked.


    "Let''s just say I have a transformation that I havn''t used publickly yet," Maxine said calmly, "And that it''s extremely dangerous, not for me, but for everyone else. So, you can understand my reluctance to use it."


    "I see. Thank you for your time," Cindy Callahan said before she walked towards a nearby mercenary. Maxine ignored her at that point and paused when she saw several mercenaries glance upward. Hmm? It''s too early for the void beasts. So, why are they looking up?


    Maxine followed their gazes and growled in frustration. The void beast swarm was visible from the ground and it was clearly making the mercenaries nervous. Shit, they''re speeding up. They shouldn''t have become visible for another forty minutes.


    A moment later, her dimensional ring vibrated two times to let her know to get into position and saw many mercenaries and earthlings putting on a breathing apparatus before rocketing off into the sky. Maxine looked around her one more time before doing the same.


    Within moments, she reached the upper atmosphere and proceeded towards the centermost grouping of silver stage cultivators. She withdrew her elven bow from her dimensional ring just and transformed into her shadow elf form as she got into position.


    [Okay, everyone. We have only minutes before the void beasts are in range,] Maxine said via spiritual sense to every cultivator within range, [Everyone should attack on my signal and believe me it will be impossible to miss.]


    With the remaining time, Maxine focused on creating a special arrow. She poured her energies into it while compressing them into the smallest point possible. She grit her teeth in intense concentration to keep it from getting out of her control.


    From what I can tell, the gold stage void beasts are in the center of this wave. If I aim this right, I should take out all of them in one shot along with a large chunk of this wave. I hope this thing doesn''t detonate before it hits it''s intended target. I won''t exactly be able to fire a second one of these things. I would consider this a trump card if it didn''t take seventy percent of my energy and take so much damn time to form.


    Just as she finished forming her ''Singularity Arrow'', the void beasts got into range. She swiftly nocked the arrow and drew her bow. She took careful aim and released the arrow.


    Maxine followed the trajectory of her arrow with rapt attention and smiled brilliantly when she saw the singularity form where she intended it to. While she found it odd that only the defense platforms were attacking, she didn''t take her eyes off of the void beast swarm as nearly a third of the swarm was violently pulled into singularity.


    The void beasts struggled and panicked as they tried to get away, but the singularity was pulling them in. A few of them even unleashed beams of light at the singularity, but to no avail. They were all crushed into the attack all the same. However, just as the singularity collapsed in on itself, Maxine could''ve sworn she saw Earth within it for the briefest of moments. What the fuck was that?! She was trying to process what she just say and by the time that she had, the singularity had already collapsed into a small orb no bigger than a marble. Wow, it looks like I got all of the gold stage void beasts. Maybe I should use it on each of these waves. But what was that I saw. And why the fuck are those idiots just standing there with their mouths open like a bunch of morons?!


    [What the hell are you fuckers waiting for?! ATTACK!] Maxine screamed at them while forming a dozen simple energy arrows. Her shout woke them up and they immediately began unleashing a barrage of attacks.


    Maxine fired arrow after arrow into the remainder of the void beast swarm and she always managed to one shot them due to the difference in their strength. Unfortunately, silver stage cultivators needed at least eight direct hits to kill one, but it often took more. At this rate, roughly fifty thousand void beasts will make it into melee range and considering how nasty those spines look on these void beasts, Me''Lantra and Kerrigan''s warriors will suffer heavy losses. That''s not even mentioning the casualties from everyone else that volunteered to fight up close. If I was at full strength, I could spam scatter shot arrows, but that''s no longer possible. Fuck! If those idiots had attacked when they were supposed to, this problem wouldn''t be around. Screw it. I''ll just use scatter shot arrows until I''m nearly out of energy and hope it''s enough while I gorge myself on food until they get into melee range.


    Maxine started targeting up to twenty void beasts at a time with her scatter shot arrows and unleashed at least ten every second. Her attacks didn''t always kill, but she didn''t have the luxury of killing her targets every time. Severely wounding them would still lower their combative powers significantly. Which was more than enough as far as she was concerned. Still, she was only able to maintain that effort for roughly a minute and a half.


    Swiftly, she put away her bow and practically inhaled various meats from within her dimensional ring. When she realized that her body wasn''t digesting the food fast enough to keep up with her consumption, she swiftly transformed into her battle form and continued. She could feel her energy levels slowly rising, but at the rate it was climbing, she wouldn''t be capable of more than her simpler moves. And that increased the risk she would face.


    She pulled out a few nutritional pills and swallowed them in hopes of speeding up her recovery. They definitely did that as she felt her energies rapidly surge upwards. Those three pills were enough to restore 60% of her full strength, but would take a few minutes to fully digest due to their density. I only made a couple dozen of these since I wasn''t sure how effective they would be, so I need to ration them. So, use them only during emergencies.


    When the void beasts were mere moments from colliding with Me''Lantra and Kerrigan''s warriors, Maxine launched forward while transforming into her full-hybrid state and withdrew a larger set of her Twilight Iron Blades that were meant for her male clone to wield.


    Moments before colliding with void beasts, she made a mental note to avoid the ten inch spikes protruding out of the fifteen foot long void beasts as she began slashing out with her blades. She had to deftly dodge and weave through the void beasts as they reflexively tried to wrap around her with their barbed bodies. The serpents on her back sprayed the few that she couldn''t kill using her blades with acid.


    She moved with increasing grace and speed as she lost count of how many void beasts that she killed. She only knew that there their numbers didn''t seem to be decreasing no matter how many she killed. Are they all coming after me or something?


    Eventually, there were only the corpses of void beasts floating around her and she rapidly looked around any that might still be moving. However, there weren''t any living void beasts left for her to kill. Still, she felt thousands of people looking at her and she turned towards them. The mercenaries were giving her look of admiration and appreciation. However, her fellow earthlings were terrified of her. I should''ve expected this, but I rather attract this attention than for there to be unnecessary casualties. Although, I bet they''ll be hoping that I will throw that stupidly powerful arrow out every time I make a showing, but after seeing Earth''s reflection in it, I''m kind of hesitant to do it.

 Chapter 191

    Maxine leaned back into a reclining chair on one of the ships parked near the main camp, but no matter how comfortable the chair was, her energy pathways still ached. It was an unexpected drawback from using her singularity arrow too frequently. It had put an unimaginable amount of strain on her energy pathways and she needed at least two weeks to recover before she could use it again without hurting herself. Sadly, she didn''t discover this until after she used the attack a second time three days later. Thankfully, she was able to rest for eleven days before she was forced to use it against a wave of four hundred thousand void beasts. She just finished that battle two hours ago.


    And more concerningly, each time she had used that singularity arrow, she saw a reflection of Earth during it''s collapsing phase. However, the Earth that she saw was far too green to be her own. I don''t know what is going on with my singularity arrow, but I have a feeling that I should limit how many times I use it. I have a few guesses as to what it could be, but it''s better to ask daddy or grandma about it. Both of them have way more experience than I do.


    While Maxine was occupied with her thoughts, she hadn''t noticed that Emily had walked in the room and sat across from her. "How bad is it?" Emily asked with a concerned tone.


    "I''m in alot of pain, and it hurts even more to use my energies," Maxine admitted, "I can fight if I need to, but I need rest for at least two weeks before I can use that attack again. And if I''m forced to use it again before I''ve recovered, I can''t guarantee it won''t blow up in my face and even if it doesn''t, I''ll be bedridden for a good long while. It just puts too much stress on my energy pathways."


    "Anything I can do to help?" Emily asked and Maxine felt herself being scan by Emily''s spiritual sense.


    "I doubt it," Maxine replied, "I need a very specialized pill to speed up my recovery and as far as I know, only a handful of alchemists in the Alliance are even capable of making something like that. But you can try to patch me up if you want."


    "Try? More like I will," Emily said forcefully as she put her hands on Maxine''s shoulder and flooded Maxine''s body with healing energies. Unfortunately, Emily''s energies had only a marginal effect on Maxine''s energy pathways, but Maxine noticed that Emily''s energies were somewhat weaker than normal. Huh? What caused that? Wait. Don''t tell me that she''s ...


    Without a second thought, Maxine used her spiritual sense to scan Emily''s womb and what she found confirmed her suspicions. Damn it. I told her not to tempt fate. Couldn''t have asked for a more inconvenient time, though. Shit. Although, I''m rather surprised that she can use that much of her full strength when she''s a little less than one month into her pregnancy. She should at most be able to use eighty percent of her strength, but she''s using at least ninety-five percent. Perhaps, it''s because her energies are very gentle and primarily used for healing. Yeah, that''s probably it.


    "Stop, you shouldn''t be pushing yourself in your condition," Maxine said as she gently pushed Emily''s hand off of her shoulder, "I have other means to heal myself. Although, it won''t be as effective as your energies or a specialized pill. I can still drink one of my purple healing potions. They can speed up my regeneration enough that I won''t be in too much pain during my next shift."


    "If you''re in pain, you sit your next shift out. You''ll only put other people in danger if you don''t go out there in your best condition," Emily said firmly and added with faux confusion, "And what do you mean by my condition?"


    "You''re pregnant," Maxine said bluntly, "Did you think I wouldn''t be able to tell?"


    "I didn''t think you''d be able to tell this soon," Emily answered simply.


    "Why didn''t you tell me before now?" Maxine asked, "You clearly knew about it."


    "I didn''t want to add to your worries," Emily admitted, "You''ve already got enough on your mind with Earth''s defense."


    "Fair enough," Maxine said and she drank one of her purple healing potions to take the edge off of her pain, "Just promise me that you won''t over do it."


    "I won''t," Emily reassured Maxine, "Now, come on. The cooks threw together this massive meal for you and I wouldn''t want it to get cold before you even started."


    "Ugh, I don''t want to move," Maxine complained and realized how hungry she was, "But a meal right now sounds amazing." She reluctantly got out of her chair while gritting her teeth in pain. Moving agitated her already tender energy pathways. I really hope I recover enough to fight during my next shift. If not, there may be a drop in morale.


    "Here, let me help you," Emily said as she offered her shoulder to Maxine.


    "No," Maxine said firmly, "If our people see you helping me walk, they''ll realize what kind of shape that I''m in and their morale will take a hit."


    "Fine," Emily said in discontent, "But if you fall down on your face, it''s your own fault."


    "That it will be," Maxine agreed as she steeled her will and walked smoothly out of the ship as she made her way to the food tent. She was thankful that she was able to keep any signs of pain off of her face and out of her body language.


    As soon as she sat down, a huge platter with cooked meats piled onto it was slammed down infront of her. There had to be at least two hundred pounds of cooked essence beast meat in various forms infront of her in. She transformed into her battleform before digging into the presented meats like a half-starved animal. She got a few weird looks, but for the most part, no one made any comments about it.


    However, Maxine spotted a reporter out of the corner of her eye, but he didn''t dare approach her. However, he seemed to be waiting for something. She didn''t have to wonder for long when all the sudden he started talking. "As you can see, our planetary guardian, Maxine Levings, is currently recovering her strength inbetween bouts on the battlefield and she requires vast amounts of protein as sustenance," the reporter said calmly, "However, it is unknown why she remains that particular state while eating. Some experts have hypothesized that her digestive tract functions far more efficiently in that state compared to her normal one. However without examining her biology in depth, it''s impossible to know for certain and it''s unlikely that she will offer herself up to be studied any time soon." Maxine stopped paying attention to him as she continued to eat her meal. I hate reporters. Those guys have already made my life hard in the past. I do not want to revisit that irritation.


    "You know you should''ve expected them to be here," Emily said, "This is literately the most important event in our planet''s history. There is no way they wouldn''t be here."


    "I know that," Maxine said, "What I can''t stand is the looks of fear that he keeps sending my way."


    "Can you blame him?" Emily asked, "It''s not every day that you come across someone that could literately end a planet if they wanted to."


    "That attack wouldn''t ''end'' Earth," Maxine pointed out, "It would just render it uninhabitable for who knows how long."


    "Same difference to the people living here," Emily countered.


    "That''s true enough," Maxine agreed, "Oh! Is my grandma still in the camp or is she fighting void beasts?"


    "She''s in the camp, but I''m not sure for how much longer," Emily said, "I don''t exactly keep track of everyone''s schedule."


    "What I need to ask shouldn''t take long," Maxine said calmly.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    "What do you need to ask me?" grandma Victoria said as she sat down beside Maxine.


    "How did you sneak up on me?" Maxine asked before she shook her head.


    "It''s not that hard," grandma Victoria answered with a smirk, "When your eating, your detection ability drops significantly. Now, what did you need to ask me?" Damn, I didn''t think eating distracted me that much. It''s a good thing grandma pointed that out before I got myself into trouble.


    "Oh, that," Maxine replied as she gathered her thoughts, "I see an image of Earth for a brief moment every time that I used my singularity arrow, but it was greener than my Earth. Do you know what''s going on?"


    Grandma Victoria''s face and tone became serious as she asked, "How brief are we talking?"


    "Less than a millisecond," Maxine answered.


    "Oh, thank the maker," grandma Victoria said as she relaxed, "What you saw was an opening to another timeline. It sometimes happens when powerful spatial attacks are used and so long as the duration of such openings is very short, the chances of anything coming through is minimal."


    "Has something come through before?" Maxine asked cautiously.


    "Thankfully, no," grandma Victoria said, "The unstable nature of such openings would utterly annihilate most lifeforms below the immortal threshold, but as with most things, there are exceptions. For instance, if you were at peak gold and in your ''full-hybrid'' form, you could in theory survive due to your natural defenses and powerful regenerative powers. You''d still be horribly injured by the time you made it to the other side, though."


    "Interesting," Maxine said to herself.


    "But that''s all hypothetical," grandma Victoria said, "There is no reason for you to risk yourself like that, right?"


    "Yeah," Maxine said softly, but part of her wanted to return to her previous timeline to help them out. However, after hearing what grandma Victoria said, she knew better than to try.


    "Good, now, you need to continue resting. I need to prepare for my shift on the battlefield," grandma Victoria said and she leaned in closer to whisper into Maxine''s ear, "And to be on the safe side, do not use that attack again unless it''s absolutely necessary."


    "That was my plan to begin with," Maxine whispered back before speaking normally, "See you later, grandma." Grandma Victoria smiled at her and walked out of the tent.


    However, as soon as she left, a man in a business suit approached Maxine and handed her a business card as he spoke, "I''m Jerry Sparks and I''m with Sparks Talent Agency. I''m sorry to bother you while you''re resting, but you''ve caused quite a sensation." She didn''t even bother looking at the business cared that he handed her.


    "How so?" Maxine asked.


    "Many young women are rushing to the gym to get as physically fit as you are and you''ve inspired many to begin cultivating after that spectacular display two weeks ago," Jerry Sparks said, "In fact, many fashion magazines are looking for athletic models to keep up with the times, but only a few of them even compare to you. So, here I am to see if you''re interested."


    "I''m not interested," Maxine answered bluntly, "I simply do not have the time and selling potions and pills is far more lucrative than any modeling job could ever be."


    "That''s disappointing, but it''s not surprising," Jerry Sparks said in a disappointed tone, "In fact, I knew the chances of you saying agreeing were slim to none."


    "So, why come, then?" Maxine asked.


    "If you had said yes, it would''ve been excellent publicity for my company, so no matter how small the possibility I had to take a chance," Jerry Sparks replied honestly.


    "I''m surprised that you''re being so honest with me," Maxine said in genuine surprise.


    "What''s the point of lying when the other person is a telepath?" Jerry Sparks asked.


    "Cultivators are not true telepaths. We have to concentrate on you in order to hear your thoughts," Maxine explained, "A true telepath has to concentrate to avoid hearing your thoughts."


    "Ahh, thank you for enlightening me on that subject," Jerry Sparks said gratefully, "And I apologize for interrupting your meal and I hope the remainder of your rest is uninterrupted." He gave her a small smile before turning around and leaving.


    "Enjoying your meal?" Zabel Nodd asked as he appeared seated across from Maxine, "If I didn''t know any better I would swear that you''re eating like a pregnant woman." Emily blushed at his comment and he raised his eyebrow at Maxine in askance.


    "She''s pregnant," Maxine explained bluntly.


    "What? How?" Zabel Nodd asked in confusion, "You''re both women and she doesn''t seem to be the type to be unfaithful."


    "That''s none of your business," Maxine said grumpily.


    "I see that you''re still mad at me," Zabel Nodd said in a disheartened tone, "But can you really blame me for the deception?"


    "It was for your very survival, so I can''t really hold it against you," Maxine said coldly, "But you could''ve just remained hidden on Earth until it was confirmed that the void beasts were on their way. There was no need to deceive me or seek my protection. You put up that whole charade because you wanted to. That''s why I''m angry."


    "When you say it out loud, my actions do seem a tad childish," Zabel Nodd admitted, "But I''ve already apologized for my actions, repeatedly."


    "I''m aware," Maxine replied, "But I''m not ready to forgive you just yet. Now, get out of my sight before I punch you."


    "Understood," Zabel Nodd said as he faded out of view infront of her.


    "I''m glad that you convinced that foolish demon to remain hidden," Turan said as he walked up towards her, "I''ve had to constantly remind my people not to provoke or try to kill him."


    "They''re just afraid of him," Maxine said calmly, "It''s the instinctive reaction to all sapient creatures to eliminate something that makes them afraid."


    "It''s odd that you are not afraid of him," Turan pointed out.


    "Because he isn''t a threat to me," Maxine answered, "At least, not a big enough one to facilitate a fear response. However, there is one person that I wouldn''t even bother trying to kill if they became a demon. In fact, I would, literately, be the first person to run as fast as I could."


    "Who is that?" Turan asked, "Your father?"


    "No, not him," Maxine answered, "I don''t imagine he would hurt either me or my sister, even if he were to become a demon. But the rest of the universe would be pretty much fucked."


    "Yes, I suppose you would be right, but you havn''t answered my other question," Turan said.


    "I''m not going to tell you," Maxine said firmly.


    "Is it your sister?" Turan asked and Maxine glared at him angrily, "I thought so. She''s your twin and I don''t see you ever killing her. Also, she seemed a bit unstable when I saw her. She must''ve been on the verge of becoming a demon when your clan found her. I can''t even imagine what she must''ve done to make you this afraid of her."


    "Do not talk about my sister like that again," Maxine said with a tone that screamed violence would ensue if she was ignored, "Are we clear?"


    "Crystal," Turan said smoothly, "And I apologize for my thoughtless remarks."


    "Don''t worry about it too much. Just don''t do it again," Maxine said.


    "I won''t," Turan said calmly and he frowned after a few seconds, "Hmm, does anything seem odd to you?" Maxine paused from eating and looked around carefully. He''s right. I can''t quite put my finger on it, but something isn''t right here. Wait, the fluctuations of energy from the sky isn''t as intense as it should be. I need to finish up my meal and find out what''s going on.


    "The fighting isn''t as intense as it should be," Maxine said, "Go ahead of me to the command tent and find out why. I''ll be along shortly after I finish up my meal."


    "Understood," Turan said as he jogged towards the command tent.


    Maxine swiftly devoured the meats infront of her and chased after him. A few seconds later, she walked into the command tent and several people looked worried. "Report," Maxine ordered.


    "It seems a particularly intelligent void beast join managed to slip past your father," Turan reported, "It''s gathering void beasts for one massive push against Earth in the asteroid belt. It''s estimated that roughly 1 million void beasts will be coming at us by the time it decides to move against us. On a positive note, the rift is halfway closed which means that there won''t be any more void beasts coming. Unfortunately, Guan must stay at the rift until it closes and even if he were to rush here, he wouldn''t arrive in time to be able to be of any help." FUCK!


    "How long do we have?" Maxine asked while trying to remain calm.


    "Two days, maybe less," Turan answered.


    "It''ll be damn near impossible to fend off a wave that large," Maxine said.


    "Can''t you just use that overpowered arrow attack?" someone asked.


    "No, I can''t," Maxine said and when several people gave her a surprised looked, she added, "I really can''t use it right now. It puts too much strain on my physiology. If I were to try, it would most likely activate in my face before it was fully charged." At that point, she saw them begin to genuinely panic.


    "You need to say something or the morale of our defenders will plummet," Turan said.


    "But!" Maxine said loudly, "There are other things we can do. The gold stage cultivators can perform guerilla attacks on the forming void beast swarm while it continues to form and unleash barrages of attacks while they are on the move." That might reduce their numbers by a hundred thousand if we are very lucky. That still leaves nine hundred thousand to deal with. If they had something to hold them in place, it might be much more effective.


    "How much help will that even be?" someone asked, "It''s not like they can hold those void beasts in place once they start to move."


    "They won''t have to," Maxine said firmly, "I will keep those things distracted. My training under Horatio Quay has taught me how to fight overwhelming numbers. I''m confident that I can at least draw a large number of them away while the others fight the ones that do not come after me." Honestly, I don''t know how long I could hold them off like that for. Still, training under Horatio Quay did prepare me for engaging insane numbers, but nothing like this. If my teacher were here, he would just go full Blade Demon and wipe them out. Wait! That''s it! I can''t believe I didn''t think to ask him for help sooner. I just hope he agrees to help.

 Chapter 192

    "Can you say that one more time?" Maxine asked in pure disbelief as she held her communication disc. She had gone into a large building to contact her teacher in private in case he told her no, but that was no longer a worry. It was his ''requirements'' for his help that she found unbelievable.


    "I said that I would help you get rid of your problem, but there is a condition," Horatio Quay said with a sinister smile, "My condition is for you to fight that void beast swarm on your own for as long as you can and you''re not allowed to push your transformation any further than you ''full-hybrid'' form. Beyond that, anything goes." I can''t believe he''s turning this into a fucking training exercise.


    "Did you not hear me when I said that my energy pathways are in rough shape?" Maxine asked incredulously.


    "I heard you, but you have to be able to fight at any given time, even when you''re injured," Horatio Quay reminded Maxine, "You know better than most that your enemies will take advantage of any weakness presented to them."


    "I know that, but I sometimes question your sanity," Maxine said directly, "I mean what kind of evil, sadistic bastard decides to turn a swarm of over one million void beasts into a fucking training exercise?"


    "Me," Horatio Quay said bluntly.


    "You''re an asshole," Maxine cursed at him.


    "But I''m the asshole that you have to appease in order to get the help that your homeworld needs to survive," Horatio Quay said as he smiled again, "And if you''re worried about your personal survival, I''ll be close enough that I can come to your rescue in nearly an instant. Although, I won''t help you for anything less than a fatal wound. Which in your case would be an injury to your heart or brain. Anything less than that is nothing more than pain and pain, as we both know, is an excellent motivator to improve." I don''t know what I was expecting. I have a fucking sadist for a teacher. I guess his title ''Blade Demon'' isn''t just for show. Still, this is a lot more favorable than me going full hydra.


    "So, if I shove my foot up your ass, will that motivate you to stop being such an ass?" Maxine asked in an innocent tone.


    "If you weren''t my student, I think I would rather enjoy that kind of attention," Horatio Quay said shamelessly.


    For several seconds, Maxine was stunned into silence with his response. "Just walk through the arch. It should be forming in my sister''s shadow now," Maxine finally said in exasperation as she created an arch out using Orianna''s shadow. It''s a good thing that she''s still at the Stardust Academy. It makes it much easier to swiftly transport teacher over here. I can''t even imagine what kind of nightmare it would be to hold off the void beasts until he arrived on his own.


    As soon as he walked through the arch, he added, "I was thinking about letting Maxwell join in on the exercise, but I decided against it. He just doesn''t have the same kind of killer instinct that you do. As he is now, he wouldn''t last more than a minute against that swarm."


    "He just hasn''t experienced enough real combat yet," Maxine pointed out.


    "Perhaps," Horatio Quay agreed reluctantly, "Regardless, we should head out while the swarm is still gathering. It''ll be far more challenging to keep their attention after they start to move and you are not quite ready for that level of difficulty just yet."


    "Can I grab something to eat before we leave?" Maxine asked.


    "If you''re hungry, eat some nutritional pills," Horatio Quay said firmly, "The sooner we leave, the better."


    "I don''t have that many left," Maxine pointed out and Horatio Quay tossed her a bottle filled with nutritional pills.


    "Do not run out of those again," Horatio Quay said grumpily, "You must always be prepared for a long battle."


    "I had nearly a full bottle when this whole mess started and it''s not exactly easy to get more ingredients to make more while we''re under siege," Maxine retorted.


    "You only made enough for one bottle?" Horatio Quay asked with a raised eyebrow, "If I was you, I would''ve had at least a dozen full bottles of those things. Now, if you''re done complaining, we have a void beast swarm to eliminate."


    "Fine," Maxine said as she started to make her way out of the building with Horatio Quay in tow, "Just so you know, I can only hold my breath for eight hours while in combat."


    "So?" Horatio Quay asked, "Can''t you just create one of those portals in your nasal cavity to someplace with an atmosphere? Or better yet, just grab a breathing apparatus like the mercenaries usually do?"


    "I could," Maxine reluctantly agreed. In fact, she had a face mask that could provide breathable air for twenty four hours in her dimensional ring.


    "Then put one on so we can head out," Horatio Quay ordered Maxine just as they exited the building.


    Without preamble, Maxine retrieved the special face mask from her dimensional ring and put it on. "Happy now?" Maxine asked in irritation.


    "Very," Horatio Quay said.


    "Before we head out, do you mind if I tell Emily what''s going on?" Maxine asked.


    "Fine, but don''t take too long," Horatio Quay said impatiently, "I''ll be waiting just outside of this world''s magnetosphere." With that, he surged upward with tremendous speed without so much as disturbing a single speck of dirt, but to anyone else, he would''ve simply vanished from their sight. I''ve really got to learn how to move that fast without disturbing my surroundings. It''s almost as if he moves without air resistance.


    Maxine swiftly made her way to the healers tents and found Emily. "We need to talk," Maxine said as she grabbed Emily and dragged her into a isolated corner. She looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening in.


    "What''s this about?" Emily asked in a worried tone.


    "I convinced my teacher to give us a hand," Maxine said, "But it comes with conditions."


    "What kind of conditions?" Emily asked.


    "He wants me to kill as many of the void beasts as I can as a form of training before he makes a move himself and trust me when I say that he can absolutely annihilate that swarm by himself," Maxine said, "But I don''t know if I''ll be able to keep myself from using that last transformation if I get cornered. If that happens..." Both me and Emily know this is nothing more than an insurance policy. I can''t let anyone know that I can consciously transform into a hydra. Uncle Zeph already mentioned that it would be a bad idea for anyone to know that I can even do it and I figured out why myself. So if I have to transform, it''s best if everyone thinks that I can only do it when I''m extremely afraid or angry to minimize the threat that I make if I do transform out there. I don''t need the Alliance thinking they''ve got a literal weapon of mass destruction walking around. They''re already fearful enough of me by just being Guan''s daughter, even when they know that I prefer to use peaceful methods to solve my problems.


    "I''ll send that video that you sent me to the media," Emily interrupted Maxine.


    "I just hope that I''ll be able to revert back before I end up making my way back to Earth," Maxine said fearfully as she gently placed her hand protectively over Emily''s belly, "And to the both of you."


    "I''m positive that you''ll be able to," Emily said encouragingly, "You''ve done it before."


    "Yeah, I guess I did," Maxine said as she kissed Emily, "Now, I''ve kept my sadist of a teacher waiting long enough."


    "Be careful," Emily said softly.


    "I always am," Maxine said as she backed away from Emily, "Oh, I have a warp stone set in that spot that I had cleared out in the camp. Just be sure to remember not to touch me directly if I''m bleeding."


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    "I won''t," Emily said as she watched Maxine lift off the ground and rocket towards the sky. Within moments, the sky darkened and revealed the stars and moon above. However, it took a moment for Maxine to spot Horatio Quay and began flying towards him.


    [I thought you would take longer than that,] Horatio Quay commented as she approached, [I suppose you''ll enjoy a celebration with your ''girlfriend'' afterwards then. Still, I''m surprised that you didn''t tell your mother or grandmother what you were going to do.]


    [Mom would''ve tried to stop me,] Maxine answered coldly, [And grandma would''ve tried to follow after us to make sure that I didn''t get into a situation that I couldn''t escape from.]


    [It''s good to be loved,] Horatio Quay said, [Remember that love and how much it would hurt them if you were to fall. It will keep you alive when fear and anger won''t.]


    [I''ll keep that in mind,] Maxine said as she finally arrived at his side, [So, how are we getting to the void beasts? Because with my speed, it''ll take a day and a half to reach them.]


    [I''ll take care of that,] Horatio Quay replied as she grabbed her wrist and blade energy danced around them as he surged forward. So, that''s how he does it! He''s literately cutting through the void! It''s brilliant. This way he can bend the laws of physics to increase his maximum speed.


    She saw him look back at her with a small smirk as they flew past the asteroid belt. We''re already this far out?! It''s only been a few seconds. At this speed, we''ll be there in a matter of minutes. However, it took far less time than she thought and she began to feel a sense of dread when she saw the gathering void beasts. Jesus, that''s a lot of them. I''m both regretful and grateful that I brought my teacher into this mess. There is no way our defenses could''ve held up against THAT many void beasts. Hell, if I didn''t know any better, I could swear there are more than one million of them there.


    [Whoever counted these things needs to get their eyes checked after being heavily beaten,] Horatio Quay commented, [There is more than a million of those things with more on the way.]


    [I''ll be sure to let my uncle know of his scout''s incompetence,] Maxine said coldly, [But that doesn''t change our objective, right?]


    [No, it doesn''t,] Horatio Quay said, [There are also twice as many gold stage void beasts than I anticipated. This increases the risk for you considerably. If I wasn''t here, your chances of even escaping would be dismal and I know how fast you can flee when you need to.]


    [So?] Maxine asked.


    [It just means that I''ll be a lot closer than I would normally be to bail you out, but just remember, I will only move when you''re either completely drained or about to suffer a fatal wound. Not before,] Horatio Quay reminded Maxine, [So, if you have a means to save yourself, I suggest you keep it handy. Just in case.]


    [I already am,] Maxine said calmly and looked at the void swarm with growing concern. She barely noticed when they stopped approaching, but she couldn''t quite force herself to charge forward by herself. The reason was quite simple. The animal part of her brain was screaming at her to run the other way as fast as she could.


    [We don''t have all day,] Horatio Quay stated and before Maxine could even respond, she felt him kick her left buttcheek, before she was thrown forward by the impact.


    [ASSHOLE!] Maxine roared furiously at him as she rapidly approached the void beast swarm. After that, however, she didn''t pay attention to him, even when his laughter resounded in her head. Instead, she focused her thoughts and entirely on the void beast swarm.


    There was no point in holding back in this situation, so she immediately transformed straight into her full-hybrid form. With a thought, she retrieved her twilight iron blades and gripped the extended handle with two hands each. Next, she controlled the many serpentine appendages on her back to curl up and face forward as they opened their mouths to reveal serrated teeth. She concentrated and created a crescent moon blitz on each of those many teeth and fired off all of them in a cone pattern once she was in range of the void beast swarm.


    The void beasts directly infront of her were practically liquified as he attacks tore right through them and continued to travel through the swarm for nearly a mile before loosing momentum. That was a lot more effective than I thought it would be and also a lot more draining as well. I might as well get a snack in before I engaged them. I need to keep my strength up for as long as possible.


    She let her instincts take over for a moment as the blood and gore of the void beasts was literately drawn into the open mouths of her snake cape. She could feel her energies rapidly replenish from the consumed flesh and blood. Unfortunately, the other void beasts were quick to respond and were not give her much time to feed as they surrounded her.


    Instead of letting them come to her, she charged at them as she shallowed four nutritional pills and began to cleave the void beasts apart. She dodged when she needed to and lashed out with a roaring crescent moon blitz when she couldn''t. She didn''t dare block any of the violent attacks from the void beasts. They simply outweighed her by too much and in a zero-g environment, she would be thrown around each time she tried to block. That would easily get her thrown into the spiky carapace of a void beast.


    After only five minutes of her fighting up close, she had taken several dozen shallow cuts across her body and lost four inches off of the end of her tail. The serpents the made up her snake-cape had been biting chunks out of any void beasts that gotten within range. She quickly incorporated these unconscious strikes into her fighting style. The extra nutrients from this action was helping to both restore her stamina and heal her wounds. Unfortunately, it wasn''t nearly enough to keep up with the wounds she was taking or the stamina that she was using. If I keep up this intensity, I''ll be exhausted in less than an hour, but if I let up, they''ll surround me. I need some breathing room to recover a bit.


    Maxine unleashed a flurry of crescent moon blitz attacks infront of her while rapidly charging towards open space. It was a terribly inefficient use of her energies, but the void beasts were packed too closely together for her to weave around them. Once she was free, she kept moving to stay that way and swallowed down another five nutritional pills to speed up her recovery. However, when she sent out a pulse of her spiritual sense to confirm the positions of the void beasts, she failed to sense Horatio Quay. What?! Where the fuck did he go?! He should be within my spiritual sense range.


    Maxine growled in frustration and anger as she summoned one hundred of her Shadow Wolves and her dragon to fight the void beast swarm. She knew they would only buy her a minute or two before being torn to shreds, but that would be enough time for her to regain almost all of her spend energy. Unfortunately, her shadow wolves were faring worse than she anticipated and were not going to last more than one minute. I should''ve expected this. They''re being torn apart by the spiky carapace of the void beasts. At least, my dragon is doing okay. It''s fire breath attack is doing a lot of damage.


    She had her constructs return to her shadow before they got damaged beyond repair and charged back into the swarm. Sadly, the void beasts had caught onto her tactics and began to simply rush her rather than allow themselves some room to maneuver. She was forced to create a barrier made of blades to avoid becoming poked full of holes. In a moment of inspiration, she increased the density of the blades in her barrier before forcing it outward to create a blade nova. She had no idea how many of the void beasts were killed with that move, but she used the opportunity get out of that bad situation. Shit, it''s too dangerous to remain stationary. Time to kill them while remaining as mobile as possible.


    She kept narrowly dodging the void beasts and landing killing blows where she could. It was dangerous, but it was safer than staying still. However, just when she was confident that she could continue fighting like this, Horatio Quay roared into her head, [Use your warp stone. NOW!] She didn''t even question how he knew about her warp stone as she retrieved it from her dimensional ring, but stopped as she felt something change in the space around her. A spatial lock!? Who the fuck would use that against void beasts?! And more importantly, WHY!? Unless, it''s going to be used on a person. Shit!


    [Get out of THERE!] Horatio Quay yelled at her and she pushed her speed to the limit as she fled from the center of void beast swarm. Oddly enough, they didn''t impede her. Instead, they were trying to get away just as quickly as she was. This is very fucking bad! Void beasts only flee from stellar catastrophes!


    She used her spiritual sense to look at what exactly it was and only saw a rapidly expanding sphere of complete darkness. Whenever it touched a void beast, they simply disintegrated as they were pulled into it. That sight terrified her so much that she barely noticed it when cut herself several times on the spiky carapace of a void beasts in her haste to flee. Unfortunately, she knew that she wouldn''t be able to get away in time as she felt an intense gravitational field attempt to pull her back towards that sphere.


    But she still refused to give up. She wanted to see her and Emily''s baby being born and to watch them grow. These thoughts spurred her to tap into reserves of strength she didn''t know that she had. Still, it wasn''t enough and she knew it because she could already feel the end of her tail being slowly annihilated. Shit, I never thought I would be forced to use this technique, but if there was ever a time to use it, it''s now.


    Maxine grit her teeth in pain and desperation as she began using the battle god technique. Strength surged through her with an oddly familiar feel to it and she got a huge boost to her speed and power that allowed her to break away from the rapidly expanding sphere of death. She only maintained the technique for a few seconds to get a safe distance away before she stopped using it, but the damage had already been done. Her energy pathways felt as if they were on fire and her movements became sluggish. Fuck, this hurts! At least, with my regeneration, this pain should diminish to more tolerable levels in a few hours. Anyways, where is teacher?! I have a bone to pick with him!


    She looked around with her spiritual sense and found him attempting to kill someone. However, whenever Horatio Quay was close enough, his adversary kept teleporting away. Fuck, a spatial attributed cultivator. That explains the sphere of death that I nearly died to.


    [Get going,] Horatio Quay said abruptly to her, [I''ll explain later.]


    [Yes, sir,] Maxine replied and flew towards Earth as swiftly as she could. Who the fuck was that guy and why did they want to kill me? However, before she could think on that topic more, she noticed something and felt her face heat up in shame. Where did my clothes go?

 Chapter 193

    Maxine complained to herself mentally as she flew as fast as she could. Which was a lot slower than normal due to her damaged energy pathways. She had already donned her Shadow''s Embrace armor to maintain her modesty and thankfully, once it was out like this, it wouldn''t retreat back into her body unless it took a lot of damage.


    She had also reverted back to her base form to conserve energy and so her armor wouldn''t have to stretch itself thin to cover her frame. But she was more concerned about her air supply than her state of dress. She could create a portal to allow her to breathe, but due to her injuries, it would also lower her maximum speed even further. Thankfully, she didn''t have to worry about that for more than an hour before Horatio Quay caught up to her and rapidly dragged her back to Earth.


    "You couldn''t mentioned that my clothes had been destroyed when you told me to run," Maxine snapped at Horatio Quay as soon as they returned to Earth''s atmosphere.


    "So, you''re blaming me for the fact that you didn''t notice that?" Horatio Quay asked in obvious amusement.


    "Yes, I am," Maxine said firmly and was dumbfounded when he laughed.


    When he finally calmed down enough to speak, he commented, "Only a woman can blame a man for something he had no hand in."


    "You''re a sexist prick," Maxine growled at him.


    "But I''m not wrong," Horatio Quay stated with a smile.


    "Shut up," Maxine said sourly and winced in pain when her left leg twitched. Damn it. This pain is messing with me more than I thought.


    Finally, Maxine could see the camp and saw everyone was cheering. She was confused for a moment until she realized someone must''ve been observing the fight. God, I hope they were far enough away that they didn''t see anything. The last thing that I need is someone spreading a rumor that I fight naked. However, when they got closer to the ground, Maxine saw grandma Victoria and Hellen giving her angry glares. I knew this was coming, but I still don''t look forward to being yelled at. Oh, well. I might as well get it over with.


    Just as her feet touched down, though, she collapsed. She didn''t even know why she collapsed and tried to get back up immediately after. But no matter what she did, her limbs just didn''t have enough strength to lift her off the ground. It was at that moment that Hellen, literately, scooped Maxine up before running towards the medical tents.


    "Emily!" Hellen shouted just before she reached the medical tents, "Maxine''s hurt!" Emily was beside them as soon as they got into the medical tent and began examining Maxine before she was even laid down on a bed. Hellen meanwhile was explaining what had just happened.


    "She''s covered in cuts, but none of them are deep enough to make her loose her strength like that," Emily said out loud, "Ah, I found what the issue is. Her energy pathways are badly damaged, more so than they were earlier. Care to explain, Maxine?"


    "I was forced to use a limit-breaking technique to escape from a spatial attack that nearly killed me," Maxine said calmly, "My teacher can explain why. Because, honestly, I have no idea why that prick was trying to kill me."


    "Ah, yes, that guy," Horatio Quay said as he scratched the back of his head, "He''s an assassin, plain and simple. Although, I am curious why he would take a contract on you while knowing who your father is. I don''t know of anyone that would willingly make an enemy out of Guan like that." So, it''s likely that the idiot didn''t realize who my daddy is. Which wouldn''t be the surprising. The Alliance covers multiple galaxies and not everyone would have access to the latest news.


    "Do you have any idea who hired him?" grandma Victoria asked.


    "No, he didn''t reveal who his employer was," Horatio Quay replied with a flat stare.


    "You talked to him?" grandma Victoria asked, "Assassins are not known for being talkative."


    "I''m not sure if ''get out of my way'' counts as conversation," Horatio Quay answered.


    "Why are you guys still talking about this?" Maxine asked, "He was obviously hired by one of dad''s old enemies and to ensure that he wouldn''t be hunted, he tried to make it look like I tried and failed to use a singularity arrow. The Alchemist Association wouldn''t have me killed like that since they want daddy''s notes intact."


    "That doesn''t narrow it down much," Hellen commented.


    "Not in the least," Horatio Quay agreed, "But it''s something to go on. Now, let''s give these two young lovers some alone time." After he said that, he began walking out of the medical tent.


    "Mom, let''s give them some privacy like Horatio suggested. It''s not like they can do anything more than talk," Hellen said as she left.


    "I''ll leave you two alone then, and Emily, please, tell Hellen that you''re pregnant in the next few days. Or at the very least, before you start to show," grandma Victoria said happily as she winked at Emily before walking away.


    "Why did you tell her?" Emily demanded.


    "I thought you did," Maxine replied reflexively.


    "Then, how did she know?" Emily asked in confused tone.


    "Don''t under estimate the wisdom of a three hundred plus year old woman," Maxine said after thinking for a moment, "You probably have one of those almost imperceptible signs of a pregnant woman that grandma picked up on."


    "Either that or she spies on us more than your ''daddy'' does," Emily pointed out.


    "I ... didn''t consider that, but that''s also a possibility," Maxine reluctantly agreed and tried to unsuccessfully feed herself another nutritional pill, "I could use a little help." Emily rolled her eyes and snatched the nutritional pill from Maxine''s hand and fed it to her.


    "You''re practically paralyzed and now that I think about it, this has happened before, hasn''t it?" Emily asked, but didn''t give Maxine a chance to answer, "It happened right after you fought those tempest weasels. At least this time, you don''t have a compound fracture in your upper arm."


    "There is that," Maxine said.


    "I wonder if the cause of these similar injuries is the same," Emily said out loud and looked at Maxine in askance.


    "I felt a surge of strength in both instances when my life was on the line," Maxine admitted. But the first time that it happened, I didn''t know the battle god technique, so the cause isn''t exactly the same. However, the surge of strength felt almost identical, except that the first time it was more wild and untamed.


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    "It may have saved you, but it clearly has some drawbacks," Emily pointed out, "How long do you think it will take for you to be able to move?"


    "I''m not exactly sure," Maxine answered honestly, "But I know that I need a fucking vacation after this shit."


    "A vacation is a good idea and it gives us time to get things ready for the baby," Emily pointed out, "Although, we won''t really be able to pick out the clothes until we know what it''s gender is."


    "That is a problem," Maxine agreed, "But we have plenty of time until then."


    "I demand to see your planetary representative at once!" a woman said very loudly in dialect of elven that Maxine was unfamiliar with.


    "I''m sorry, but she is recovering from her injuries at the moment," Turan answered.


    "I didn''t ask to see her. I''m telling you to bring me to her. NOW!" the same woman said, "Now, get to it." At the point, Maxine sighed mentally at what she hoped wasn''t an elven ''Karen'' just outside and sent her spiritual sense outside to get a good look at this elf. Not surprisingly, it was a blonde high elf that was demanding to see her. Her extra long ears were a dead give away as to which subspecies she belonged to and the way she moved suggested that she was between two and three hundred years old. It figures they would show up after the fighting is over. Although, it''s best for everyone that they did. Their superior attitude gets them into trouble more often than not.


    "Let her in," Maxine said loud enough to be heard and sent a message to Emily via spiritual sense, [Record our encounter. I have a feeling that high elf is here for some reason other than helping us.]


    "Are you sure?" Turan asked from just outside the medical tent.


    "Yes, I''m sure," Maxine said. It''s better to get this over with.


    Turan grunted as he was shoved out of the way as a very angry looking blonde elf walked in. She practically looked down on Maxine as if she were a bug that she was forced to be in the same room with. "I''m here to deliver this to you," the high elf woman said in a snobbish tone and held out a knowledge stone, "For the life of me, I can''t see why the elders deigned to send me to this wretched mudball of a planet. So, if you don''t mind, I would appreciate if you took this off of my hands at once." No introduction? That''s considered extremely rude by even the most liberal elven tribe, and high elves are known for their strict sense of protocol. That is unless she''s trying to throw me off intentionally by behaving so rudely.


    "I can''t physically take it from you at the moment. I''m quite immobile from overexerting my energy pathways. If you don''t believe me, just ask my physician," Maxine answered in elven as she glanced at Emily for a moment, "So, you''re just going to have to set it down on my stomach if you want me to have it. Unless that is, you had very specific instructions that stated specifically that I had to quite literately take if from your hand."


    "As you wish," the high elf woman said as she set the knowledge stone on Maxine''s stomach and made a comment which pissed Maxine off, "I really can''t believe you are so unskilled that you would need to harm yourself in battle just to survive. I''ve never encountered such a problem."


    "For you to make such a childish statement, I doubt you''ve fought anything anywhere near your level or if you had, they were either drunk, drugged or injured before they fought you," Maxine said in a casual manner and noticed the lack of a marriage bangle on her wrist, "Oh, I see you''re not married yet. Nor do I see any trinket to show that you''re engaged. That''s odd for a high elf of your age. Is this due to some mental or physical defect? Although, with the manner in which you''ve behaved thus far, I would say guess the former."


    "How dare you!" the elven woman roared.


    "If you can''t handle getting insulted, you shouldn''t be so swift to insult others, bitch," Maxine said with a smile and when she saw the high elven woman was about to attack her, she added, "Oh, I wouldn''t do that if I were you. We wouldn''t want you to be labeled as a dishonorable coward that attacks the injured, would we?"


    The elven woman''s face twisted into rage and Maxine was certain she was going to attack her regardless of how it looked. However, she didn''t. Instead, she calmed down almost instantly as a smile spread across her lips and she simply said, "Look inside the knowledge stone. I await your response." Now, I''m wondering what''s in this thing for her to calm down like that. Clearly, she thinks that whatever is worthy of using as blackmail against me.


    Maxine sent her spiritual sense into the knowledge stone and was rather confused. Inside was a depiction of what looked like a male hydrakin causing all sorts of destruction in his rage and several scenes of several elven clans working together to fight him off. They kept this up until he ascended to the deity plane. At the end of these series of images was a question directed at her, ''Shall we reveal these images to the rest of the Alliance? Just keep in mind youngling that we have more than just these murals to provide evidence to the brutality and savagery of your kind.'' So, there was a true hydrakin before Lucas. Still, I don''t see why they wanted me to see this. Are they threatening Lucas? Or me?


    "Blackmail? Really?" Maxine asked in a deadpan voice.


    "Blackmail is such a vulgar term," the elven woman said with a wicked grin. She must not be from the high elven government. They wouldn''t send someone to blackmail me or daddy. Instead, they would destroy it to avoid pissing him off. So that means she was sent by a family that is looking for a means to rise quickly.


    "Go ahead and tell the Alliance," Maxine replied calmly, "I have thought of a dozen different arguments that will render most, if not all, of your so called evidence useless. One of which is that I only possess the bloodline of a hydra and if you''re thinking about using it against my little brother, you should remember who our father is. Because, clearly, your people have forgotten just how terrifying my father can be. So, I suggest you go back to your people and tell them leave me and my family alone."


    "Typical thuggish behavior," the high elven woman said in contempt.


    "How is stating facts thuggish?" Maxine asked.


    "Enough," the high elven woman growled, "I will not stoop to your level. Farewell."


    "Please, don''t come back," Maxine shouted at her back as she walked out of the medical tent and turned to Emily as she spoke in english, "Could you hold onto that knowledge stone?"


    "Sure," Emily said calmly as she picked it up and stashed it into her dimensional pouch, "Still, I can''t believe you asked me to record her."


    "It was a precaution and it seems it was necessary," Maxine said calmly, "She more or less admitted that she was trying to blackmail me. Hence if she tries to make that information public, I''ll just hand out the recording of her to the Alliance."


    "Perhaps, but I saw what was in that knowledge stone," Emily said, "Their threats are empty and hollow without anything concrete. Those murals looked ancient and we also have no idea about the upbringing of that man that went on a rampage."


    "Those are two of the same arguments that I thought of," Maxine pointed out.


    "Well, that''s good," Emily said and a small commotion started outside, "Now what?"


    "Now, I try to get some rest before my girlfriend yells at me," Maxine said with a small smile.


    "Good idea," Emily said while smiling, but her gaze diverted to just behind Maxine. She didn''t have any time to even process why Emily shifted her gaze before a voice sounded out behind her.


    "I''m Cindy Celtain with channel twelve news and I would like to ask you a few questions," a woman said calmly from just out of Maxine''s line of sight. Maxine spotted the Cindy''s cameraman out of the corner of her eye. I really should''ve expected that a journalist would be able to sneak past the guards. But how in the hell did she sneak her camera man in as well? I''m guessing that she must''ve bribed the guards somehow.


    "She won''t be answering any of your questions," Emily said angrily as she got inbetween Maxine and the cameraman.


    "But...," Cindy Celtain said, but was cut off by Emily, "I don''t care what your excuses are. Unless you have a special pass to be back here, leave." The woman seemed genuinely surprised at Emily''s firm stance. She''s clearly never seen Emily when she has put her foot down. I''m lucky to get a word in when she''s like this.


    "I''ll be back with that pass," Cindy Celtain said firmly as she begrudgingly left.


    Once they were out of ear shot, Maxine asked, "Is there really a pass to let them get back here?"


    "No, but she doesn''t need to know that," Emily said with an evil smirk.


    "I wonder how long it will take her to figure that out," Maxine asked while returning Emily''s smirk.


    "Who knows, but you should get back to resting," Emily said, "I''ll bring you something to eat in a little bit."


    "Just make sure you bring me a lot of meat," Maxine said as Emily left her sight. Well, today definitely sucked. And now I have to worry about that high elven bitch doing something stupid to get back at me for telling her to fuck off.

 Chapter 194

    Maxine felt like bashing her head against a wall in frustration as she struggled to walk properly through a park with Emily. She had needed to only rest for a single day before she regained some of her mobility and that was only because Guan had given her a pill to speed things along. It would be another few days at least before she was fully recovered. However, that wasn''t why she was frustrated.


    The reporters had grown bolder and quite literately wouldn''t leave her alone for more than a few minutes at a time. She had debated whether or not to ride one of her shadow wolves around to discourage them, since they were now larger than most horses, but discarded that idea. Even if it worked on some of them, there would still be a large number of reporters that wouldn''t give up anyways. Seriously, how stupid can they be? They''ve literately seen me unleash attacks that could END the planet and still they come to harass me. It makes me wonder sometimes if humanity is getting dumber as a species or that our self-preservation instincts are failing. Either way, it doesn''t look good.


    "Are you sure you don''t need me to help you walk?" Emily asked in concern, "You can barely walk straight without stumbling."


    "I''ll be fine," Maxine said with a weak smile and she felt angry when she recalled what Guan had told her earlier, "I''m still pissed at that assassin. That fucking prick put Earth at risk just to lure daddy away." Although, I doubt that guy took into consideration the level of firepower I had up my sleeve. Still, he recreated the effect of my singularity arrow to make it look like an accident. If Horatio Quay hadn''t been present, there is a very good chance he would''ve succeeded in killing me without any foul play being suspected. Unfortunately, that also means he knows that I''m Guan''s daughter. Too bad for him that he fucked up.


    "You know I''m not a violent person, but even I want to skin that bastard alive," Emily said with clear anger in her voice.


    "It''s also unprofessional to put innocents in harms way," Maxine added, "So, that''s a strong indicator that he''s not part of the Black Hand assassins. They have a very specific code of conduct and would be livid if one of their members pulled a stunt like this. That simple fact will make figuring out who he is much easier. There can''t be that many freelance spatial-type assassins running around and even fewer that are in the area." Emily nodded her head in agreement.


    [I apologize for interrupting, but I must go back to Hive territory,] Me''Lantra said via spiritual sense, [Both the inhabitants of your world and the Alliance have made it quite clear that they wish me to return to Hive territory. Although, not in those words. Your people can be quite ... colorful in their verbal attempts to drive me away.]


    [Farewell, Me''Lantra. May your journey be a safe one,] Maxine replied.


    [Farewell, Maxine,] Me''Lantra replied, [May you recover swiftly.] With that, the spiritual sense connection was severed.


    Maxine continued her walk for awhile longer before, she turned to Emily. "I think we should head back. I''m starting to get tired," Maxine announced.


    "Alright, you can rest at Amanda''s guild while I go back to work," Emily replied.


    "Sounds good to me," Maxine said as she turned to make her way towards Amanda''s guild, but noticed a foot print in the grass to her left. That foot is too small for it to belong to Turan, but it''s clearly an elven footprint due to how narrow it is. Could it be that high elven bitch? Hmm, a better question is how she is using such a good stealth technique. There are not many techniques available that are able to conceal one''s presence so completely that doesn''t use the shadow attribute.


    They began heading towards the Fire and Ice guild headquarters, and Maxine tried her best to ignore their invisible stalker. Unfortunately, now that she knew there was one, it was hard to ignore their existence.


    "Do you need me to help you find a room to rest in?" Emily asked once they were in the main lobby.


    "No, I''m fine," Maxine replied, "And if I need help, I can always ask the receptionist for it."


    "Alright," Emily said and she gave Maxine a quick peck on the cheek, "Take care of yourself."


    "I will," Maxine said to Emily as she left.


    Maxine quietly walked past the receptionist and headed towards a room that Amanda had set up for her earlier in the day. However, when she entered it, she saw a very faint silhouette of a woman out of the corner of her eye just before she shut the door. It''s definitely a woman, but I can''t tell much else about her beyond her height. It might be another shadow lord that''s keeping tabs on me from the shadows, but it''s best to be certain.


    "Don''t bother hiding anymore," Maxine announced, "I know that your there." But as a precaution, she had already summoned dozens of her wolves into her shadow and they were primed to strike at the first sign of hostility from her invisible stalker.


    "How did you spot me?" the high elven woman said in elven as she became visible, "And when?"


    "Just before I decided to return I saw your foot displace some grass," Maxine answered, "No matter how good the stealth technique, it''s impossible to conceal your physical presence."


    "Thank you. I''ll keep that detail in mind when I next stalk someone and I apologize for my earlier behavior the other day," the high elven woman said sincerely, "My master instructed me to check on you and that seemed like the most expedient method available to me. He is quite concerned about your wellbeing."


    "I can imagine so," Maxine replied coldly, "It''s not every day that he botches an assassination on someone with so many powerful elders."


    "That''s the very reason that I''m here," the high elven woman said calmly, "My master no longer wishes your death. Instead, he''s trying to find a loophole in his contract. Sadly, he''s only found one that he can work with."


    "Oh?" Maxine asked as she raised an eyebrow.


    "Yes, the wording in the contract stated that he had to make you disappear. However, they never stated if it had to be permanent or not," the high elven woman said with a slight smirk.


    "And why are you telling me this?" Maxine asked.


    "Well, my master wants to cooperate with him in making you disappear," the high elven woman replied.


    "I can make myself disappear to satisfy his contract," Maxine retorted as she remembered a world she hadn''t explored beyond expanding a certain cave, "So, why should I cooperate?"


    "Because both me and my master know that you have a fused soul and that the world you saw is closely linked to the other half of your soul. Otherwise, a portal to the same timeline wouldn''t form every time that you used your special attack," the high elven woman said with a smirk, "My master can send you there without causing you any significant injury and he''ll give you the means to come back." I''ll sooner believe that the sky is green than believe he won''t use that chance to kill me.


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    "You must think I''m quite stupid to even suggest that," Maxine said.


    "Hardly," the high elven woman said, "My master knows better than to kill you at this point. It would only ensure his legacy will disappear with him. It would be far wiser of him to simply make you disappear for a few months to fulfill his contract."


    "That''s where you are wrong," Maxine pointed out, "Your master is already a dead man walking. There is nothing he can do that will change that simple fact."


    "I fear you are correct," the high elven woman agreed, "If he has no other choice, he will reveal the name of his employer to your father, but only as a last resort. He has a reputation to maintain."


    "That might work, but I wouldn''t count on it," Maxine replied smoothly, "Daddy is rather brutal to anyone that tries to attack me." Although, he''s been showing more restraint lately, but his response is still quite brutal. However, it''s not out of the realm of possibility that he would spare the would-be assassin''s students, if he were to give up his employer. But his life will end no matter who he gives up.


    "Couldn''t you have a word with your father about showing my master mercy?" the high elven woman asked.


    "I could, but I seem to remember that prick trying to kill me," Maxine said as she crossed her arms, "Anyways, daddy''s idea of mercy is to kill painlessly, which probably isn''t what your master had in mind when he sent you here to beg for his life."


    "He isn''t begging for his life," the high elven woman said calmly, "He simply doesn''t wish for his career and life to end in this manner. He doesn''t care if he were to die while fulfilling a contract. What irks him is leaving a contract unfulfilled. He''s trying to find a way for my survival. Saving his own would just be a bonus. He has no illusions that he will die." Wow, I never considered that option. Wait, she mentioned the he wanted to preserve his legacy. Does that mean his family? Or rather his students?


    "I''ll have a word with him, but no promises," Maxine answered.


    "Thank you," the high elven woman replied, "I''ll be by tomorrow for your father''s answer."


    As soon as Maxine was certain that the high elven woman had actually left, she collapsed into a chair. Damn her. I didn''t want to know if it was possible to go back to that timeline and now, here she is offering me a free fucking ticket to return there. If this offer had been given to me before, I would''ve said fuck no, but now, I''m not so sure. I feel some responsibility towards it after daddy of that timeline royally fucked them over, but I''ve integrated into this timeline. There''s just not a big enough reason for me to go. Not to mention that I have no idea if the time stream has synced up or if there is a 10 year difference. It''s literately impossible to know unless I actually go there. There are just too many unknowns and Emily is pregnant. I want to be nearby in case she needs me. I should still talk to everyone else to see what they think before I make a real decision.


    [It''s up to you to stay or go, and you''re right. I will kill that man regardless of what he tells me,] Guan said via spiritual sense. Hearing his voice out of nowhere startled Maxine and she quickly put her hand over her racing heart.


    [Damn it, daddy. Don''t you know the meaning of privacy?] Maxine asked.


    [Not when it comes to your safety. When I discovered that woman following you, I had to be certain of her intentions,] Guan replied, [However, she is correct. It''s possible for an immortal stage spatial cultivator to arrange transport between timelines, but whoever is involved will be punished harshly by the Alliance. But that''s only if they can both catch you and prove that you did so intentionally.]


    [So, he can physically send me to another timeline?] Maxine asked in surprise.


    [He would have to key the portal to the male half of your soul, but yes, it''s doable,] Guan answered calmly, [But I don''t know how time flows in that timeline. It could very well be dozens of years ahead of this one or mere minutes. It would require that someone peer into it to be certain though. However, I could estimate the time difference if, and only if, I knew what that world looks like.]


    [I got a good look at it,] Maxine replied as she sent a mental image of the ''greener'' Earth to Guan.


    [Hmm, it''s in between three and six years ahead of ours,] Guan answered calmly, [Before you refute, you have to remember that humans in that timeline have suffered horribly and their numbers have dropped to a tiny fraction of what it was originally. It''s left the forests nearly unhindered in it''s growth. With essence to accelerate this process, it is quite possible for that Earth to become noticeably greener over that time.]


    [That still doesn''t eliminate the big possibility that this assassin will simply kill me to fulfill his contact,] Maxine pointed out.


    [He won''t kill you,] Guan answered with certainty, [He knows that if he does that I will kill his student and anyone else related to him.] Daddy''s ruthless as always.


    [But there is still that possibility,] Maxine said.


    [It exists, but it''s so close to zero as to be ignored,] Guan answered with calm, [If it bothers you that much, I can give you a defensive artifact that should automatically shield you for at least a full minute from a being at his level. That should give you plenty of time to flee or for me to end him.]


    [Fine, but I''m going to talk with Emily about this before I make a decision,] Maxine replied, [She''s pregnant and I don''t want to leave her while she in her present condition without talking to her about this.]


    [I know of her condition,] Guan answered, [And I wouldn''t recommend letting it become public knowledge just yet. I need to set up a few safety measures for my grandchild before that.] That''s kind of sweet, I think. But when it comes to him, safety measures usually mean murder traps from which no one can escape. I only needed to take one look outside of our home on the moon to realize how serious he is about protecting his family and that defensive artifact around Orianna''s neck is only defensive in name. That thing that comes out of it to protect her would give most immortals a fight for their lives. I actually feel bad for anyone that tries to hurt her.


    [Just let me know when you think Emily''s suitably defended,] Maxine replied.


    [I will,] Guan answered, [We will have to chat another time. Your mother is giving me an angry glare and I have no idea why.] Sucks to be you.


    [Talk to you later then,] Maxine replied just before their spiritual sense connection was severed.


    Maxine gently spread out her spiritual sense and connected to Emily''s mind to ask her, [Are you free to talk?]


    [For the moment,] Emily replied, [What''s up?]


    [I just got a visit from someone unexpected,] Maxine answered and sent her memories of her chat with the high elven woman.


    [She has to be lying, right?] Emily asked, [I don''t see how someone can go between timelines.]


    [I would''ve agreed with you if daddy hadn''t said it was possible for that woman''s master,] Maxine said.


    [Do you want to go there?] Emily asked hesitantly.


    [Part of me does, but I''m not sure if I will or not,] Maxine answered, [There is just no one left for me back there and I have responsibilities as Earth''s representative, not to mention that you''re pregnant. There are just too many things keeping me here for me to even consider it.]


    [We both know that you''re going to go regardless of your excuses,] Emily said in a knowing tone, [You''ve always jumped into danger to help others. It didn''t matter if you knew them or what you were doing. That''s one of the reasons I love you. So, just do what you need to do.] She knows me all too well. It was really bad over in that timeline and I want to help them, even after all this time. Although, I hate to admit it, but the thought of seeing Jane''s grave in the other timeline makes me feel as if someone is twisting a knife in my guts. She died because I failed to protect her. If she was struck anywhere else other than her heart, she could''ve survived by healing herself. I''m such a fucking.. wait a second. Is it possible she could heal an injury to her own heart? I never considered it. I could do it over time by patching up a hole in my heart or creating a heart construct until I grew a new one.


    [Maxine?! Is everything alright?!] Emily asked with concern. Crap, I didn''t realize that my emotions were bleeding through the spiritual sense connection.


    [Yes, I''m alright,] Maxine replied unsteadily, [But I have a question. Do you think you could heal your heart if had a hole shot through it?]


    [Um, I don''t know where that came from, but maybe?] Emily replied uncertainly, [I might be able to keep myself alive for a few months if I immediately patched the hole, but it would be impossible for me to survive on my own for more than a few months. Why do you ask?] That kind of patch job would make her heartbeat weak or put her in a death-like state for a short while until her body got used to it. The chances that Howard''s men both found her and realized who she was in that timeframe are dismally low. The chances that she would still be alive even with machine assistance are even lower.


    [Because the you in the other timeline had her heart pierced,] Maxine answered.


    [I''m sorry,] Emily said sadly, [But I don''t see how that me is still amongst the living.]


    [Yeah, I thought as much myself,] Maxine admitted, [Thanks for talking. See you later on tonight.]


    [See you later, then,] Emily said. Yeah, I will and we will make the most of our time. I''m definitely going to have my work cut out for me when I go to the other timeline. Hell, I don''t even have a clue as to improve their situation over there.

 Chapter 195

    After giving her response and waiting for a few days to fully recover, Maxine ascended to Earth''s magnetosphere while in her full-hybrid form. That high elven woman said I should just fly up here to meet her and her master. Thankfully, daddy gave me the artifact that he promised that he would. He said it was rated to shield me, even if I''m thrown through an unstable portal, and I''m a little curious as to why he insisted that I come up here in this state. Knowing him, he''s probably going to do something unpleasant to ensure that a certain someone keeps their word.


    Once she was in place, she looked around carefully with both her eyes and spiritual sense. For several minutes, she couldn''t find any trace of them, but when she finally did, she rolled her eyes. Guan had his left hand wrapped around a high elf woman''s throat and the spatial assassin was approaching her from the opposite direction.


    [This isn''t what we agreed to,] the spatial assassin growled via spiritual sense.


    [I''m aware of your deal with my daughter,] Guan answered, [But this measure is just to ensure you do exactly as you said that you would and my daughter will not walk through that portal until I confirm it''s safe enough. Remember, if you kill my child, I will kill yours and after, I will kill you in the slowest and most painful means at my disposal. Now, give my daughter the return artifact.] Wait, what?! That high elf woman is this prick''s daughter?!


    Without much warning a small bracelet was thrown at Maxine and she caught it with her tail. She swiftly examined it. It had a silver hue with a flowering vine pattern covering it''s surface and it had a single blue gem with an intricate spatial array engraved within it. When she gave it a closer inspection, she found that the flowering vine was actually a beautifully hidden shielding array. She had gotten another bracelet from Guan earlier that was gold with a shield-like symbol on it. I like this silver one more for it''s appearance and judging from the array within that gem, it''s a single use item.


    [It''s beautiful,] Maxine commented.


    [It didn''t seem right to give an ugly artifact to a young woman,] he replied before glancing at the high elf woman in Guan''s grasp, [I''ll create the portal now. Just be sure to release my daughter, afterwards.]


    [I am a man of my word,] Guan answered calmly. That he is.


    As he formed the portal, the assassin explained, [That bracelet is the shielding artifact and the embedded gem will return you to this timeline. You just need to send a small thread of your energies to activate the return array. While that artifact can shield you from taking damage from within the pathway, it cannot protect you from anything else that you might experience. I can imagine the whole experience will be very unpleasant. Your current form should mitigate that somewhat. Although, you should expect nausea at the very least.]


    [And at worst?] Maxine asked.


    [Disorientation, temporary blindness, temporary loss of muscle control, loss of consciousness, uncomfortable sensations and you might soil yourself,] the assassin replied. I wish I hadn''t asked.


    [Your ''daughter'' didn''t mention that before,] Maxine stated.


    [I didn''t tell her that because I didn''t think it was important enough to merit a warning,] he replied, [Now, I just need you to pour some of your energies into this portal to set it''s destination.]


    Maxine did as she was bid and asked, [Now, what?]


    [Now, you can go through this portal and I suggest you put on a breathing apparatus before you do so,] he answered, [And you will release my daughter.]


    [I will after I''ve confirmed she''s arrived on the other side,] Guan answered.


    Maxine faced the portal for a moment before sending Guan a message, [Be sure to send his daughter far away before you kill him. She should never have to witness how he will die.]


    [I was going to,] Guan answered, [Now, go through that portal. It''s rapidly draining his strength.]


    [Alright,] Maxine answered, [See you in three months then.] Maxine looked at the other Earth through the portal for a moment before closing her eyes, putting on her breathing mask and plunging herself into the portal.


    She was only in the portal''s passageway for only a few seconds, but those few seconds were a nightmarish experience that she never wanted to go through again. She felt several spots that expanded her flesh roaming across her body. Simultaneously, she was jerked around so violently that she thought that she was thrown into the Devil''s fourth dimensional washing machine on the rip and tear setting.


    When she reached the other side, she opened her eyes to find she was blind, and she couldn''t feel her left arm. Thankfully, she was only experiencing slightly nauseous and after a quick pulse of her spiritual sense, found to her relief that her left arm was intact. Ugh, that sucked and I''m willing to bet that he made the trip through rougher than it needed to be. At least, this bracelet held up like he said it would. But I REALLY do not look forward to the return trip.


    Carefully, she sent her spiritual sense out and mentally sighed in relief when she saw that she was heading towards Earth. Although, she was moving a little faster than she felt comfortable with in her current state, so she tried to slow herself down only for her energies to behave sluggishly. That''s not good. I can''t push my energies out enough to stop my approach. Only slow it down. Another fucking side-effect of travel between timelines. Well, I hope I regain control of my energies quickly. My scales can probably hold up against re-entry, but I rather not find out.


    Unfortunately, she wasn''t recovering fast enough. Thankfully, she was able to slow her descent towards Earth. She was still going way too fast, so she turn around so her cape of snakes and quills could take the brunt of the heat from her re-entry.


    Within moments, she could feel the temperature increasing as the thin air tried to impede her descent. The temperature quickly climbed and she grit her teeth against the searing pain. Thankfully, she was slowing down much faster than friction alone would accomplish and the intense heat didn''t last long. But the scales on her cape of snakes were still severely burned.


    Maxine swiftly swallowed a couple nutritional pills to speed up her regeneration. By this point, she had regained her vision and tried to get a fix on her location. Sadly, all she saw was a dense forest for in all directions. When she expanded out her spiritual sense, she sighed in relief since she spotted a few familiar landmarks. What she didn''t like was the fact that she was roughly two miles south of a large encampment with high walls. So, I guess that prick aimed me towards Missouri on purpose, but who would''ve guessed he''d put me so close to General McKenzie''s base camp. This could be either good or bad. I avoided this place like death because of how nasty the rumors about him were. On the upside, even if those rumors are true, I''m powerful enough that it shouldn''t matter. And it looks like I''m going to make contact in a small clearing.


    She swiftly changed out of what was left of her clothes and into her leathery combat armor. She spread out her spiritual sense a few seconds before impact to see if anyone was nearby and to her surprise, there was a rather sizeable patrol less than one hundred feet from where she was going to impact. Shit. I have no idea how these guys will react to a weird looking female ''beastkin'' falling out of the sky with the force of a fucking meteor.


    When she hit the ground, she was stunned for a couple seconds as she thought she might, but thankfully, she wasn''t injured. Good. I''m not injured and I''ve almost regained complete control over my energies. Now is a good as time as any to give my grandparents a reason to come to this Earth. I just wish I didn''t have to use up so much of my energy in one shot to make it clear that they have a living relative here.


    "Sophie, check it out," Maxine heard a man with a very deep voice say.


    "James, I''m not going to ''check it out,''" a woman said in response, "I could be a giant mole and all of you know that I fucking hate rodents." Maxine no longer paid attention to them as she finally regained full control of her energies and began her plan before she gradually gathered her energies.


    "I''ll check it out," a familiar man''s voice said as he very quickly got closer, "What the hell?!" Maxine looked over her shoulder at the man and felt like she knew him from somewhere. But she couldn''t quite place where from. He had dirty blonde hair and he was wearing forest camo. But from his perspective, Maxine was literately glowing with black, silver and white light.


    She didn''t wait for him to recover as she rapidly gathered her energies for her attack and spread out her spiritual sense. She quickly targeted all of the stronger essence beasts that were appeared to be actively hostile towards humans. Once she was certain that she had targeted all of the beasts like that on this continent, she levitated a few dozen feet above the ground, lifted up her arms and began unleashing thousands of energy bolts into the air.


    The three that talked earlier and the rest of their group was looking at Maxine with awe and fear, but they quickly recovered. They unsheathed their weapons and surrounded her, even as she hovered in the air. She didn''t want to spook them and she revealed how much that attack had taken out of her as drifted towards the ground. Ugh, that move drained more than half of my total reserves. At least, this makes it easier to sell being exhausted.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    "Command, we have a situation," James said without taking his eyes off of Maxine, "A new type of beastkin with immense power has been spotted a couple miles south of your location. Please, advise. Over."


    While he was receiving orders, Maxine''s feet reached the ground and she didn''t have to act that much as she stumbled towards the man with the dirty blonde hair in exhaustion. Surprisingly, he rushed forward and caught her before she could fall. She looked at his face and she finally realize why he looked familiar. He was one of the boys that had tried to ask her on a date while she was still in middle school.


    "Mike?" Maxine said unconsciously before realizing what she had done and used that moment to act like she passed out. I hope he''s the same kind of guy in this timeline as my own. If not, I have enough strength left to escape and find a less secure place to recuperate at while I''m in this timeline.


    "You know her?" Sophie asked incredulously, "Why the hell didn''t you mention that you knew a new type of beastkin?" Maxine chose this moment to begin reverting back to her base form.


    "An actual fucking shapeshifter?!" one of the others exclaimed in surprise before James spoke, "Command has ordered us to bring her back to base and resume our patrol. So, who is going to escort Mike and little miss shapeshifter back to base?"


    "I''ll do it," Sophie said.


    "Alright, then. See you two back at base in a few hours," James said, "The rest of you get back in formation. We''ve got a job to do."


    Mike shifted his hold on Maxine to put her in a princess carry and started to walk North. Maxine did her best to remain limp, but wasn''t happy to be carried by a man.


    "So, who is she?" Sophie asked.


    "I''m not sure. She looks very familiar, but I can''t seem to place where I''ve seen her before," Mike answered.


    "Weird," Sophie said, "Wait a sec. Could you pull out that picture of that girl you''ve been looking for?"


    "Sure, one second," Mike answered as he shifted his grip slightly and handed Sophie something. God, I wish I could use my spiritual sense to see what they are doing. I can''t risk that they will be able to sense me doing that with one of them quite literately carrying me. I can only feign unconsciousness for now to get a read on their disposition towards me.


    "Holy shit," Sophie said, "If it wasn''t for the different hair color and her mismatched eyes, she could be your girl''s twin." Excuse me? His girl? I think I''m missing some key details here.


    "What? Are you sure?!" Mike said excitedly, "Do you think she knows where Maxine is?"


    "I don''t know, but it''s worth a try to ask her when she wakes up," Sophie replied, "Hell, she could be your Maxine. She knew you by name, afterall."


    "I didn''t consider that, but like you said, it''ll have to wait until we get back," Mike said with a hint of nervousness as he picked up the pace, but Maxine could sense a small hint of hope in his tone.


    A few minutes later, Maxine could hear sounds from ahead of them and chose that moment to open her eyes in order to check out the outside of the so-called camp. It was surrounded by 30 ft tall walls made of concrete and she spotted several cultivators patrolling the top of it. She only saw one gate from where she was and it had two massive steel doors that were wide open. However, a man in a heavily worn lab coat was practically bouncing on his feet in anticipation for their arrival.


    "Is this the shapeshifter?!" the man in the lab coat asked excitedly, "Oh, it seems she''s awake. Can you tell us your name, miss? And are you hurting anywhere?"


    "No," Maxine answered in a very weak voice.


    "We best give you a check up, just to be safe," the man in the lab coat said, "Please, take her to hospital. My name is Malcom Maverick, but most people call me Doc. And I didn''t hear what your name is."


    "Mana," Maxine answered weakly as they began walking. She spotted a couple large buildings ahead of them. She guessed that one of them was the hospital, but she doubted that it was just a hospital.


    "I don''t mean to pry, but have you seen a young woman that looks a lot like yourself?" Mike asked cautiously.


    "My sister," Maxine replied. Technically, I''m not lying.


    "Interesting, and where is she?" Malcom asked before anyone else could while practically bouncing with every step, "We could go pick her up for you."


    "Dead," Maxine replied.


    "How?" Mike asked in a trembling voice.


    "Fire," Maxine answered and closed her eyes again as if she were too exhausted to continue.


    "Could you be more specific?" Malcom asked with obvious curiosity, "Oh, it seems we wore her out. I can always ask her more questions later. First, I need to get Jessie to give her a full body scan. I need to know how her skeletal structure differs from our own. It might give us a clue as to how she can change her shape." At that moment, Maxine could feel Mike trembling and felt a few drops of water fall onto her face. Oh, shit. I didn''t think he cared about me that much. We barely spoke more than a few words to each other. I only took note of his name because he stuttered a lot when he asked me out on a date.


    "Can you give him a minute?" Sophie asked.


    "Certainly, but try not to take too long," Malcom replied, but Maxine could hear the impatience in his voice.


    "Thanks," Sophie said gratefully, before she got closer and asked in a gentle tone, "Anything we can do for you?"


    "Yes, don''t do any unnecessary tests on Maxine''s sister," Mike said hoarsely, "I''ve heard the rumors around how you''ve been getting your results."


    "She is our only specimen," Malcom replied calmly, "I wouldn''t dream of harming her unnecessarily." Oh, great. This prick has shoddy ethics. The joke''s on him though. My skin is too durable for any exploratory surgeries and even if they do, my acidic blood will dissolve any of his instruments too quickly for it to be worth the effort.


    "Your idea of unnecessary and mine are two very different things, doc," Mike said angrily, "And I remember that the general was none too pleased with you the last time he caught you experimenting on cultivators."


    "Yes, yes, I know. Non-invasive procedures only," Malcom said dismissively, "Now, could you bring her inside? I''m eager to examine a genuine shapeshifter."


    "I noticed," General McKenzie said calmly. He sounds both a lot older and sterner than in my timeline.


    "Oh, general! I didn''t expect you to come for such a trivial event," Malcom said.


    "Do not take me for a fool, Malcom," General McKenzie stated firmly, "If I didn''t come here to remind you, who knows what you would''ve done to her to find out the secrets of her biology and make her an enemy in the process. We do not need any more enemies. We need allies."


    "Understood," Malcom said neutrally.


    "Good. Now, what''s wrong with her?" General McKenzie asked.


    "Exhaustion as far as we can tell, sir," Sophie answered.


    "Then, stop wasting time out here and find her a bed, soldier," General McKenzie ordered, "And until further notice, you two will be her bodyguards. I don''t trust the doctor to behave himself." Maxine heard Malcom release a frustrated sigh before she was carried inside. Well, it seems the rumors in this timeline were wrong about you, old man. Still, I have a problem that I need to fix. How the hell am I going to explain how I know Mike''s name?


    Maxine was carried inside and laid down on a relatively clean bed before Malcom did a few tests. Thankfully, they had another cultivator scan her body before they attempted to draw her blood and found just how acidic and toxic it was. After that, Malcom simply left her alone with her two bodyguards.


    She laid down for few hours before sitting up and hanging her legs off of the side. Before her bodyguards could say a word, she slowly transformed back into her full-hybrid form and looked at her hands as they changed into claws. "Damn it," Maxine cursed and donned a resigned expression, "Every damn time. For once, I was hoping to stay normal for more than a few seconds." I hope they buy this little ploy of mine.


    "You can''t control it?" Sophie asked incredulously, "That sucks."


    "No shit," Maxine said as she turned to Mike, "Where did you bring me, Mike?"


    "You passed out, so we brought you to our camp''s hospital," Mike answered.


    "I see," Maxine said cautiously, "Why does this place smell like a research facility?"


    "Because it doubles up as one," Malcom said as he walked into the room and gave Sophie an angry glare before continuing, "I hope you don''t mind if we do a few tests while you''re here. We just want to better understand how your body works for the betterment of all humankind."


    "If you so much as touch me, I''m ripping your arms and legs off," Maxine said angrily, but her tone softened when she looked at Mike, "Well, you''re an exception, though. I thought your stuttering was kind of cute when you asked my sister out on a date. It''s too bad that she was too afraid of you to give you an answer. Otherwise, you might''ve had a chance with her."


    "How did you know about that?!" Mike asked in surprise.


    "How do you think? Me and my sister shared nearly everything through our telepathic link," Maxine answered, "And I''m glad that I never mentioned it to those assholes in the lab coats. Maxine would''ve lost herself to madness much sooner had she been taken to that place."


    "Could you elaborate?" Malcom asked as his eyes sparkled.


    "I can, but I won''t," Maxine said as she did her best to give him a suspicious glare as she continued, "I prefer not to think about what that those fuckers did to me." Letting them come to the belief that I was taken from my parents and experimented on is the best I can come up with. It''s literately the only thing that I can think of to explain why me and Orianna weren''t raised together. Afterall, I''ve never even heard of twins being separated at birth from a pair of parents that wanted children.


    "I don''t blame you. It sounds like you had it rough, even before everything went to hell," Sophie said sympathetically and frowned for a moment before asking, "But why are you so relaxed if that happened to you? If I were you, I wouldn''t trust anyone, especially anyone that I just met."


    "It''s simple," Maxine answered, "Even in a weakened state, it would take you a lot of effort to even hurt me and now that I''ve recovered, you don''t even qualify as a threat."


    "Even with a thousand others to back her up?" General McKenzie asked as he walked into the room. Ah, someone must''ve notified him that I woke up via spiritual sense.


    "The only thing that would change is how long it would take me to kill everyone," Maxine answered coldly while emitting a tiny fraction of her killing intent, "And I would still come out of that fight relatively unharmed."


    "If you''re that strong, why don''t you help the rest of humanity?" General McKenzie asked without showing even the slightest sign that her killing intent was effecting him. The others, however, were sweating nervously.


    "I''ve already given all of the help that I''m willing to give," Maxine answered and when she saw disappointment form on General McKenzie''s face, she added, "But, your group is different from the others that I''ve met so far. Usually when I wake up, everyone freaks out when I change and they tries to kill me. It''s rather nice to wake up to a non-threatening atmosphere. Do you mind if I hang around here for a few months?"


    "Not at all. Stay as long as you like," General McKenzie said calmly.


    "Thank you," Maxine said and gave them a hopeful look, "By the way, does anyone in this camp know how to make chocolate?" I''ll get them help the same way that I got help for my Earth. Once the female cultivators in this timeline get a taste of chocolate, this Earth''s future will be secured. And knowing grandma, she will either send Uncle Zeph, or come herself, to come looking for me after my little light show. Afterall, my previous surge of power wasn''t nearly as extreme yet it still caught there attention and this time I pumped out enough energy to make it clear that we are closely related. Still, I''m surprised General McKenzie didn''t pick up on my bullshit. He''s normally very perceptive. Either that or he knows that I''m bullshitting and just doesn''t want to risk loosing a potential ally by calling me out on it. Only time will tell.

 Chapter 196

    Maxine hummed happily while she waited for a batch of chocolate to be prepared. Her tail was involuntarily waving back and forth while she watched the chocolatier work. A few children of various ages, some younger women and a lot of middle-aged women had gathered nearby ever since the sweet smell of chocolate began to spread out. I''m so glad that they had someone that could make chocolate. It was completely worth the effort to make a run for cocoa beans and sugar cane. I just wish I didn''t have to wait a week for those beans to ferment. While they can be dried, the taste and smell are just so much better when you do it this way.


    While she was distracted, a small child jumped on her tail and held on with their arms and legs. The children had somehow figured out that she loved their company and their parents were worried about them at first. That was until their health started to improve while being near Maxine. She just couldn''t help herself when she saw any of them hurt or sick.


    Maxine dismissed those thoughts as smiled and she looked over her shoulder at the laughing child. But she did a double take when she saw a little boy that was the spitting image of Maxwell when he was at that age. What the fuck?! Where did this kid come from? And why the hell does he look so much like Max? No, I need to calm down. The resemblance could just be a coincidence. That chances that I sired a child in my previous life is dismally. Particularly since it was usually a one night stand between jobs.


    "Charlie, let me try!" a little girl demanded. She looked very similar to the little boy that was now latched onto her tail. Maxine couldn''t resist the smile that was slowly spreading on her face. It didn''t take long for the children to figure out that I''m friendly with them and no one else. My full-hybrid form has made me increasingly more aggressive from staying in it for every waking hour. I think that''s why General McKenzie has taken to only coming by to talk to me while I''m hanging out with these children. I tend to be a lot calmer and nicer when I''m around them.


    "Just a few more minutes," Charlie said happily.


    "No, let me try it, now, or I''ll tell great grandpa," the little girl demanded with a stomp.


    "Oh? But wouldn''t you want to watch him hold on when I make my tail wiggle like a worm?" Maxine asked the little girl.


    "Do the wiggle worm!" the little girl said excitedly and Maxine obliged her. However, she wiggled her tail just enough to make it fun for Charlie without throwing him off. His laughter and that of the little girl was music to Maxine''s ears. It was too bad that some of the nearby women looked on with a great deal of concern and even a few cultivators moved closer to catch him should he fall.


    Several small children chimed in that they wanted a turn as well. Maxine smiled at their antics. Even in this nightmarish world, children will be children.


    "Charles, that''s enough. Let your sister have a turn," General McKenzie said calmly and Maxine became suspicious. However, she quickly dismissed it since he had memorized the names and faces of everyone under his command. It was no surprise that he would remember the names of the children within the camp.


    "Okay, great grandpa," Charlie said in a disappointed tone and when she stopped moving her tail, he let go to let his sister have a turn. But internally, her mind had become chaotic. They called him great grandpa. Could those really be Jane''s kids? Or is he asking all of the children to call him that? I need to find out.


    "Thank you for entertaining the children," General McKenzie said with a small smile after each child had a turn holding onto her tail, "It does wonders for my men''s morale to hear their laughter."


    "Don''t worry about it," Maxine answered, "I like kids and they seem to genuinely like me back too."


    "Indeed," General McKenzie said calmly, "Just be careful not to hurt any of them. Their mothers will take it out of your hide if you do."


    "Oh, I know. I''ve seen what happens when you hurt a mamma''s baby," Maxine replied as she shuddered for a moment, "I almost felt bad for that wolf. On the plus side, a certain kid now has a nice new wolf skin coat now." General McKenzie only raised his eyebrow at that.


    Maxine was about to make another comment when she felt a familiar sensation flow through her and she looked up towards the sky. I was just scanned, but not with spiritual sense. And it''s too soon to be visited by the Kavros clan or anyone else for that matter. They need at least a month to travel here, even with their fastest ship. So, that begs the question. Who just scanned me?


    "Children, I think you should go to your parents now," Maxine stated and turned to face General McKenzie, "We''re going to have some company and I don''t know about their disposition towards us." While waiting for him to respond, Maxine spread out her spiritual sense towards the sky to find the ships. However, she doubted they were within her range just yet. Earth could be scanned using various sensors from literately millions of miles away.


    "Should I get my soldiers ready?" General McKenzie asked and was quietly thankful that she revealed that she could ''feel'' it whenever someone tried to analyze her with scanners of any kind.


    "I don''t think it would matter if you did," Maxine replied honestly, "Anyone capable from traveling through space is probably around my level of strength. Your ''soldiers'' would just get in my way." I not lying. The strongest person in their group would most likely be at my level. The rest would most likely be silver stage.


    "If I didn''t know any better I would think that you expected these visitors," General McKenzie said without changing his expression.


    "Perhaps," Maxine said evasively, "But it doesn''t change the fact that they are here, does it?"


    "No, it does not," General McKenzie said.


    "In any case, they''re outside of my detection range," Maxine said out loud after searching the skies and space above them thoroughly with her spiritual sense and swiftly changed the subject, "So, I might as well wait for that chocolate to be ready until I can sense them. It smells absolutely divine."


    "That it does. I would like to thank you again for gathering so much of those ingredients," General McKenzie replied without missing a beat, "It''s been quite some time since we''ve had access to them."


    "I just wanted to have enough chocolate to last me awhile," Maxine answered.


    "But for you to gather so much of it suggests you had other motives in mind," General McKenzie stated.


    "Perhaps," Maxine said evasively and looked skyward again when she felt something come within her spiritual sense range, "Oh, their ship is finally close enough for me to sense it."


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    "Who are the owners of this ''ship''?" General McKenzie asked with a serious tone, "And are they hostile?"


    "Hmm, I''m not sure. I''m not familiar with it''s design or the markings on it," Maxine answered honestly and she saw General McKenzie narrow his eyes ever so slightly.


    "You were expecting their arrival," General McKenzie stated, "Was this what you meant when you said you gave humanity all the help that you''re willing to give?"


    "Something like that," Maxine answered, "I''ll be right back. I''m going to ask them a few questions." She didn''t give him any chances to ask any more questions and leapt into the air. She floated for a moment before rocketing off into the sky and glanced at General McKenzie before she was too far away to see his expression. Damn, I didn''t surprise him. I guess it''s not that much of a stretch that I could fly. His people found me floating in the air, afterall.


    After a few minutes, she got close enough to see inside of the ship and was slightly disappointed to find it only housed a single occupant. She mentally shrugged before she contacted him via spiritual sense, [Why have you intruded into my territory?]


    [Your territory? This planet has no owner and is currently under the protection of the Alliance,] the man responded.


    Maxine blasted him with her killing intent and the full force of her cultivation before she sent sent a serpentine roar into his head, [ANSWER ME!] Simultaneously, she landed on his ship right infront of his cockpit and did her best to look angry.


    [Yes, ma''am. I''ve been sent to investigate an energy surge that originated on this planet on behalf of the Kavros Clan and compare it to one that they provided to me. I believe they''re looking for a lost relative,] the man responded in a cowering tone, [Please, I''m just trying to provide for my family.]


    [How long ago was this ''energy surge'' detected?] Maxine asked.


    [Roughly a week ago,] he answered automatically.


    [I am the culprit of that ''energy surge,''] Maxine told him, [So, you just need to scan my energies, correct?]


    [Yes, ma''am,] he replied fearfully, [Can I?]


    [Yes,] Maxine said, [But only take a scan of my energy and nothing else.] A moment later she felt a scan brush over her body, but it didn''t penetrate beyond her scales.


    [The energy signal that my employers provided me with doesn''t match up with yours, but it''s close enough for the owner of the original signal to be either your mother or grand mother,] he answered calmly, but she could still sense his underlying fear of her.


    [Report your findings, then,] Maxine told him as she turned to leave, [I await my kin on the planet below.]


    [One last thing,] he said and Maxine paused as she looked at him, [Two other groups requested information about my findings as well: The Alchemist Association and the Divine Marks clan.]


    [Neither of those names mean anything to me, but thank you for notifying me,] Maxine replied before severing the spiritual sense connection. I should''ve known those fuckers would be involved. I can deal with them easily enough. The Alchemist Association won''t have much of a reason to mess with me so long as I don''t make any potions or pills for as long as I stay in this timeline. As for the Divine Marks clan, it would be in their best interest if they don''t mess with me. If they do, I don''t mind thinning out their numbers.


    It didn''t take her long to return to the base camp and she found that the children had returned back to just outside of the chocolatier''s kitchen. She landed right behind them and smiled. A moment later, the chocolatier asked, "Alright, who wants to get a taste of the first batch?"


    A chorus of children said over each other, "ME!"


    Maxine smiled and shook her head while the children ran forward to collect a piece of chocolate. A few of them tried to sneak off with two pieces, but were caught before they could do more than reach for it. Once they had each gotten one, Maxine strode forward and took a piece for herself.


    As soon as she began chewing it, she unconsciously groaned. It had a far better taste than any store bought chocolate that she had ever eaten. However, even as she slowly ate it, she couldn''t stop herself from looking at ''Charlie'' out of the corner of her eye. She had to resist the urge to compare his genetic code against Maxwell''s. If he really was her child in this timeline, she didn''t know if she could abandon him or his twin sister. It''s better to remain ignorant. It''ll only cause unavoidable grief if I confirm my suspicions when I have to leave. I only wanted to undo a little of what daddy did to Earth in this timeline.


    "So, were they hostile?" General McKenzie asked from behind Maxine. Why does he always appear from behind me? It''s starting to get annoying.


    "No," Maxine replied, "He was just an investigator."


    "I see," General McKenzie said while clearly thinking about something, "Thank you for letting me know and I would like to thank you again for playing with the children."


    "Don''t mention it," Maxine answered honestly and gestured towards Charlie and his sister, "And I''m enjoying a little fantasy of mine to top it off."


    "Oh? And what fantasy is that?" General McKenzie asked.


    "That I''m looking after the children of someone dear to me until he returns, but I know better. He''ll never return," Maxine replied sadly, "That big idiot wanted to die after his woman died before they could have any kids. He never got the chance to find another before he died either."


    "Might I know this young man''s name?" General McKenzie asked.


    "Maxwell Adams," Maxine answered simply.


    "Are you sure that he''s truly dead?" General McKenzie asked calmly.


    "He was trampled and most likely eaten by a swarm of beasts," Maxine answered bluntly.


    "I see," General McKenzie said with a hint of melancholy.


    "Did you know him?" Maxine asked carefully.


    "Not directly," General McKenzie answered, "I mostly heard about him from my grand daughter. I had hoped that he was still alive." So, she had survived and did so long enough to be reunited with Howard. I''m glad that he at least got to say goodbye to her.


    "I''m sorry that you had to find out from me," Maxine said apologetically.


    "It''s alright," General McKenzie said, "I just wish I could''ve met the man that Emily had been so fond of." In a way, he already has. Although, I''ll never tell him that.


    "Nothing can be done about that now," Maxine said bluntly and turned to leave, "I need to go hunt. I''m getting low on meat. I''ll be back in a couple hours."


    "I''m grateful that you hunt your own meals. I''ve seen you eat enough for ten men," General McKenzie said.


    "That better not be an indirect way of calling me fat," Maxine said flatly.


    "It''s just an observation," General McKenzie replied calmly.


    "Good," Maxine said, "I''ll be back in a few hours." She didn''t wait for his reply before rocketing off the ground. However, she wasn''t going out to hunt like she said that she was going to. She actually didn''t need to hunt at all with the supplies she had in her dimensional ring. What she was really doing when she went out ''hunting'' was tracking down the bodies of all of her deceased friends that died and it took time to find the majority of their remains. However, today, she was going to bury Orianna''s body in this timeline. She had put it off long enough.


    It only took a few minutes for Maxine to find her sister''s remains. Orianna''s body, while heavily burned, had decomposed very little considering it was left out in the elements, but the flesh of a cultivator often slowed the decomposition process considerably even after they were dead. So, it was no surprise that none of the local wildlife even dared to approach her since she still gave off the aura of something alive when she was clearly not.


    Maxine knelt down and gently picked up Orianna''s body. She walked towards a nearby clearing and used her energies to swiftly dig a grave. When it was roughly eight feet deep, she approached the grave and slowly lowered Orianna''s body into it. However, she didn''t immediately cover her with dirt. Instead, she scanned Orianna''s body. If there are any physical changes to the body when someone becomes a demon. If there are and if I know what those changes are, I might be able to reverse the process and return their sanity to them at the very least.


    She started with the brain. Which thankfully was intact enough for her purposes and discovered very minor mutations brought on by her unstable energies wouldn''t fully account for the unstable nature of demons. Thus, she continued to scan Orianna''s body for any other differences. Unfortunately there was too much damage for Maxine to get very much useful data. She sighed and began burying her sister''s body. There goes that idea. At least, I have some data on the physical differences of demons versus normal cultivators. Although, I think it''s odd how there are several tomes detailing how their unstable energy causes different varieties of insanity based on their elemental attribute, but not a damn thing on the physical changes this unstable energy causes. It''s almost as if someone intentionally destroyed it all. In any case, I need to bury Patrick next.

 Chapter 197

    For the past three weeks, Maxine had been taking a general census of Earth''s population and it was down right depressing. Out of the 7 billion people originally on Earth less than 10 million remain. There were no survivors in the jungles and Australia had only one settlement with around 1000 people. The only positive thing to note was that the vast majority of beasts have long since stopped hunting humans. The few remaining were hardly a threat to the remaining human population. They''re doing a lot better than I thought. I still feel guilty that this happened. Damn it, daddy. Why couldn''t you have introduced chocolate and gotten this Earth''s human population some protection?


    Maxine sighed and began walking around the camp. Within moments, a flock of children were following her and greeted her by calling her ''scary lady.'' She couldn''t fault them for giving her that nickname, but it didn''t keep them from wanting to touch her scales or play with her. Their parents had shown a lot of resistance to them playing with her, but they relaxed when they saw how gentle she was with them. It also helped that her mood was much better when she was around them as well.


    "Scary lady, can I ride on your tail?" one of the kids asked.


    "Not right now, little one," Maxine said firmly, "Today, I''ve got to talk to the boss man. Is that okay?"


    "Okay," the little boy said in disappointment.


    "Don''t get too upset. I might not be able to play with you, but I heard that there are some new chores that you guys could do for some chocolate," Maxine pointed out and all of the children practically bolted towards the task hut. I''m rather happy I thought to suggest giving out chocolate as a reward for doing simple chores around the camp. It definitely motivated those little ones to help out more.


    "I still can''t believe how good you are with kids," Mike said as he walked up to Maxine, "I''m almost surprised you havn''t tried to have any yourself."


    Maxine stopped walking and looked Mike straight in the eye. "My body changes shape twice a day. Which makes carrying a child to term nearly impossible. Not to mention that my blood is both super toxic and so acidic that it melts through a steel plate in seconds. And worse still, I may accidentally poison to death my mate with an accidental scratch before he can even finish," Maxine said in a hollow tone, "So, that''s why I havn''t tried to seek out a mate or have children. Do not bring this up again." I''ve tried multiple times to discourage him from pursuing me. I think telling him straight to his face that I''m incapable of having children and that I would kill him during the act of sex should discourage him entirely. If not, I have a backup plan already in place.


    "I.. I''m sorry," Mike said emphatically, "I won''t mention it again. I promise."


    "I don''t even know why you''re trying to be with me. I''ve made my opinion and stance on this matter known on multiple occasions," Maxine said firmly and continued walking towards the command structure, "It''s particularly irksome since your companion, Sophie, clearly feels deeply for you."


    "Wait, what?" Mike asked in disbelief, "How the hell do you know that?"


    "Why else would she hang out with you so much and give you looks of longing when you''re back is turned?" Maxine asked in return, "I bet half the camp knows that she likes you. You''ve just been too blind to see it yourself since you were so focused on finding my sister."


    "I know that, but I don''t think I can reciprocate her feelings," Mike admitted after pausing for a few seconds.


    Maxine immediately swatted him upside the head with her tail. "You have a woman that loves you. The least you could do is give her a fucking chance," Maxine roared at him while blasting him with some of her dragon fear, "Now, you''re going to go over to miss Olivia and get the specialty chocolate that I had her make. Then, you''re going to give it to Sophie and spend some time with her. Am I understood?" It''s not like he can be that picky with the population being so low.


    "Yes, ma''am," Mike said fearfully before running off. She heard a few snickers from the surrounding soldiers, but she didn''t really care.


    "Thank you for giving that young man a swift kick in the ass," General McKenzie said and Maxine whirled around to face him.


    "How the hell do you keep sneaking up on me?" Maxine asked out of genuine curiosity. She had no idea how he was able to do it since she was always acutely aware of her immediate surroundings.


    "Trade secret," General McKenzie said with a small smirk, "But that''s not why you''ve been looking for me, is it?"


    "No, it isn''t," Maxine admitted, "I felt a few long range scans earlier this morning. So, you can expect some company today or tomorrow at the latest."


    "Thank you for letting me know," General McKenzie said calmly, "Do you know which group scanned us?"


    "No, but the odds of them being hostile is low," Maxine replied, "And if they are, I''ll deal with them."


    "I would still like to...," General McKenzie grunted in shock mid-sentence as a powerful scan washed over them. The other scans were subtle enough that Maxine barely felt them, but this scan had all the subtly of a sledgehammer to the face. Even, ordinary humans could feel it to some degree. The only benefit to performing such a scan is that it''s nearly impossible to hide from it, even with stealth techniques.


    "I wonder if they''ve heard of the phrase ''bull in a china shop'' before," Maxine said out loud, but that heavy scan did give her a clear idea of where it came from. With a thought, she sent out her spiritual sense in a narrow angle to massively increase her range and found the culprit. It was the Divine Marks clan. A heavy scan on an uninitiated world isn''t exactly illegal, but it''s a near thing. There is a reason why it isn''t expressly illegal either. No one is dumb enough to do it since there is no hiding any secrets from such a scan. It''s more or less a declaration of war. I wonder which idiot thought it was a good idea to use that heavy scan.


    Maxine peered into the ship and saw someone she hadn''t expected to see. But it made some sense as to the reason for the idiotic moves. Adam Marks, why am I not surprised that you would pull a bonehead move like this? It''s never good to have someone that isn''t overly intelligent that has also been overly indulged by his mother. At least, it looks like his ''advisor'' looks suitably pissed off at his behavior.


    "... the dumbest things you''ve ever done," the elderly advisor admonished Adam Marks. I couldn''t agree more.


    "We found her, didn''t we?" Adam Marks replied with a smug smirk, "That''s all that matters."


    "Yes, you most certainly did that and you notified her we are here," the elderly advisor said camly, "And she is currently monitoring us. Be grateful that it''s unlikely that she doesn''t understand a single word that we are saying."


    "I just have to make her fall in love with me and bring her back to the clan, correct?" Adam Marks asked. He''s in for wake up call if he thinks that''s going to be easy.


    "Correct," the elderly advisor advised, "But it''s unlikely that she will be trusting towards strangers and is likely to only give you one chance. So, you need to be very careful on how you approach her. You do remember why we need her in our clan, don''t you?"


    "Yes, yes. Our clan needs her father''s alchemical expertise," Adam Marks replied grumpily, "I just wish she wasn''t so ... monstrous. It will make this difficult to pull off."


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    "To some, she would be an exotic beauty," the elderly advisor pointed out, "Just focus on a characteristic of hers that you find beautiful."


    "Now that you mention it, her eyes are quite beautiful," Adam Marks commented.


    "That they are, young master," the elderly advisor agreed and a beeping noise from a nearby console caught the old man''s attention, "It seems the Kavros clan''s matriarch will over take us soon and will reach our destination a handful of minutes ahead of us."


    "Then, why are we moving at such a slow pace!?" Adam Marks demanded, "We need to get there before she does!"


    "Young master, I thought we went over this three weeks ago," the elderly advisor said calmly, "That young woman is expecting her kin to arrive, not us. Hence if we arrive before they do, it will seem suspicious at the very least and it will make it immensely more difficult for you to get close to her. And after your stunt with the intense scan, she might even treat us with outright hostility. It''s best to give her some time to calm down. So, I recommend that we arrive a full day after they do at the earliest, not the handful of minutes that you intend."


    "Fine," Adam Marks said grumpily, "Have you heard anything from the Alchemist Association?"


    "Not much, I''m afraid," the elderly advisor replied, "They seem to have taken the wait and see approach. Its the wisest course of action for them if they wish to obtain Guan''s knowledge. Afterall, there is no guarantee that the girl even possesses his inheritance."


    "I see your point," Adam Marks said calmly, "Is there anything else that I need to know before we arrive?"


    "Yes, I suggest you abstain from ''sampling'' the local girls," the elderly advisor said calmly, "Monogamous relationships are the norm on this planet. So, if you wish to have any kind of success with Guan''s daughter, you should give her your singular attention."


    "That''s ... going to be difficult," Adam Marks said.


    "I''m aware, young master, but if you wish to succeed, you must follow through," the elderly advisor reminded him, "Now, shall we continue to practice your english?"


    At that point, Maxine withdrew her spiritual sense. There was no point in it. She had heard all that she needed to. Or rather, she confirmed what she already knew. However, it was a pleasant surprise to find out that the Alchemist Association was taking a more laid back approach in this timeline. Although, she hadn''t shown any signs that she knew alchemy in this timeline either.


    General McKenzie had already left and she made her way to the chocolatier''s hut. She wanted to have some chocolate prepared in advance for her grandmother. It would make arranging for protection agreement since earthlings were the only ones that know how to make chocolate.


    As she picked up some chocolate, she felt a very familiar spiritual sense envelop her. She could feel both intense joy and sorrow within the spiritual sense of her grandmother. Maxine spread out her spiritual sense immediately to see how close her grandmother was, but she was still outside of Maxine''s range, even when she tried focusing in the general direction that her grandmother''s spiritual sense was coming from. She must be extending her range by focusing it into very narrow beam. However, a moment later, Maxine could sense anguish coming from grandma Victoria''s spiritual sense. Oh, she must''ve found the Orianna and her son''s graves. I really wish she hadn''t. Regardless of the fact that this is another timeline, she''s still my grandma and I don''t like to even know she''s hurting that bad.


    [I''m so sorry,] grandma Victoria said via spiritual sense, [Had I known that you and your sister existed sooner, I could''ve saved her and your nephew.]


    [You have nothing to apologize for,] Maxine answered, [Our true father is entirely to blame for this.]


    [I agree,] grandma Victoria said softly, [Can you tell me your name? And that of your sister and nephew?]


    [Mana,] Maxine answered simply, [My sister was called Maxine and my nephew was called Shaun.]


    [Thank you. I''m your grandmother Victoria,] grandma Victoria said to finish the introduction.


    [So, you are the one that sent that scout,] Maxine remarked.


    [Yes, I am,] grandma Victoria said in confirmation.


    [But you''re not the only one that hired him,] Maxine pointed out, [There were two others that hired him as well.]


    [The Alchemist Association and the Divine Marks clan,] grandma Victoria said calmly.


    [Are they a threat?] Maxine asked.


    [The Alchemist Association isn''t a threat, but the Divine Marks clan could send their young master to pester you,] grandma Victoria answered, [I will do my best to protect you from such nuisances.]


    [I see,] Maxine answered and changed the subject after a moment of thought, [Would you like me to prepare anything for you to eat? We don''t have much here, but I could try to make you something.]


    [You don''t need to. We have plenty of food here on my ship and you''re welcome to join us for a meal whenever you want,] grandma Victoria replied.


    [I won''t say no to free food,] Maxine answered, [For now, I''ll just wait in this camp until you arrive. Until then, farewell.] She felt her grandmother''s spiritual sense retreat from her and she proceeded to pull out a comically large haunch from her shadow to snack on while she waited. It was a minor annoyance that she needed to eat frequently to maintain her health while in this state.


    She got a few odd stares while she ate, but otherwise, most of the people within the camp left her alone. This wasn''t the first time she did something completely absurd while in the camp and they had more or less gotten used to her over the top abilities.


    Meanwhile, she sent her spiritual sense skyward to keep an eye out for the Kavros clan''s ship. It took a couple hours before she sensed the ship and put the haunch away while making her way towards General McKenzie.


    "Hello, Mana," General McKenzie said while overseeing a few training exercises, "Is there something wrong?"


    "We''ve got company coming," Maxine said simply while pointing skyward, "If they don''t change directions, they''ll be here in roughly an hour and a half."


    "Friendly?" General McKenzie asked.


    "The owner of the ship identified herself as my grandmother, but until I can actually meet her face to face, I won''t know for certain," Maxine replied, "But if you pushed me for an answer, I would say friendly."


    "And how would you know if she''s actually your grandmother?" General McKenzie asked.


    "Females within the same family tree share a similar energy wavelength," Maxine answered, "It''s easier to distinguish this energy wavelength in close proximity."


    "Ahh, yes, I believe I read a report about that before," General McKenzie remarks.


    However, before their conversation can continue, Maxine feels a slight tug on the end of her tail and sees a small girl. "Is there something the matter?" Maxine asks the small girl.


    "Mama''s throat hurts, so she can''t sing for me," the little girl says sadly, "Can you sing me a song? Please?"


    "Of course, I can," Maxine said with a gentle smile, "Go get the other kids as well. I bet they will want to listen too." The little girl smiled and scampered off. A few seconds later she heard her starting to shout for the other children.


    "I still can''t believe that those children are that comfortable around you," General McKenzie remarked, "There are many full grown men that are anxious around you even now."


    "Children are more adaptable," Maxine pointed out.


    "True enough," General McKenzie agreed, "By the way, what are you going to sing?"


    "I''m not entirely sure," Maxine replies, "Perhaps, I''ll just sing something spontaneously."


    "I look forward to it," General McKenzie said as several children arrived. Maxine could see more through the crowds swiftly approaching.


    Once all of them arrived, Maxine began to sing ''Red like Roses'' parts 1 and 2 from the show RWBY and used her energies to mimic the sounds of the instruments. Aside from the children, everyone''s faces showed a momentary shocked expression when they heard her singing voice. She didn''t care about their surprise, but she was slightly surprised when she felt the area around her being scanned. Grandma must be checking on me or something.


    She continued singing songs from other TV shows and continued to draw an increasingly larger crowd. She smiled and just enjoyed herself. However, she noticed that many people were giving her surprised looks after a while. She thought it was odd, but didn''t pay it much mind. All she wanted to do was entertain the children and relieve a little stress through singing. It wasn''t until she had been singing for an hour and a half that she realized that she only had two arms and that her hands had returned back to normal. However, her skin was still a silver grey. Fuck. That wasn''t intentional. I didn''t think I could get so caught up in singing that I wouldn''t notice. If I had been dancing, I would''ve noticed almost immediately if I started to change. Although, it doesn''t really hurt me. It could just be played off that being stuck in a transformation is more psychological that physiological.


    Maxine intentionally stopped singing and looked at her hands with a shocked expression. Very carefully, she brought her hands up to feel both her face and hair. When she reached her pointed ears, she showed a moment of confusion, but in the next, she laughed happily.


    "Just as I thought, her problem is purely psychological," Malcom stated and Maxine glared at him as she swiftly returned to her full-hyrbid form.


    "I wish you hadn''t done that, doctor," General McKenzie grumbled, "That was one of the few moments where she was genuinely happy and you ruined it for her by speaking up."


    "Is scary lady an elf?" one of the children asked innocently.


    "I don''t think I am," Maxine answered the small child, "I may have to ask my grandmother when she gets here." And as if on cue, Maxine saw a speck in the sky that was clearly her grandmother''s ship. I hope grandma doesn''t do her customary hug tackle. I don''t think I can absorb the force of that impact without either hurting her or heavily damaging the camp.

 Chapter 198

    Maxine watched the spaceship very slowly get bigger as it approached. However, she saw a literal fireball detach from it and come straight at her. It looks like grandma''s being impatient. In response to this, Maxine launched off the ground towards her grandmother turned fireball. It only took them a few moments to reach each other and grandma Victoria veered off to the left. Maxine followed suite as they circled each other before finally coming to a stop.


    After a moment of hesitation, grandma Victoria opened her arms with a tear-filled eyes and a hopeful expression. Maxine knew that she came here for the sole purpose of finding her long lost grand daughter and never really appreciated how much the woman had unconditionally loved her. She literately crossed an unknown number of lightyears just to find me just on the hope that I''m her grand daughter. And now, that she sees me, she just wants a simple hug to show her affection.


    Maxine was so genuinely touched that tears threatened to flow and practically pounced onto her grandmother to give her the hug she so desperately wanted. However, she took the precaution of coating both her quills and claws to blunt them to avoid an accident.


    However, just as Maxine buried her face into grandma Victoria''s shoulder and she wrapped her arms around her, she sense a moment of surprise and worry that wasn''t coming from her grandmother, but it quickly vanished. "Shh, it''s alright. I''m here," grandma Victoria said gently in english as one of her hands gently brushed over Maxine''s quills.


    Maxine continued to surprise her grandma as the serpents sticking out of her back arched up and started flicking their tongues at grandma Victoria. "I thought I didn''t have any kin left, aside from my father," Maxine said softly.


    "You have an uncle and an adorable little cousin," grandma Victoria said as she continued to stroke Maxine''s quills, "Although, we night need to find you some special gloves if you wish to play with her."


    "I... don''t think I should," Maxine answered, "I would be worried that I might accidentally hurt her."


    "I think you''ll be alright. I''ve seen how you play with those children," grandma Victoria replied gently, "Now, lets go talk to your friends. They might strain their necks if they keep looking up at us."


    "Alright," Maxine said as she pulled herself out of her grandmother''s arms and slowly floated down towards the ground.


    As soon as they landed on the ground, the children swarmed her before the adults could stop them and were bombarded with questions. However, one in particular caught the attention of her grandmother. "You look a lot like scary lady. Are you her cousin?" one of the children asked.


    "No, I''m not her sister," grandma Victoria said with a very pleased smile, "I''m her grandmother." However, her answer only confused the children.


    "Why arn''t you all wrinkly?" a little girl asked, which caused grandma Victoria to laugh.


    "Cultivators, like me and ''scary lady,'' don''t age at the same pace as everyone else. In fact, we will barely age at all from the perspective of normal people," grandma Victoria explained and she looked at the approaching General McKenzie, "And are you the one that I have to thank for looking after Mana?"


    "I''ve only known her for a little more than a month, if that''s what you''re asking, and I''ve done what I could to make her feel comfortable," General McKenzie replied.


    "For that, I thank you," grandma Victoria said and send Maxine a message via spiritual sense, [We need to talk later on.]


    [Okay,] Maxine replied cautiously.


    "Think nothing of it. She helped us more than we have helped her," general McKenzie said with a small smile, "If it wasn''t for her, we wouldn''t have gotten access to chocolate again."


    "I was meaning to ask about chocolate," grandma Victoria said, "Might I have a sample of it?"


    "I have some," Maxine chimes in and hands grandma Victoria a piece of dark chocolate, "It''s quite good."


    "It doesn''t look that appetizing," grandma Victoria scrutinized the piece of dark chocolate before she took a small careful bite, but in the next moment, her eyes lit up, "Oh.. Oh, my. This is absolutely delicious." Maxine flashed a brilliant smile at her grandmother''s reaction. Perfect. This should encourage her quite a bit to nudge grandpa into protecting Earth''s inhabitants. Chocolate is one of the most desired luxury goods in my timeline and once grandma spreads the word, I imagine it will be the same in this one.


    "I know, right?" Maxine said happily as she tosses a piece of chocolate into her mouth and begins chewing it slowly.


    "How much of this can your people produce in a day?" grandma Victoria asked hopefully.


    "About 10 kilos a day," General McKenzie replied, "But that''s from the sole effort of our chocolatier and that output can only be maintained as long as we have a steady supply of the ingredients. And it was Mana that procured the main ingredient. Without her to do that, it would be difficult to produce any at all."


    Grandma Victoria glanced at Maxine appreciatively for a moment before she said, "I see. I think I can arrange for a few of my clansmen to come here to help with procuring the necessary ingredients and in return, I think we will take a portion of whatever you produce."


    And with that opening, General McKenzie pounced, "You can take it all if you can guarantee the safety of my people."


    "Protecting an investment is a given," grandma Victoria replied, "But I need to talk with my husband to give you a more in depth agreement."


    "Of course," General McKenzie said with a slight bow of his head, "I eagerly await such an agreement."


    "Oh, you''ve misunderstood," grandma Victoria said with a smile as a communication disk appeared in her hands, "I can contact him right now, if it''s alright with you."


    "Oh! Go right ahead," General McKenzie said eagerly.


    Maxine stopped paying attention to them and returned back to the children while they hashed out the trade agreement. And the children insisted that she continue singing to them. She didn''t see any problem with that, but this time she consciously controlled her transformation to only allow herself to revert to her shadow elf form. For some reason, when she was in that state, the children kept insisting on asking to touch her ears and while she was taking a break, she allowed it.


    "Careful, my ears are very sensitive and it hurts when you pull on them," Maxine reminded them when one of the children accidentally pulled on her ear.


    "Child, you should apologize," grandma Victoria said as she approached, "Elves normally wouldn''t let anyone, outside of close relatives, touch their ears."


    "I''m sorry. I didn''t mean to hurt you," the little girl that pulled her ear said in apology.


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    "It''s alright. Just don''t do it again," Maxine said gently.


    "Do you have a moment to talk in private?" grandma Victoria asked.


    "Yes, I do," Maxine said and slowly stood up after the children backed away from her, "I believe there is an empty room that we can chat in near the center of the camp."


    "Lead the way," grandma Victoria said as she gestured to Maxine.


    It only took a few minutes to reach the empty room and Maxine turned to her grandmother before asking, "So, what did you want to talk about?" In an instant, Maxine felt her grandmother''s spiritual sense expand and isolate the room that they were in.


    "I wanted to thank you," grandma Victoria said, "You let me see what my grand daughter looked like and where she and her child are buried."


    "Uh, you''re welcome?" Maxine said in a confused tone.


    "But what I havn''t figured out is exactly who cloned an adult version of her and why it was done at all," grandma Victoria said as her voice took on a harsh tone, "Who created you, Mana?"


    "I''m confused," Maxine announced, "I already told you she was my twin sister."


    "Don''t lie to me, again," grandma Victoria said as a sword appeared in her hand, "My daughter and I talked, even after she was exiled, so I know she only had one child growing in her belly before she died. So, it''s impossible for her to have given birth to a set of twins. Now, I will ask one more time. Who cloned my grand daughter?!"


    "I don''t know what you''re talking about," Maxine replied gently. I don''t know why she would come up with that sort of conclusion, but it''s obvious that something made her think that I was one. But what''s more concerning is that she can tell if I''m lying or not.


    "How could you not know?" grandma Victoria asked in surprise as she glanced to her right and focused more on Maxine, "You''re literately wearing a unique dimensional ring and you can''t get those on this planet." Maxine glanced to the spot that her grandmother did and narrowed her eyes to spot the very faint silhouette of a woman. Invisible bodyguards? That figures.


    Maxine''s guard went up and reflexively transformed into her full hybrid form. "Who''s your friend?" Maxine asked without taking her eyes off of the invisible woman.


    "My bodyguard," grandma Victoria replied, "Now, what is your purpose?"


    "Live, eat, love and possibly die in the future," Maxine answered simply, "Although, at the rate that I''ve been aging, old age doesn''t seem to be in the cards for me. As for my reason for getting your attention, I did it to help the people of this world and pitching chocolate as a luxury good was the easiest means to do that."


    "That doesn''t make any sense," grandma Victoria said in confusions, "If you were a clone, you would''ve had some other purpose."


    "Unless, I was grown in a lab on this planet and they''re a bunch of retards that did it just because they could," Maxine pointed out, "But that isn''t what happened. I remember growing up."


    "This can''t be...," grandma Victoria said in confusion before her eyes widened in realization and she swiftly grabbed Maxine''s arm. Maxine felt a strange vibration run through her body and looked at grandma Victoria in confusion.


    "Uh, what was that?" Maxine asked.


    "So, you''re the cause of the temporal reading that the Alliance detected," grandma Victoria said and her grip tightened on Maxine''s arm, "You should be well aware that travel between timelines is strictly prohibited."


    "That only applies if I don''t belong here," Maxine answered as she dropped the charade, "And half of my soul came from this one."


    "Oh, sweet maker," grandma Victoria said in sympathy before she growled in anger, "That wretched man! To think, he would do that to his own daughter!"


    "He did it, so I wouldn''t end up like your Maxine," Maxine replied softly.


    "Do you have a way back?" grandma Victoria asked out of nowhere.


    "Yes," Maxine replied, "I''ll be using it in a month once a certain artifact recharges. It''ll turn to dust after that and if it doesn''t I''ll throw it into a star."


    "I see," grandma Victoria said as her grip on Maxine''s arm loosened, "Can you... No, It''s better if I don''t know the circumstances of your timeline." Maxine felt bad for her grandmother in this timeline. If only there was something I could do for her. Well, there is, but I don''t want the heat. Then again, I saw how it worked, so I guess I could do try to do that.


    "Um, is there anything else I can do, aside from asking your questions, to make you feel better?" Maxine asked.


    "Not unless, you can bring back the dead," grandma Victoria answered.


    "I might be able to do that with Shaun," Maxine said without confidence. I just hope this works. Infants are far more adaptable than adults. Daddy confirmed that anything that was revived reverted back to an infantile mindset. Hence, it would be ideal to revive an infant without having their soul available. But even if it''s possible to revive him with just my energies, it''ll probably state of exhaustion as a woman that had just given birth to their baby. Afterall, breathing life back into dead tissue is thousands of times harder and energy intensive than repairing living tissue.


    "What?" grandma Victoria asked with a look of shock and disbelief.


    "Daddy succeeded in resurrecting mom," Maxine answered, "It was literately the only reason I was willing to talk to him after the shit he pulled and he was only able to do that successfully because her soul was bound to that golden bracelet."


    "He figured it out?!" grandma Victoria asked excitedly, "Do you have the recipe?"


    "Yes, but the ingredients are quite rare. It would take too long for you to gather them all and you would need someone with comparable skill to daddy''s to make it," Maxine replied, "I''m no where near his level, but I could try to perform a resurrection on Shaun using just my energies. I''m not sure if it will work, though. So, I need to experiment a little bit to even see if it''s possible."


    "Very well, I''ll allow it," grandma Victoria acquiesced and finally released Maxine''s arm, "But I insist that you share the recipe to revive the dead."


    "Alright," Maxine replied, "Although, I am curious. Who will get credit for it?"


    "You will," grandma Victoria said with a smile, "Or rather your counterpart in this timeline."


    "Oh, I might as well throw in the gender inversion potion recipe as well," Maxine said offhandedly, "Daddy created it after he found out my sexual preferences."


    "You''re a ... I see," grandma Victoria said as she looked away. You were going to say a deviant, weren''t you? Or lesbian. Although, from her perspective, there is little difference.


    "It should be a rather popular potions since there are quite a few same sex couples in the universe," Maxine pointed out, "But the effects of the potion are only temporary, so only female couples can have children together using it." Although, with a little research, I could figure out a way to make it last a lot longer.


    "Incredible," grandma Victoria said softly.


    "But, having just those two recipes will seem suspicious by themselves, so I''ll take a few days to put together a book with Maxine''s ''recipes'' to give more credence to her ability to formulate alchemical recipes using local materials," Maxine replied, "And by that time, I should also know if I can revive little Shaun, or not."


    "You''re very intelligent," grandma Victoria remarked almost to herself, "Was my Maxine just as intelligent?"


    "Yes, actually, but in a different way," Maxine answered, "Keep in mind, that I only know her from the few interactions the male half of my soul made with her and from the rumors that I''ve heard about her."


    "You lied to me again," grandma Victoria stated with a scowl. "Tell me the truth."


    Maxine sighed before she answered, "Fine. Daddy found a battle god and placed her soul into his body until I could create a body for her. So, I''ve actually talked with your Maxine. She''s a rather nice person, but that wouldn''t be the case if she hadn''t met her current husband. She would probably still be hiding somewhere at the Kavros Clan mansion if he hadn''t coaxed her outside."


    "I see," grandma Victoria said softly while looking away, "She must''ve had a terrible life. Why did Guan choose to hide her on this planet rather than bring her to me? I would''ve ensured she grew up happy, healthy and safe."


    "You would''ve tried to," Maxine said, "But daddy has pissed off a lot of powerful people and you wouldn''t have been able to protect her from all of them."


    "True," grandma Victoria agreed in a sad tone.


    "So, what are you going to do about me?" Maxine asked, "I''ve violated a pretty major Alliance law."


    "We won''t say anything, if you don''t," grandma Victoria said with a sly smile, "Afterall, you''re my grand daughter, even if you come from another timeline, and I will not be deprived of any more of my family due to political nonsense. But I ask that you continue to call me grandma."


    "I would''ve done that anyways," Maxine said honestly.


    "Thank you and I''m sorry for being so rough on you. I just wanted the truth out of you," grandma Victoria said gratefully, but in the next moment, she frowned as she turned her head slightly, "It seems that fool couldn''t wait any longer. Shall we go entertain that young man from the Divine Marks Clan?"


    "Fine, but I really don''t like him," Maxine complained.


    "Even if you don''t like him, you must keep up your charade," grandma Victoria pointed out, "Now, let''s go greet him before he becomes too much of a pest for our kind host."


    "I couldn''t agree more," Maxine said as she followed her grandmother out of the building and towards General McKenzie and Adam Marks. Ugh, I do not look forward to that creeps antics. I can only hope his interest in me won''t be as strong as it was in my timeline. If he is, it will be a test of my willpower not to beat the idiot half to death.

 Chapter 199

    Maxine found it difficult to find the time to experiment with reanimating dead tissue, since Adam Marks kept a close eye on her. Thankfully, he had matured in this timeline enough that he wasn''t too much of a pest and allowed her to have some time to ''hunt'' in solitude. That gave her a few opportunities make a dozen or so attempts to revive a few dead animals in various stages of decomposition over the past week. She had some success, but it was heavily dependent on there being at least a few intact DNA strands for her to work with. And it was just as energy intensive as she feared. To make matters worse, it couldn''t be done in stages. It had to be done all at once or the life form being revived would turn into a pile of goo. Thus, she spent a lot of her time perfecting the reanimation process.


    When she had perfected it, Maxine began working on writing her book of recipes and a small encyclopedia on various herbs with hand drawn pictures to show what they look like. And as of the moment, she had almost finished when grandma Victoria walked in to stand beside her. "How''s your progress?" grandma Victoria asked as she sealed the tent with her spiritual sense.


    "I''m almost done with these two books," Maxine answered as she continued to write. She only needed to finish a couple more pages. Thankfully, it wasn''t all that hard. Most of the ingredients that she listed could be found on Earth. There were only a few that were in Guan''s revival fluid that were not. But it could be argued that one of each of those rare ingredients had grown on Earth at one time or another, but they had already been used. Hence, they couldn''t say that it was impossible for her to have collected them.


    "I wasn''t referring to that," Grandma Victoria stated, "I wanted to know how your revival technique is coming."


    "I''m confident that I can fully revive Shaun, but I''ll need to be completely undisturbed for a minimum of a day. And I''ll only have one chance to do it. If I fail, it will cause his genetic structure to self-destruct," Maxine answered, "I''ll also be in a weakened state, afterwards. Reviving the dead is extremely energy intensive." I''ll need to consume a dozen nutritional pills, at a minimum, to maintain my energy levels throughout the process, but she doesn''t need to know that.


    "That''s excellent news!" grandma Victoria said excitedly.


    "It is," Maxine said with a smile, "But I need to be in top form to use it."


    "Very good," grandma Victoria said happily, "I can arrange for you to perform this resurrection on my ship. Is that suitable?"


    "It should work," Maxine replied, "Just be sure to keep it shielded. I can''t risk Adam Marks finding out what I''m doing."


    "I agree. We don''t need you drawing in that kind of attention," grandma Victoria said, "Should I go fetch little Shaun''s remains?"


    "No need," Maxine said as she locked onto Shaun''s remains and created a bubble above her hand using her energies. Simultaneously, she coated what was left of Shaun''s skeleton in her energies from afar and teleported them into the bubble above her hand. She popped the bubble and let the tiny skeleton float in the air for only a moment before putting it into her dimensional ring.


    "That''s a useful trick," grandma Victoria commented, "If I''m not mistaken, you can use that same trick to escape as well."


    "You''re not wrong," Maxine said in confirmation, "Now, lets get to your ship. The sooner we get this done, the better. And before I forget, take these." Grandma Victoria took them and opened the book detailing various medicinal herbs. She quickly rifled through it until she reached the end and paused with a surprised look on her face.


    "This... This is an alchemy technique suited for cultivators with the shadow attribute," grandma Victoria said in disbelief, "Where did you get your hands on it?"


    "I developed it myself," Maxine said with a smirk.


    "Wonderful," grandma Victoria said with a big smile, "This will help our clan more than you realize." Actually, I do. It will give our clan a unique method to create potions and free them in part from their dependency of Alchemist Association.


    "Now, let''s get to the ship," Maxine said happily, "And be sure to have some high energy foods available. I''m going to need them after I''m done."


    "I''ll have them prepared for you," grandma Victoria replied and retracted her spiritual sense before leaving the tent. Maxine followed closely behind her.


    As they walked, Maxine spotted Mike and he looked livid as he was literately dragged away from Adam Marks by Sophie. Ugh, can''t Adam Marks be nice to people? Is it really that hard? He''s pissed off a dozen or so people ever since he got here. I''m actually surprised that no one has tried to punch him yet. Although, I''ll admit that his behavior is slightly better than his counter part from my timeline. That idiot always had a gift for infuriating everyone around him.


    "We don''t have time for you to play peacemaker," grandma Victoria reminded Maxine.


    "I wasn''t going to," Maxine replied calmly.


    "Good," grandma Victoria said as they continued. However, Adam Marks spotted them and began approaching them.


    Before he could speak, though, grandma Victoria cut him off, "Mana needs some privacy for the time being and doesn''t have the time to talk."


    "Why is that, madam Kavros?" Adam Marks asked as he walked beside them.


    "As I said, its a private matter," grandma Victoria said firmly, "If you were her husband, I wouldn''t see any harm in telling you, but as it stands, you are not. So, please, leave it at that."


    "As you wish," Adam Marks said respectfully as he bowed his head. At least, he learned some etiquette in this timeline, but I wish he showed it to everyone rather than just me and grandma. It would solve a lot of strife.


    [You know he won''t leave it at that,] Maxine said via spiritual sense.


    [I''m aware, but there is little he can do once we are inside of my ship,] grandma Victoria replied.


    [Are you sure about that?] Maxine asked, [He could''ve bribed a few of your clansmen into reporting to him.]


    [That''s possible, but they don''t know any more than he does. Nor will they,] grandma Victoria replied, [I''ll intend to be standing just outside of the chamber to make sure that there are no information leaks.]


    [Great,] Maxine said and after a few moments, they entered grandma Victoria''s ship. It only took her a few moments for grandma Victoria to lead her to the private room.


    "I''ll stand out here to guard the room and maintain the privacy screen," grandma Victoria said, "I hope you don''t mind if I keep an eye on you while you''re in there."


    "Not at all," Maxine said, "Just don''t try to bother me. I''ll need my entire focus for what I need to do."


    "I''ll try to contain myself," grandma Victoria said with a knowing smile, "Now, get in there."


    "Alright, grandma," Maxine said as she walked into the room and shut the door behind herself. It was a tiny room, and grandma Victoria had already placed a rectangular container on the floor for her. It''s big enough for my needs. Now, where is the sterile water that I asked for. She looked around and spotted a jug of sterile water on the bed.


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    She paused for only a moment before retrieving little Shaun''s remains and gently placing them into the rectangular container on the floor. Next, she poured the sterile water into the container and ground a dozen nutritional pills into a fine dust before adding it to the water. Okay, that solves where the nutrients and water requirements will come from. Now, I just need to begin revive his bone marrow and use the stem cells that they generate to regrow the rest of the little guy''s body. And with my energies, I''ll speed up the process to make it easier on me as I regenerate various parts of his body.


    Maxine took a deep breath, focused her mind and created thousands of microscopic threads of her energies. Each thread wormed their way through Shaun''s skeletal remains to find the remnants of his bone marrow and proceeded to place themselves near the most intact cells. A handful of the threads spread out within the rectangular container to slowly warm it up. It was safer to revive Shaun at a healthy temperature for an infant.


    Maxine used a combination of divine, shadow and a few other elemental energies to revive the dead tissue. Once enough of the cells were revived, she started filtering the nutrients in the water directly into the cells and smiled when stem cells were produced. They would ease the burden of rebuilding Shaun''s body and would fully restore his bone marrow if given enough time. But she sped up the process with her energies.


    Next, she used several of her energy threads to rebuild his damaged bone and gently shift his broken skull back into its proper shape. This was a somewhat tricky process since she needed to make them both sturdy enough for an infant, but also flexible to better accommodate growth. She knew his body would correct any of her mistakes with time due to his bloodline, but she wanted to minimize such mistakes as much as possible since it might cause him to develop more slowly.


    She briefly checked on the stem cells in his bone marrow before proceeding to build the rest of his body in stages. First, she started with the chest as she formed his heart with care as well as his other organs and various blood vessels. Next she worked her way up to his head. It was particularly hard to form his brain while forming the necessary blood vessels to ensure his brain worked properly. The brain was far too fragile to afford any mistakes no matter how small. The eyes and optic nerves were child''s play in comparison. Phew, the two most important organs were properly formed. Although, I don''t know how dominant the genes of the hydra bloodline are, but Shaun will, at the very least, have some level of regeneration. So, even if I make a minor mistake anywhere else, his body will correct it given enough nutrients and time. Still, the fewer flaws that I make the better. I don''t want him to be an unhealthy baby.


    With that part of it done, she took a moment to down a dozen nutritional pills since she had roughly 25% of her energy left and proceeded to work on the rest of his abdomen. She carefully watched as his digestive, respiratory and renal organs grew in place as she constantly fed his body with both her energies and nutrients from the water. His muscles were next as they slowly covered the areas that she had already completed.


    After that, she very carefully used her energies to grow his genitals and she took a moment to catch her breath before proceeding to put muscle and various blood vessels onto his arms and legs. While she could start up his heart at this stage, it would make things much harder for her to finish up if he started to move when he consciousness started to stir. So, she used her energies to induce a deep slumber as she jump started his heart and gently lifted his face out of the water. She expelled the water in his lungs and gave him a little help with breathing before he was managing it on his own.


    It didn''t take her as long as she expected for his skin to form over his little frame and she sighed in relief when the last patch of skin grew into place. She was absolutely exhausted and double checked that every aspect of his little body was where it should be and working as it should before she nudged his mind to wake him up and withdrew all of the energy threads from his body.


    Before lifting him out of the water with her hands, she transformed back into her base form to avoid scratching him with her claws and set him down on the bed with extreme care. Next, she began gently brushed a soft towel across his skin to dry him off and wrapped him in a baby blanket that she retrieved from her dimensional ring. Thankfully, by the time that she finished, his eyes had opened and he was looking around. When his eyes rested on her face, he refused to look anywhere else. She instantly felt her heart warm at that. He''s very small for an infant and rather thin. I just wish I could''ve used more nutritional pills, but I was already using the most that I dared to. Still, it shouldn''t be a problem. He''ll get bigger and fatten up to a healthy weight after getting enough milk to drink.


    She very carefully stood up as she held him and turned around just in time for the room''s door to open. Grandma Victoria was looking right at him with tears of joy in her eyes and reached out to take him. But she recoiled slightly with a look of concern when Maxine struggled not to reflexively growl at her grandmother. And there''s my maternal instincts kicking in.


    "I''m sorry," Maxine apologized, "I''m rather tired and it''s making it harder to control my maternal instincts at the moment. If it was just from my human side, I think I would be fine, but hydra mama''s are extremely protective of their babies."


    "It''s alright," grandma Victoria said and asked with a hopeful look, "Can I hold him now?"


    "Yes, it should be okay now," Maxine said as she took a deep breath and she gently handed him over, "He''ll need to eat soon. Did you find someone to be his wet nurse?"


    "Of course, I did. There are a few pregnant women in this camp that lost their husbands in some way or another," grandma Victoria explained as she gazed lovingly at little Shaun, "I offered to take a relatively healthy woman with a particularly large bosom as well as her children with us in exchange for feeding this little guy. She''ll have no trouble feeding my great grand child."


    "That''s great," Maxine said happily, but inside, she felt a little sad that she would soon be separated from Shaun. She frowned for a moment at that line of thought, but dismissed it. These feelings are just the result of my exhaustion, maternal instincts and my knowledge that he is biologically my son, even though I never gave birth to him. It''s for the best if I don''t indulge these feelings. I can''t stay and I certainly don''t know how to make something that would allow me to keep an eye on him from my native timeline. The best I can do for him is to create a holographic image of his mother so that he knows what she looks like.


    "It is, but there is another pressing matter," grandma Victoria said, "I won''t be able to keep his resurrection a secret for long. If we''re lucky, you will be long gone before it gets out."


    "And if not, they will be here within the next few weeks. But that''s only if they figure out that he''s actually a resurrected infant. It''s just as likely that they could think that he''s either my or my sister''s son," Maxine continued that line of thought, "Still, as a safety precaution, it''s best that you head back to the clan with little Shaun at the first opportunity. The people that want to know how I did it won''t care who they offend, so long as they get that knowledge. And you know what they might do to little Shaun to get me to tell them how. He''ll be much safer within the confines of the clan."


    "I''m aware," grandma Victoria replied, "I''ll depart for our clan in at a week, at most. And a handful of warriors will remain here to protect this camp until a more sizeable force can arrive."


    "Thanks, grandma," Maxine said gratefully.


    "You''re welcome," grandma Victoria said, "Now, I best take this little man to get fed. He''s already starting to get a little fussy." Maxine directed her gaze towards Shaun and saw him squirming from within the blanket without taking his gaze off of Maxine.


    "Yeah, he definitely wants something. Although, I''m not so sure it''s food," Maxine commented.


    "Trust me. He''s hungry," grandma Victoria said knowingly, "He''s expecting YOU to feed him, but we both know that you don''t have any milk."


    "If you say so," Maxine said uncertainly. I could swear he wants me to hold him, but grandma''s been around a lot of infants in her time. So, I''ll let her do as she thinks best for now.


    "You can rest in here while I get this little one taken care of," grandma Victoria said happily, "Do you need anything while I''m gone?"


    "No, I''ll be fine," Maxine said as she reached out and gently stroked Shaun''s head, "Just take good care of him and if he turns out like Adam Marks, I''ll be very angry with you."


    "I assure you he won''t," grandma Victoria said with a smile, "Now, lay down while I get some food brought to you. And afterwards, you are going to take a nap. You look like you''re about to drop where you stand."


    "I''ll try," Maxine acquiesced and watched as grandma Victoria left the room.


    Maxine laid down on the small bed and tried to get comfortable. Unfortunately, she forgot how uncomfortable these kinds of beds were. A pile of leaves was more comfortable than this. So, she tried to focus on something else. Hmm, I wonder how long it will take Adam Marks to start asking questions. His elder might come up with the conclusion that Shaun is either my nephew or my baby. Although, chances are they the will think it''s mine. It''s not completely unheard of for a woman to show next to no signs of being pregnant. It also helps that he''s so small. It will make it more believable. If they come to the conclusion that he''s my sister''s baby, the only feasible way to explain it is that she created a stasis bubble around him before her death. Otherwise, he would be older. It''s best I clarify that early on if anyone asks. Regardless, it will be a lot easier on me and grandma if anyone comes up with either of those possibilities on their own. But if anyone ever figures out that I actually resurrected him before I leave this timeline, it''ll be bad.

 Chapter 200

    Maxine was carrying little Shaun around in the camp in hopes that he would doze off soon. He had been crying for the last two hours and only seemed to calm down while she was carrying him. I hate being right. This little guy only allows me and grandma to hold him for any length of time. If anyone else tries, he''s screaming his head off after only a handful of minutes. The only other times he''s quiet are when he''s eating. And I still don''t know where grandma found that woman. She has some of the biggest breasts I''ve ever seen. No wonder she said that Shaun would be well fed.


    As she walked, she spied Adam Marks approaching her out of the corner of her eye. Ugh, another annoyance. Ever since he found out about Shaun, he''s been hounding me practically every day about who Shaun''s father is. How the hell am I supposed to know which one of those bastards knocked up my sister? Shaun is a brunette with brown eyes and three of those pricks had the same eye and hair color combination as Shaun. Even if I checked their DNA, I doubt I could say the fuckers name. So, what''s the point of asking? At least, he bought the story about her being the mother. It sort of helped that I mentioned what Orianna did to our mother. I mean what kind of mad genius would it take to figure out how to fuse a woman with a tree and have that person share their nervous system with it? A stasis bubble is practically child''s play in comparison.


    "Hello, young master Marks," Maxine greeted him as she transformed into her shadow elf form. I''m not sure why grandma insisted that I call him that, but I guess it''s just to be polite.


    "Hello, Mana," Adam Marks replied, "How is your nephew today?"


    "He is fine and I''m trying to get him to go to sleep," Maxine replied, "If he doesn''t doze off soon, I may just take him with me when I go sing to the other children."


    "I''m sure that he will enjoy it," Adam Marks said with a smile and he gazed at Shaun while using a childish voice, "Won''t you little man?" Shaun immediately started to get fussy and looked like he was about to cry.


    "I''ve asked you repeatedly not to do that," Maxine said angrily, "Shaun clearly doesn''t like you. Why do you insist on continually upsetting him?"


    "I''m sorry. I just ... nevermind," Adam Marks said as he walked away while looking hurt, but the elder stayed behind.


    "Please, forgive the young master," the elder from the Marks clan said, "His heart is in the right place, but his methods are quite lacking."


    "I''ve noticed," Maxine said calmly.


    "May I ask why you are so defensive around him?" the elder asked.


    "Both me and my sister suffered greatly at the hands of men before either of us gained the necessary strength to defend ourselves," Maxine said honestly, "My sister''s situation was worse by far. The things those men did to her ....I saw it all. It made me develop a strong distrust towards men, but it drove my sister insane."


    "I see," the elder said softly, "Thank you for sharing this with me. But you do know that Shaun will grow into a man."


    "I know," Maxine said softly while stroking Shaun''s head, "But as his aunt, I can''t hate him. If anything, I want to shower him in the love that his mother can no longer give him." She glanced to the side at the elder and he was looking at her appreciatively.


    "He is lucky to have you," the elder replied, "Now, I must go find young master Adam. I have a feeling he may get himself into trouble if I do not."


    "He''s quite adept at that," Maxine said and heard the elder grunt before he swiftly walked in the direction that Adam Marks walked off in.


    Maxine began walking toward the children that had gathered to listen to her sing. They looked excited when they spotted her approaching and a few of them got curious when they saw her carrying Shaun. I guess this would be the first time that I''ve brought him with me to sing.


    "Is that your baby, scary lady?" a little girl asked.


    "No, this is my nephew," Maxine corrected her and looked to the others, "Now, do you guys have any requests?"


    "Um, what about that first song from yesterday?" one of the small boys asked, "The one that has the elven kiss in it." Oh, I did sing that song. I didn''t think they would like the song ''Tir Na Nog'' by Celtic Lady.


    "I don''t mind singing that again," Maxine said with a smile, "But don''t think that you''re going to get a kiss." She saw that little boy snap his fingers while looking disappointed. She didn''t waste a moment and created a few shadow clones before singing. Afterall, the song had five different women singing in it. It was only fitting that she performed it in a similar manner.


    While she sang, she spotted Adam Marks approaching her out of the corner of her eye and he looked worried. What''s going on with him now?


    [You need to leave this planet,] Adam Marks said via spiritual sense and his worry for her bled through the connection, [I just got word that a group of alchemists are coming here to force you to give them whatever notes that your father gave you.]


    Without missing a beat in her song, she had her shadow clones dance around the gathered children as she replied, [My sister was the alchemist, not I. If my father gave out any of his knowledge it would be given to my sister. And whatever she was given died with her.]


    [They seem to think differently. Somehow, they got word that Madam Kavros acquired some incomplete notes, and they believe that you have the rest,] Adam Marks explained, [That''s why you must flee.]


    [He''s not wrong,] grandma Victoria added in out of nowhere, [And young man, you should train harder at using your spiritual sense. It''s leaking all over the place. A novice could listen into your conversation.]


    [I apologize, but you must take her away from here,] Adam Marks pleaded.


    [I won''t be able to,] grandma Victoria said sadly, [Your information is incomplete. Those alchemists are only hours away and they will chase Mana even if I take her with me. The most I can do is take my great grand son away. As for Mana, she is more than capable of defending herself from a handful of ordinary gold stage mercenaries.]


    [There are over twenty of them!] Adam Marks exclaimed.


    [That''s hardly a threat,] Maxine stated calmly, [I''ve sparred with my grand mother a few times while I was out and I''m able to hold my own against her. Although, it''s frustrating that I can''t beat her even though I''m faster and stronger than she is.] Adam Marks looked at Maxine with a dumbfounded look for several seconds before regaining his composure.


    [Is this true?] Adam Marks asked.


    [Yes, it is. She''s particularly skilled with those blades of hers. What did you call your technique again? Was it the Unrelenting Fangs of the Hydra?] grandma Victoria asked.


    [Close enough,] Maxine replied.


    [So, you''re staying?] Adam Marks asked in a concerned tone.


    [Yes, I am,] Maxine replied, [This is my home and I will defend it.]


    [I see. Then I shall stand at your side when they arrive,] Adam Marks said with determination, which surprised Maxine.


    [You are not even gold stage. You will only get in my way,] Maxine said, [Or worse yet, get yourself killed for no good reason.]


    [I''m aware,] Adam Marks replied, [But they may be reluctant to engage me since I''m the heir to the Divine Marks clan.]


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    [I didn''t think of that,] Maxine answered honestly, [Still, you shouldn''t participate for that very same reason.] However, as she said that, she saw the elder from the Divine Marks clan had already snuck up behind Adam Marks. What is that old man up to?


    With a swift motion, the elder struck Adam Marks at the base of his skull and he went limp. The elder carried him towards their ship. Adam is going to be furious with his elder for that, but it''s for his own good.


    [So, how do you plan on facing so many enemies?] grandma Victoria asked.


    [If I believe that I can beat them, I will stand and fight,] Maxine replied honestly, [If not, I''ll run and hide somewhere until the time is right.]


    [There are only so many places that you can hide on this planet and they will search it thoroughly,] grandma Victoria pointed out, [Do you have some other place that you can hide? I can take an item that you''ve marked with me if not.]


    [Trust me, grandma, there is no where that I can retreat to besides Earth,] Maxine answered honestly, [Well, technically, I could hide on Europa or Enceladus if I absolutely had to.]


    [What are those?] grandma Victoria asked.


    [Moons of the two closest gas giants to sun,] Maxine answered, [They suitable for me to live on, but assuming that I can breathe underwater in my full-hybrid form.] There are documented cases of hydras remaining submerged in lakes or deep rivers for months at a time. Although, I don''t know for certain if that would apply to me. I''ve never actually found anything that resembles gills on me when I''m in my full-hybrid form, but then again, hydras don''t have them either. No one actually ever figured out how they are able to survive underwater for so long. So, I''m only guessing that they can breathe underwater using some previously unknown method.


    [Not the most solid plan, but it''s a good enough alternative,] grandma Victoria said, [Not many people know that hydras can survive underwater for long periods of time.]


    [How do you know about that?] Maxine asked, [I only know it because I researched it extensively.]


    [I may have asked Boreas to find some information on hydras that might be helpful to you,] grandma Victoria said knowingly.


    [Figures,] Maxine said more to herself than her grandmother, [Regardless, you best come get this little guy. You don''t have a whole lot of time to get out of here.]


    [That can wait until after you are done singing,] grandma Victoria said, [Afterall, this will be the last time that you will be able to see him.]


    [Thank you,] Maxine said softly and she saw her grandmother smile gently out of the corner of her eye.


    While keeping in mind that this would be the last time that she could sing to her nephew, she put her heart and soul into the next few songs and never once took her eyes off of Shaun during her performance. It took half an hour before her throat started to ache and her mouth dry, but by the end of it, she realized that little Shaun looked healthier than he had before. In fact, when she lifted her head, she saw that everyone present had a more healthy glow to them. She was confused at this, but simply shoved that detail into the back of her mind. It wasn''t like she had the time to delve into that oddity at the moment.


    "That was an amazing performance, Mana," General McKenzie said from beside grandma Victoria.


    "Thank you," Maxine said as she handed the now sleeping Shaun over to grandma Victoria, "Take good care of him, grandma."


    "I will," grandma Victoria said reassuringly.


    "And one more thing before you go. Could you point in which direction those hostiles are in?" Maxine asked, "I don''t want to engage them anywhere near Earth." A serious look swiftly formed on General McKenzie''s face as soon as Maxine finished her sentence.


    "I''ll send you the coordinates as soon as we breach the atmosphere," grandma Victoria said as she carried Shaun towards her ship.


    "Do you need assistance?" General McKenzie asked as soon as grandma Victoria was out of earshot. I''m surprised he didn''t ask why grandma was taking Shaun with her. Then again, he probably expected me to send him away with her. It''s not like this is the best environment to raise a child in.


    "No, as I said the last time something like this happened, these individuals are beyond anything that you or yours can handle," Maxine explained, "But I appreciate the thought. Regardless, it''s me that they''re after. So, you don''t have to worry too much about it."


    "Is that why you''re sending Shaun away with your grandmother?" General McKenzie asked, "To protect him?"


    "Yes," Maxine answered honestly, "He''s in too much danger being near me. Only a handful of people will even dare to go after him within my grand mother''s clan."


    "I see," general McKenzie said softly and gave her a stern look, "You should go see them off. Who knows when you''ll be able to see either of them again."


    "I will and before I forget, thank you for hosting me," Maxine said sincerely, "I won''t return to Earth after I eliminate those people coming for me. There will always be more that will come looking for me and being here will just turn our home into a target. It''s best for everyone if I just go away now that Earth has someone else to look after it."


    "That''s too bad. I have enjoyed your company," General McKenzie said in a disappointed tone.


    "As have I, grandfather," Maxine said as she gave General McKenzie a hug. He froze up for a moment before returning the hug.


    "Thank you for trusting me," General McKenzie said.


    "You''re very welcome," Maxine said with a smile, "Now, I best go see them off."


    "Take care," General McKenzie said as Maxine jogged towards grandma Victoria''s ship. She got there just as grandma Victoria was climbing into it.


    Maxine rushed towards her and grabbed her shoulder before she gently leaned in to give little Shaun a kiss on his head before hugging both him and her grandmother. "I''ll miss you too, Mana," grandma Victoria said gently as she hugged Maxine back with one arm, "Now, dry your face. You still have those alchemists and their mercenaries to attend to after we leave. It won''t do for you to look like a fragile young woman. It will only embolden them."


    Maxine wiped her face with a cloth from her dimensional ring and gave her grand mother a smile. "Exactly," Maxine said with a cruel smile.


    "You devious child," grandma Victoria said approvingly and sighed, "I wish I could stay with you longer. If I do, we could get caught in the crossfire. While I may survive, Shaun would not."


    "I know, grandma," Maxine said as she pulled herself away from grandma Victoria and gave Shaun one last kiss on his head, "Safe travels to the both of you." For a brief moment after she finished speaking, she saw faint shimmer in the air out of the corner of her eye and it was from a metal that could only be found in space. However, she showed no outwards sign of it that she saw it. I was wondering when they would show up.


    Grandma Victoria smiled as she nodded her head and entered her ship. Maxine backed away from the ship and watched as the hatch closed before the ship started to slowly ascend into the sky. Within moments, she received the coordinates of the approaching ship as well as it''s direction of approach from grandma Victoria.


    She expanded her spiritual sense out into a small dome around herself before directing it into a narrow beam towards the approaching ship filled with mercenaries. She found it almost immediately and it had sixty four people in it and all of them gold stage. Grandma''s intel was wrong. It''s not that surprising. Sending out false information is a classic counter intelligence maneuver.


    None of the mercenaries looked like good people. In fact, their leader started projecting his intent to rape her within moments of her spiritual sense engulfing this ship. [Oh? And who might you be?] the mercenary leader asked, [Are you that little tart that we''re supposed to capture? I''ll make you a deal. You give us what we were paid to retrieve and I''ll be the only one to have a little fun with ya, but if you fight, all of my men will get to enjoy havin'' a go with you. Sound fair?] Of course, those idiot alchemists hired the worst possible people that they could. They''re the only ones dumb enough to take a mission like this.


    [You don''t deserve to die like a warrior,] Maxine answered calmly, [Instead, you''ll die like an insect.]


    [And what exactly does that mean?] the mercenary leader asked with caution.


    Maxine didn''t answer him and simply severed the spiritual sense connection, but she kept her spiritual sense locked onto the ship as she rocketed off of towards the sky. Within moments, she exited the atmosphere and with a thought, she formed her essence armor as she began to fly straight at the ship full of mercenaries. However as she hinted at earlier, she no longer intended to fight them directly. Instead, once she was confident that she could eliminate them entirely while they were still enroute.


    After she flew past Mars, she stopped in place before summoning her bow from her dimensional ring and held out her right hand to the side as she formed a singularity arrow as swiftly as she could. It didn''t even take her ten seconds before it was finished and she swiftly took aim while drawing her bow. It was at that moment that she could sense and see their panic. Oh, it took them awhile to realize what I was doing. It doesn''t matter at this stage. If they had fled while I was forming it, they might''ve had a chance to escape, but now, none of them will escape with their lives. They can just blame their idiotic leader for their misfortune.


    With a cold glare on her face, she released her singularity arrow and watched it impact their ship a second and a half later. A few of the mercenaries managed to get out of the ship before the arrow managed to impact it, but they failed to escape being devoured a rapidly expanding void. That should buy me some time.


    Maxine glanced to the side and spotted a very faint shimmering silhouette and send her spiritual sense towards it, [I''m not terribly fond of peeping toms. Show yourself.] A female shadow lord slowly appeared where the shimmering silhouette was. I''m almost disappointed it wasn''t Turan.


    [How did you notice my presence?] the female shadow lord asked.


    [Your stealth technique was flawed enough that I saw a faint shimmer,] Maxine answered simply and ignored her after that.


    Maxine flew towards Europa. Thankfully, Jupiter was close enough that she didn''t need to create a portal inside of her mouth leading to Earth to get a breath of air. Instead, she wore mask with a 4 hour air supply.


    It took her nearly three hours to reach Europa and when she did, she sent her spiritual sense down through the kilometers thick ice. It was easier than sensing through rock, but she was still only just barely able to sense the liquid water beneath. She looked at her shadow lord stalker and waved as she encased herself in shadow to teleport. Let''s see you follow me down there. I just hope that I can somehow breathe underwater. Otherwise, I''ll have to create a portal to Earth just to breathe.

 Chapter 201

    Maxine swam calmly through the inky black waters of Europa. She had found that she didn''t need to breathe while underwater, and she discovered another interesting tidbit about her physiology. She could literately absorb toxic minerals through her scales and a unique biological process occurred within her scales that converted them into nutrients. It was so efficient that she wouldn''t need to eat at all if she could find a thermal vent linked to an underground volcano. Those things spewed out all sorts of toxic elements. Unfortunately, all the thermal vents that she had encountered were occupied by some form of life and they didn''t appreciate it when she intruded into their territory. Thus, she was only able to remain around them for short periods of time and ate nutritional pills inbetween visits to thermal vents.


    She mentally shivered at the memory of the last creature she encountered. It was looked like a very fat sea snake that was roughly twenty feet long until it''s body opened up to reveal dozes of tiny circular mouths filled with razor sharp teeth right as it tried to constrict her. While it wasn''t really a threat to her, it still creeped her out. I do not want to deal with that nightmare fuel ever again. I guess I''ll have to give up on seeing if there are any unique medicinal herbs down here.


    After a few more minutes of swimming, she finally spotted a faint light source. Sadly, there were more of those snake things as well as a few crustaceans around the thermal vent. She mentally sighed and looked up when she heard a faint grinding sound along with the faint whine of machinery. Someone must be digging down here. Hmm, if its a new batch of idiots after daddy''s notes, they got here way faster than I expected. It''s only been a few days since I killed those mercenaries.


    Maxine sent her spiritual sense upwards to find whomever was digging. It took her a few minutes, but she found them. They were inside a rather large machine that was digging straight down. Although, it was no where near where she shadow stepped beneath the ice and the people inside of the machine were mostly bronze and iron stage cultivators. Neat. I guess the Technological Union saw an opportunity to study lifeforms living in a rather unique situation. Most places that have life are similar to Earth at least in some respect.


    After a few moments of observing them, she had spotted a very faint shimmer moving amongst the researchers with her spiritual sense.  Is that the female shadow lord hiding amongst the researchers? She''s definitely better at hiding her presence than before. I can just barely make her out. She could still do better though.


    [Greetings,] the female shadow lord said via spiritual sense before Maxine could retract her own, [You left before I could introduce myself. I''m Elowynn.]


    [And I''m Manatherine, Mana for short,] Maxine replied, [Now, please, leave me alone. You''re giving away my location with your inept stealth technique. If you''re trying to figure out a way to see without compromising your ability to remain hidden, try to perceive the world around you through the surrounding shadows. It''s what I do when I need to remain undetected.] Within a handful of seconds, the shimmering around Elowynn swiftly vanished. She figured that out fairly fast, but that trick has it''s drawbacks. Everything is out of focus. Making many of the smaller details get lost. Also, you can only see the area around you from a 3rd person perspective, which can be a bit disorientating at first for beginners. However, it''s perfect for observing someone without them being aware of you.


    [Thank you for your instruction,] Elowynn replied


    [Think nothing of it,] Maxine replied, [It''s not as if that method is perfect either.]


    [Regardless, it''s still superior to the method that I was using,] Elowynn said respectfully.


    [No argument from me,] Maxine said, [So, are you going to leave me alone now?]


    [I''m sorry, but that''s not possible,] Elowynn replied.


    [Why not?] Maxine asked directly.


    [I''m sorry. I cannot give you an answer,] Elowynn replied.


    [Of course, you can''t,] Maxine said in exasperation, [Do you at least have some roasted meat on you? I can''t exactly cook anything while I''m underwater.]


    [I have a few ration bars flavored as various meats. Will that do?] Elowynn asked as she held a couple of them in her hand.


    [It''s better than nothing,] Maxine said as she enshrouded the ration bars with shadow while creating a small empty sphere infront of her hand and teleported the ration bars inside of it. She dispelled both constructs afterwards.


    [I was wondering how you were going to get them,] Elowynn stated, [That brings up a couple questions to mind. How are you not freezing to death? Even cultivators of your level can''t survive in such frigid temperatures for that long. And that''s not even mentioning how you''ve survived without breathing for so long.]


    [I''m not particularly certain why the cold doesn''t seem to affect me much,] Maxine answered calmly, [As for why I don''t need to breathe, my guess is that my hydra bloodline is responsible. Hydras are known for surviving underwater for long periods of time. Although, I wish I could find an unoccupied volcanic vent down here. I don''t particularly like being stuck in total darkness.]


    [I can sympathize,] Elowynn answered, [But there is little that you can do if you wish to remain hidden.]


    [True enough,] Maxine said.


    After a second or two of silence, Elowynn asked, [Can I ask you for a favor?]


    [Depends on what it is,] Maxine answered cautiously.


    [I''m infertile and have been so since birth,] Elowynn explained and Maxine confused until Elowynn continued, [I desperately desire children and I know that you revived your nephew. I want you to give me the ability to have children and don''t deceive me. I know what you did on your homeworld and reviving the dead is a far simpler process than giving me what I desire.] Fuck, I was worried someone might figure it out, but at this stage, even if she told someone, it''s unlikely that they''ll get here before I leave. Still, I don''t want to stir up any trouble and part of me wants to know if I can actually do something like that.


    [Is it a congenital defect that restricts your ability to reproduce or do you lack ovaries?] Maxine asked in an even tone.


    [I possess ovaries and there are no obvious defects,] Elowynn said, [The healers explained that my eggs lack the vitality to be viable.] Ah, the eventual down fall of any species is the lack of genetic diversity. The lack of vitality is one way to explain that problem to a layman.


    [What you''re asking me to do is extremely difficult,] Maxine explained, [Your infertility is a result of a lack of genetic diversity within your race. The only way to restore your fertility is to cause a genetic mutation. I can''t control what that mutation will be. It could be as mild as changing your hair color, but it could also be something that will make you beg for death. Are you truly that desperate for children?]


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    [Females of my race are expected to have at least two children. My infertility has made me an outcast,] Elowynn said calmly, [My parents tired to counsel me, but I could tell that they only reason that I wasn''t abandoned at birth was for appearances. I was next to worthless in their eyes. The elders even chose me to observe you for the very fact that I was infertile so that IF you were to kill me, they would loose very little. You can''t imagine the isolation that I''ve endured thus far. So, yes, I am that desperate.]


    [Very well,] Maxine said softly, [I need to be in my best condition to do what you ask.]


    [Understood,] Elowynn said, [How long will it take for you to get into your best condition?]


    [One or two hours should be enough,] Maxine said calmly. And enough time for me to prepare a few warp stones in case her story is bullshit.


    With that, Maxine severed the spiritual sense connection and located a suitable underwater cave using her spiritual sense. Once she reached the cave, she made herself comfortable and created a couple warp stones that would warp her to the very spot that she was resting in. Next, she meditated to bring her mental and physical faculties to their best. However, it was hard to meditate since she couldn''t breathe in the traditional sense. Regardless, she managed.


    When she felt that she was at her best, she returned to the spot that she contacted Elowynn at and sent out her spiritual sense to find her. She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of an empty room and she was completely naked with her clothes folded to the side. [Why are you naked?] Maxine asked her.


    [I thought this would make it easier for you to treat me,] Elowynn said calmly, [Was I mistaken?]


    [Your state of dress doesn''t matter with the procedure that I have in mind,] Maxine replied, [Will we be disturbed in that room that you''ve occupied?]


    [No, I made sure of it,] Elowynn replied calmly, [It was surprisingly easy to convince the researchers to allow me to stay in this storage room once I announced my presence.]


    [I''m not surprised. You''re a beautiful woman and all of them are men,] Maxine said knowingly, [Anyways, I''ll be there in a few moments.] With a thought, she covered herself in shadow and teleported herself into the storage room.


    "Whenever, you''re ready to begin I am," Elowynn said in english without getting up.


    "Before that, I need to warn you about a few things," Maxine said calmly, "First off, I want to repeat that I don''t know what will happen to you since I didn''t have a lot of time to properly test this procedure. This could easily kill you as it could give you what you want."


    "I was prepared for death the moment that I asked you to restore my fertility," Elowynn answered, "But I am curious as to why you don''t have the time to test it."


    "Something is happening to me and I don''t know what it will do," Maxine answered, "All that I know is that it will happen within a couple weeks from now and I would need at least a month to properly test what I''m going to do to you. There is only a small chance that it will even work as intended."


    "I see," Elowynn said as she looked at the floor for a moment and returned her gaze back to Maxine, "Some chance is better than none at all. Get on with it."


    "As you wish," Maxine said and sat down behind Elowynn, "Just don''t move."


    She placed her hands on Elowynn''s back while being mindful of her claws and began seeping her energies throughout her body. She had to be careful to spread it out evenly. This is a lot more dangerous than I told her. If I make a big enough mistake, she could turn inside out and still be alive. My control has to be perfect. With extreme care, she used a combination of different elemental energies to trigger a mutation and gradually increased their intensity until something happened. Even after focusing her energies for several minutes did nothing and it gave her cause for concern.


    It suddenly struck her the method she was using had to have been eerily similar to how Orianna had fused Claudia into a tree. If Orianna could create a targeted mutation like that, it has to be possible for me to trigger a minor mutation on my own. Now, how did she do it? She could''ve used the dumbest way and pressed Claudia against a tree while doing what I am to force the mutation into what she wanted. It would have a low chance of working, but it''s still possible. I could try something similar, but I have no idea what kind of catalyst would be needed to boost her fertility. Forcing too much healing type energies into her would cause cancer to spontaneously form. Damn it. I wish I knew more about genetics. If I did, I could manipulate her genetic code on a global scale and change a few minor things to increase her individual genetic diversity compared to the rest of her race.


    In a moment of frustration, she accidentally let her energies surge and that momentary lapse in control triggered a mutation in Elowynn. She groaned in pain while Maxine swiftly scanned her body for what had changed. An additional pair of kidneys were literately forming inside of her and Maxine could imagine that it had to be a very painful experience when your organs literately shift to make room for new ones. Well, I don''t know if that''s a beneficial mutation or not. Redundant renal systems are beneficial to mammals, but quadruple redundancy is overkill. Still, it may solve her issue of fertility. With a thought, she checked Elowynn''s ovaries and sighed in relief. The mutation had definitely improved her fertility and oddly, increased her bust by a size as a side effect.


    Once Elowynn had stopped groaning in pain, Maxine withdrew her hands and said, "It seems that I was successful. Although, I wouldn''t recommend doing anything strenuous for a few months until your body has adjusted. And um, you might want to get some new clothes. I''m afraid that many of your shirts may be a bit tight around your chest with your increased bust."


    Elowynn whipped around and hugged Maxine while saying ''thank you'' over and over again as if it were a sacred chant. "Um, while I''m happy that you appreciate my efforts, I would prefer it if you got dressed first."


    "Oh! Yes, you''re right," Elowynn said with a slight darkening of her cheeks as she got off Maxine and began getting dressed. However, she seemed to be confused after she put on her top.


    "I mentioned that your bust had gotten bigger, but I guess you didn''t hear me," Maxine said calmly and in the next moment, a warp stone appeared in her hand as she waited for the ambush. But nothing happened. Huh, she really was telling me the truth. Interesting. I might look for more of these ''discarded'' shadow elves in the future. They might make good allies in my timeline.


    "I heard you, but I didn''t expect them to be so obscenely large," Elowynn commented as she gestured at her c-cup breasts.


    "You call that bust size obscenely large?" Maxine asked incredulously, "Trust me. Humans can have MUCH larger sizes naturally. So, don''t worry about it. If anything, larger breasts are a bonus. It enables you to better feed any infants that you may have."


    "I didn''t consider that," Elowynn said and her expression became grave, "I''m sorry, but I need to admit something. I wasn''t the only one observing you. I was only able to talk to you privately due to them investigating your homeworld in regards to your sister. It won''t take them more than a few more days and I won''t be able to hide the changes that have happened to my body." I should''ve known.


    "I''ll just hide again," Maxine said confidently." Or, I could use that return stone early and hope that this bracelet has enough of a charge to shield me on the way back. No, it''s best that I hold off on that for as long as possible. I can conceal myself a lot better than they can. Masking my energy signal is child''s play, but my physical presence is another story. Perhaps, I can find a cave near a volcanic vent.


    "It won''t work. They''re much better at tracking than I am," Elowynn stated, "And I doubt that they will believe me when I tell them about your vague feeling. They''re the kind of people to act first and ask questions later."


    "Then, I''ll just kill them," Maxine stated calmly.


    "Please, don''t. I can stall them for at least a couple days. You can use that time to flee," Elowynn said honestly.


    "Thank you, but we both know that your people are extremely skilled at tracking," Maxine replied calmly, "And I don''t want to be running for the next couple weeks. I much rather relax in the depths of this world''s oceans."


    "That''s your choice," Elowynn said while looking away, "I wish you luck and thank you again for helping me. You should go now. It will give you more time to find a suitable place to hide."


    Maxine nodded her head at Elowynn and crushed the warp stone in her hand. In the next instant, she was inside the underwater cave. Now, I need to come up with a decent plan to hide until this damn artifact has enough of a charge for me to get home. If not, I''ll just have to risk a early return to my timeline.

 Chapter 202

    Maxine stayed completely still while focusing on the construct around her to appear as part of the sea floor. It was one of the many tricks she developed to avoid the shadow lords, but many of them were useless now since the shadow lords had figured out how they worked. I''ve created multiple warp points, used a bunch of shadow clones that scatter in random directions, hid in toxic clouds directly above volcanic vents, gave them the run around in maze-like oceanic caves and my personal favorite, latched onto the bottom of their submarine for half a day. I just need to stay hidden for a couple more days, but at this rate, I''ll be caught before then. If there were only one or two peak gold stage shadow lords tracking me, I could just kill them, but against twelve, I can''t do shit.


    She smiled to herself at some of her antics for a moment, but froze when she detected a faint shift in the surrounding currents. She carefully looked around while inside of her construct and spotted tiny motes of dust shifting around something invisible. Damn, they''re zeroing in on me. I''ve got maybe a couple hours before they figure out that I''m hiding right here and I''ll be forced to make an early return to my timeline. If there was no other choice, I suppose I could just scream through my spiritual sense at everything within range before fully transforming into a hydra. That would coincide with that warning that I gave to Elowynn, but I really rather not do that. Even assuming that I could retain control of that state for a few days, those shadow lords would most likely feel obligated to capture me and attempt to help me regain my previous state. So, that won''t work. And there is the matter that I can still sense my constructs in the shadow world. While I could possibly create a portal to the shadow world, I don''t dare to even attempt it while I''m being watched. The shadow lords in this timeline could possibly follow me to my timeline. That would just be a nightmare just waiting to happen. So, I''m limited to this special warp stone to send me back to my timeline.


    Maxine continued to wait for the invisible shadow lords to leave since she could afford to at the moment. Afterall, unlike them, her scales mitigated the cold temperature of these water, but even she needed to swim near a volcanic vent from time to time to warm up. Still, she could force herself to endure the cold for another day before that became a necessity, but she knew that they would find her long before then. For now, she was simply waiting for the best opportunity to get off of this moon and use that wretched stone to return to her timeline without being spotted by the shadow lords in the process. I just hope this defensive artifact has got enough of a charge to keep me from being torn apart.


    Maxine waited for nearly an hour, before the shadow lords both visible and not, left the immediate area. Without hesitating, she surged towards the ice directly above and threw out her spiritual sense in a narrow beam. In the instant that she could sense the surface, she sighed in relief that they were on the night side of the moon and shadow stepped to the surface. Next, she burst off into space at her full speed and flew towards deep space. If I''m lucky, it''ll be a good five minutes before they are able to follow me. Even if I''m not, they''ll still be at a minimum a couple minutes behind me. That should be enough time for me to activate this warp stone to create a rift and get through before they can stop me.


    She flew for a good three minutes with her spiritual sense spread out around herself and failed to detect any sign that she was being followed. She swiftly put on her breathing mask filled with air, devoured a dozen nutritional pills and began forming a purely-defensive crystalline structure over a foot thick around herself in preparation for going through the rift. She had no idea if she would even still be conscious once she got through since her defensive artifact hadn''t recharged all of the way. She wasn''t completely confident her preparations were sufficient, so she put on the defensive artifact that Guan had gifted her before activating the return stone.


    A rift appeared infront of her and with a small jolt of her energies, she was propelled through. Like last time, it felt like she was put through Satan''s forth-dimensional washing machine, but this time it was even more intense than before. Even with two shielding artifacts protecting her, the crystalline structure around herself was rapidly degrading. She couldn''t even do anything about it due to the disorientation caused by the distortions within the rift. She could only pray that it would last long enough for her to get through.


    When she was finally ejected out the other side, she instantly lost consciousness. Thankfully, she wasn''t unconscious for long, but her thoughts were sluggish. So, it took her a few moments to realize that her crystalline shell was still a few inches thick and that she was rapidly approaching a world that had a similar climate to Earth. Why am I not surprised that I wasn''t sent to Earth? I guess I should be grateful that he put the exit over a habitable world after the rough return trip. He could''ve set up the exit over a fucking star and I would''ve been powerless to keep myself from plummeting towards it. All this accomplished is forcing me to wait for my body to recover before I open a portal back to Earth.


    Her energies were a swirling mess within her pathways. Making it nearly impossible for her to use them at all. Still, she could feel that her energies were very slowly calming down. It would take a few days for them to settle down enough for her to create a portal home. Her body, on the other hand, was rapidly recovering from the stress that it just went through.


    In her current state, there was little she could do to prevent herself from falling towards the planet, so, she just remained motionless within what was left of her crystalline shell. And unlike the last time, she had an additional layer of protection. Making the risk of injury much lower. It still didn''t make the prospect of turning into a living fireball any more pleasant.


    Sadly, she could feel her consciousness starting to slip from her again and swiftly estimated that she would impact in a rather sizable lake. If there are locals on this world, they will have a harder time finding me in that lake before I can regain my strength. And I really would prefer to avoid them if at all possible since I''m pretty certain they would respond quite negatively to my appearance. Hell, I''d be lucky if they even tried to communicate with me before attacking me out of fear.


    A few moments later she spotted a faint orange glow appearing around her as she entered the atmosphere and she waited to see if she could feel any heat through the crystalline shell around her. Oddly, even after she was completely engulfed in flames, there was no increase in temperature. If it didn''t take so long to form, I might try to use this technique defensively against fire based attacks. Still, I''m almost certain it will shatter apart once I make contact with that lake. Crystals, while heat resistant, are terrible when it comes to blunt impacts.


    As she predicted, the crystalline shell around her shattered like glass on impact with the lake and swiftly vanished as if it were ice melting on red hot steel. She didn''t focus on it for long as her body swiftly sank beneath the water and spread out her spiritual sense. She detected rich levels of mana and wasn''t surprised when she saw huge fish swimming past her. At least, they''re not big enough to swallow me whole. Not that they could hurt me, but the idea of being swallowed whole by those things is rather unsettling. Now, let''s see. I''ll need a day or two before my energies are stable enough for me to create a portal back to Earth. That should coincide with the correct time that I was supposed to return to Earth anyways. As for my body, I''ll need about an hour before I''ll have my full strength back, but I should be able to move around for now.


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    Maxine tested her hands and nodded to herself in satisfaction before she started swimming to the lake''s bottom. Speaking of which, she was actually surprised that she had only fallen about three hundred feet under the surface of the water. She had expected to be sent deeper. Still, she grew increasingly concerned the deeper she swam. Many of the fish that she saw were easily bigger than any great white shark that she had ever heard of and a few were comparable to an adult sperm whale. Yet, none of them so much as gave her a second look. Can they sense how powerful I am? Or is it their instincts warning them about the threat that I pose to them? Either way, I''m happy that I don''t have to deal with these critters trying to eat me. I wonder how Earth''s oceanic critters compare to these guys. It might be a good idea to do that once I get home. There might be some creatures that make these guys look like tiny minnows in comparison.


    When she finally reached the bottom, she saw an absolutely massive turtle from it''s side. She couldn''t see it''s head, so she couldn''t figure out what kind of turtle it was. There were a few possibilities and thankfully, most turtles of this size were generally quite peaceful. But there was one in particular that was both extremely territorial and intelligent: a dragon turtle.


    [Oh, a hydrakin?] Maxine heard an ancient voice resound in her head, [I havn''t heard of one of your kind appearing for over a thousand years. What an unexpected turn of events. Might I ask your name, child?] Oh, shit. This thing must be truly ancient to have seen something like me before, not to mention powerful. I just hope that I remember the etiquette that grandma insisted that I learn in the past.


    [Maxine,] Maxine answered reflexively, [And may I ask yours, elder?]


    [Genbei,] the ancient turtle said as a turtle head the size of a large house exited his shell and turned to look at her.


    [Thank you for sharing your name, elder Genbei,] Maxine said as she bowed her head respectfully. She was thanking all that was holy that Genbei was not a dragon turtle. Instead, he was something even more rare: the mythical black tortoise. To her knowledge, there were only a few thousand in existence.


    [Think nothing of it, child,] Elder Genbei said happily, [You''re a significant improvement over my usual company. They usually try to injure me and once they realize that they can''t, they insult me.]


    [Those idiots! Do they not know how rare of an existence that you are?] Maxine asked.


    [I believe they don''t,] Elder Genbei replied, [To them, I''m just an oversized turtle that has a very potent core that can lead them to greater heights of power.]


    [If that''s the case, I can''t imagine why you would stay here, elder,] Maxine said.


    [I made a promise to meet another of my kind in this place,] Elder Genbei replied, [It''s been two thousand years since that promise was made and I shall continue to wait for another two thousand years. To you and I, it''s but a short wait.]


    [Elder, I''ve not even seen my thirtieth year,] Maxine said honestly.


    [Oh, I wasn''t aware. I thought you were much older due to the clarity of your thought. It normally takes several thousand years for your kind to achieve sanity and thousands more to have the clarity of thought that you possess,] Elder Genbei said and his tone became one of regret, [I wish this wasn''t the case. If only those those foolish dragons hadn''t cursed your ancestors bloodlines with madness, there might be more of your kind for the both of us to converse with.] WHAT?!


    [Elder, do you know why they cursed us?] Maxine asked.


    [I''m not entirely certain, child. The thoughts of those prideful creatures is hard to understand,] Elder Genbei replied, [Perhaps, it''s simply that they couldn''t tolerate any other creature in existence that could challenge their place as a peak predator. A foolish action in my opinion. Without competition, their species will slowly degrade and become a shadow of what it once was.]


    [I couldn''t agree more, elder,] Maxine said as respectfully as she could and she felt somewhat guilty for not correcting him earlier, [Um, I have something to admit. I havn''t been exactly honest with you. Or rather, I didn''t correct you when I should have. I''m not actually a full-hydra. I only possess the bloodline of one.] Oddly, as soon as she finished speaking, Maxine sensed approval from Elder Genbei.


    [I already knew that, Maxine,] Elder Genbei answered, [I simply wished to test your character. May I ask why you decided to tell me the truth?]


    [It''s easier to be honest,] Maxine answered honestly, [And I was hoping that you might have an inheritance of the ancient hydrakin.]


    [Such an inheritance wouldn''t be that beneficial to you,] Elder Genbei pointed out, [In fact, it''s practically useless for anyone that isn''t a hydrakin.]


    [It wouldn''t be for me,] Maxine replied, [It would be for my adopted brother. He was forced to become a hydrakin before he was ready. In fact, he''s still a child.]


    [Show me,] Elder Genbei said and Maxine sent her memories of Lucas to him, [That poor child. He should''ve never been forced into that state against his will. And you are correct. I do possess such an inheritance. I can pass it along to you, but I expect that you''ll only give this to those that need it.]


    [That''s my intent,] Maxine replied honestly, [And as you said, it would be pointless to share it to anyone else anyways.]


    [Good. Now, brace yourself. The inheritance isn''t a small thing,] Elder Genbei warned before Maxine felt a dozen different techniques flood into her mind as well as a unique cultivation technique. Sadly, like Elder Genbei said, only one of the techniques would be applicable to her. True hydrakin have race specific energy pathways and the vast majority of these techniques use them. However, there was a single technique that she could use and it was simply named ''Wrath.'' It incited a hydrakin''s bloodline to the maximum causing their strength to soar and any injuries that they receive to almost instantly heal. Unfortunately, it also caused them to go completely berserk until their perceived enemies were dead or they ran out of energy. Either way, after it ended, it would leave the hydrakin in a defenseless state for several days. It''s definitely a powerful technique, and since I have hydra bloodline, I could use it myself. Although, I''m not sure how effective it will be on me since I only possess a bloodline. But even if it works to it''s maximum potential, I don''t think that I would use it. I don''t like even being a little out of control and willingly going berserk is out of the question. Not to mention, the fact that I would be defenseless afterwards.


    [Thank you, Elder Genbei,] Maxine said while bowing deeply to him.


    [You are most welcome,] Elder Genbei said calmly, but for an instant, she sensed the he was distracted, [There is a small cave beneath me. You can rest there while your energies stabilize. And I suggest that you get into it quickly. There are a group of local mages approaching and in your current state, you don''t have the means to defend yourself. Those mages have a tendency to capture and experiment on any new creatures that they find.] As he spoke, he slowly lifted himself off of the lake''s floor. She wasted no time and swiftly swam into the small cave.


    As soon as Maxine was in the cave, Genbei lowered himself back down and withdrew into his shell. She spread out her spiritual sense and saw a dozen peak silver stage mages gliding a few dozen feet above the lakes bottom as if searching for something. They must be looking for the ''meteorite'' that just fell. It''s too bad for them that they don''t know that it was actually me. Still, I wonder why Elder Genbei has been so friendly towards me.


    [I''m simply repaying a small portion of the debt that I owe your father. You see he unintentionally freed my daughter from enslavement from a rather unscrupulous sect,] Elder Genbei said gently, [She was being used as a literal shield by those cretins. Thankfully, he only used a poison specifically designed to kill humans, not beasts. And no, I''m not reading your mind. I simply sensed your confusion directed at me and made a guess as to why that was so. You don''t live as long as I have without learning how the minds of humans work.] That''s actually understandable. Black tortoises are known for their stupidly long lifespans. Even at merely gold state, they can live for millions of years, so that''s plenty of time to observe human behavior. Hell, this old guy could pre-date the appearance of humans on Earth by a significant margin.


    [I see. Thank you for enlightening me, Elder Genbei,] Maxine said respectfully, [If it''s alright with you, I would like to meditate for a short while.]


    [By all means,] Elder Genbei replied.


    Maxine got comfortable and began to meditate. It didn''t actually speed up her recovery any, but it felt nice to calm her mind after the series of events that she just went through. Now, with Elder Genbei looking out for me. I can finally relax a bit until I return to Earth. On that note, I know it''s juvenile, but I have this urge to make an epic entrance when I go back.

 Chapter 203

    Maxine slowly stretched as she circulated her energies to triple check that her energies were completely stable and smiled with delight as soon as they finished a full cycle without impediment. Her recovery had taken her an extra day longer than she anticipated, but that was in part due to the local mages bombarding her with insults via spiritual sense messages. It kept her from completely concentrating on regaining control of her energies.


    What they said didn''t bother her that much as how often they bombarded her with those inane, not to mention childish, insults. In fact, she''s heard better insults from grade schoolers. Thankfully, they had only persisted for a few hours and left shortly after. It gave her plenty of time to chat with Elder Genbei.


    [I see that you have recovered,] Elder Genbei stated, [I take it that you will be returning home soon.]


    [Yes, I will,] Maxine replied, [And I would like to thank you again for sheltering me while I recovered.]


    [Think nothing of it,] Elder Genbei, [I rather enjoyed having someone friendly in which to converse.]


    [I can imagine so,] Maxine agreed, [Those mages'' actions are little better than a group of small children flinging insults that they don''t understand.]


    [An apt comparison,] Elder Genbei said with a chuckle, [Oh, it seems we have inadvertently summoned them.]


    [Speak of the devil and he shall appear,] Maxine chimed, [It''s an old saying from where I come from.]


    [Interesting saying, but not inaccurate,] Elder Genbei said.


    [Come out from your hiding spot, you scaled sea witch,] one of the mages roared at her, [Or shall I bring out your child and torture her infront of you?] Maxine was immediately shocked by his statement. Even Elder Genbei reacted to it. However, she immediately calmed down. If he really had a hydrakin in his custody, he would''ve directly brought her here. It''s nothing more than a cheap trick to goad me into coming out into the open.


    [It won''t even take us that long to fetch the brat. We already know where she is,] another one said and an image of a clothed hydrakin child playing with a middle-aged woman flashed in Maxine''s head. I need to remain calm. If I go out there now, I''ll just get myself into trouble.


    [Maxine, I can sense your desire for violence, but you must not give into it,] Elder Genbei cautioned Maxine, [It''s what they want.]


    [They''ve seen a young hydrakin girl. If there is even a chance that she still lives, I need to protect her,] Maxine replied.


    [I understand that,] Elder Genbei replied, [But if you wish to find her, you need not bother interrogating them. Simply, spread out your spiritual sense and locate the child that way.]


    Maxine took a moment to calm herself and shut out the annoying mages before slowly spreading out her spiritual sense. She did it slowly to avoid missing anything. Her mind may operate at extremely fast speeds, but she was still at her core human. Thankfully, it didn''t take her long to find the child, but she wasn''t a hydrakin. It was a humanoid chimera that was the adopted child of a sorceress. I''m a little disappointed, but I''m not surprised. It would''ve been nice to find Lucas a female to partner up with, so that there will be more hydrakin running around. But finding a young female hydrakin and having her live with Lucas wouldn''t guarantee that they would end up becoming a pair. It''s best to let things happen organically.


    [Thank you, again, Elder Genbei,] Maxine said calmly, [And I must bid you farewell. I really must be returning to my home now.]


    [I understand, Maxine. Take care of that young hydrakin,] Elder Genbei said kindly, [He needs you more than you know.] Maxine gave Elder Genbei an uncomprehending look before nodding her head. I''ll figure out what he means by that later.


    With a thought, she reached out to her constructs on Earth and frowned for a moment. She sensed the energies of another gold stage cultivator through one of her ravens. She hoped this didn''t mean that an incompetent had named themselves Earth''s representative and left a huge mess for her to clean up. Not that the Alliance would accept them. Since there is no physical evidence that I''m dead, they should wait for a minimum of 2 years before they allow someone else to take the job.


    She took a deep breath and coated herself in her energies before switching with a duplicate of herself in a forest on Earth. Immediately, she exhaled to clear out any lingering water in her nose and breathed in deeply. She allowed herself a moment to enjoy the earthy smell of nature before she got to the other things that she needed to do. After a few seconds, she focused her mind on the task at hand. She spread out her spiritual sense and found the gold stage cultivator that was on Earth. It was cocky chinese man that was demanding the UN secretary name him Earth''s representative. Wow, that''s definitely an odd hair style. How did he manage to just dye the ends of his hair blonde like that? And how the hell did he manage to get it so ... spiky?


    "I''m sorry, but you know that we need either Maxine to willingly step down from that position. OR, confirm that she''s dead before such a thing can happen in accordance with Alliance law. So far, she''s only been missing for a few months," the UN secretary stated calmly, "By law, you''re unable to takeover her position unless she''s been missing for no less than two years. It doesn''t matter what your wishes on this matter are."


    Without any warning, the UN secretary was grabbed by the throat and lifted into the air. "You will make me the representative, or I will kill you," the cocky chinese man stated with a vicious smile.


    Maxine had seen enough and stretched a shadow in that office before shadow-stepping into it. I really wanted to make an epic entrance, but I can''t take the risk that this idiot will kill a non-cultivator. He probably doesn''t even know the consequences of killing a non-cultivator, so I need to stop him before he does. She smiled and waved at the UN secretary before silently walking up behind the idiotic man.


    "Why are you smiling?" the idiotic man asked just before Maxine gently placed the claws of her upper arms against his throat, right above the major arteries and veins in his neck.


    "He''s smiling because of me. Now, release him," Maxine said gently, but firmly into the idiot''s ear, "Or I will open your throat here and we will see which will kill you first: my venom or blood loss." The idiot stiffened up and very carefully released the UN secretary.


    "Thank you, Ms. Levings," the UN secretary said.


    "Don''t mention it," Maxine said and directed her attention back to the now frozen with terror idiot, "And as for you, you''d better be on your best behavior from now on. You''ve already come very close to breaking an Alliance law in just the short exchange that I witnessed. So, if you know what''s good for you, you will go back home and properly educate yourself on those laws and how to properly conduct yourself." She didn''t give him an opportunity to nod his head in understanding. She swiftly coated him in her energies and teleported him to a rural town in China. He should be lucky that I didn''t drop him into a big pool of sewage. He has it coming since he acted like a piece of shit.


    "With that out of the way, where the hell have you been?" the UN secretary demanded.


    "Vacation," Maxine stated with a smug smile.


    "You can''t be serious," he said with a flat stare.


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    "Technically, it was a long training session for me to better get a handle on this form," Maxine said with a smile, "But it doubled as a vacation."


    The UN secretary pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration as he said in a calm tone, "Please, would you inform me the next time that you need to go on one of these long ''training sessions''?"


    "Of course," Maxine said, "But I shouldn''t need to for a good while."


    "That''s a relief," the UN secretary said, "And you should know that the Alliance has made a few attempts, legally speaking, at removing your adopted daughter, Kerrigan, from Earth. Thus far, we''ve managed to find a few loopholes that prevented that, but I''m not sure how much longer we will be able to keep them from succeeding." So, that''s why someone wanted me to disappear for three months. Paranoid fuckers can''t help but be afraid of a hive matriarch, even a friendly one, being anywhere near them. Now, if they''re real intent was to kill me using that assassin, I can only say that they''re fucking insane. Daddy would kill everyone involved, if not go on a full on genocidal massacre on their worlds.


    "Well, there are at least five laws that protect her status as a resident of this world. It would take a major rewrite of those laws for her to be forcibly expelled," Maxine pointed out, "And I doubt there is anyone willing to go through that kind of work to make it happen. They were using fear tactics to make you give in an evict her yourself." This is particularly hard since Kerrigan can''t technically traverse the stars just yet. She''s just recently achieve silver stage and most hive matriarchs don''t acquire the ability to traverse the stars until early gold stage.


    "I know that, but these offworlders are putting a lot of pressure on both me and your grandmother''s clan," the UN secretary explained, "We can only withstand so much before we would be forced to give into their demands."


    "Do any of these people control the trade routes that either Earth or my grandmother''s clan use?" Maxine asked, "If not, they can pressure us until the end of time for all I care. They already know that they''ve ruined any chance of a peaceful relationship after this stunt and now they will keep it up to avoid looking weak."


    "So, it''s a matter of pride then," the UN secretary stated.


    "Exactly," Maxine said as she nodded her head, "Now, is there anything else that you would like to talk to me about? If not, I need to go see my girlfriend."


    "Not at the moment," the UN secretary replied, "But I need you to participate at the upcoming assembly next month, preferably in person. It would help allay some worries that we''re hiding your death with some clever CGI."


    "That shouldn''t be a problem," Maxine replied.


    "Good," the UN secretary said as he reached for his phone. She thought about stopping him, but she figured that her return was already going to be known fairly quickly anyways.


    "I''ll just leave you to your work then, bye," Maxine said as she wrapped herself in shadow and teleported herself to a secluded alley near the hospital that Emily worked at.


    She carefully scanned her surroundings and reverted back to her base form. With a simple motion of her energies, she changed her clothes to something more appropriate than her tattered leather clothes and began walking towards Emily''s energy signature. Honestly, I''m surprised that she''s still working. Her energies should be restrained by almost half at this point and in another two or three months, it''ll be reduced to less than ten percent. It would almost be pointless for her to work much after that. She just wouldn''t have the stamina for it.


    While she walked towards the hospital, she noticed that one in ten young women and girls had dyed their hair to a silvery sheen similar to her own. Well, I would like to say that I''m surprised at this, but at the same time, I understand it. I''ve become a major role model for those young women and girls.


    When she was only a few hundred feet away from the hospital, she felt someone slap her ass. She whipped her head around and glared angrily at the culprit. He was heavily muscled and towered over her. It probably helped his confidence that his cultivation was silver rank five, but he picked the wrong person to mess with. Why is it that these cocky idiots always decide it''s a good idea to swat the ass of a beautiful girl? Do they honestly think that they''re immune to the consequences?


    He appeared as if he was about to say something, but Maxine didn''t want to hear it. She rushed forward before he could so much as blink and kneed him in the balls. Several nearby men groaned in sympathy as the large man fell to the ground clutching at his crotch while groaning in pain. She wanted to hit him some more. However, she reined in her anger and stormed off while blasting without making an effort to mask her cultivation.


    When she was only a few dozen feet from the hospital entrance, Emily walked out of it. They smiled brilliantly at each other for a moment before moving forward to hug each other. "I''m so glad that you''re back!" Emily shouted happily.


    "I''m glad to be back," Maxine said in return as they separated, "I hope it wasn''t too hard while I was gone."


    "The worst thing that I had to deal with was some overconfident idiot trying to throw his weight around last month. He had literately just broken through to gold stage," Emily said offhandedly, "Hellen sorted him out for me." He''s lucky Daddy didn''t sort him out. Otherwise, there wouldn''t be enough left of him to fit in a teaspoon.


    "He wasn''t asian by any chance, was he?" Maxine asked cautiously, "Did he also have this strange spiky hair that''s dyed yellow near the tips?"


    "Yeah, how did you know?" Emily asked in return.


    "Ugh, I met him literately as soon as I got back," Maxine explained, "I wish I could''ve just beaten him half to death, but we need every gold stage cultivator that we can get. It''s just crappy luck that the second one our world has produced is full of himself. It will probably take a few painful lessons before he learns to rein that attitude in."


    "Please, try to restrain yourself," Emily requested before changing the subject, "Now, let''s go get something to eat. I just got off for my lunch break."


    "Oh, it is about that time, isn''t it?" Maxine commented more to herself than to Emily, "Where to?"


    "I was thinking home," Emily said, "It''s better for me and the baby if we get a decent meal rather than fast food."


    "I couldn''t agree more," Maxine said as she opened a portal to Emily''s home with a simple flick of her wrist, "Shall we?"


    "You really have to teach me how you make those," Emily remarked as she walked through the portal.


    Maxine followed behind her and said, "I would if I thought your energy type would work with it. Hell, I still can''t quite place where shadow fits best amongst energy types. It''s able to do anything any other attribute can do, but it''s less efficient about it."


    "I can see the issue," Emily agreed, "But let''s not talk about that. I need to make something to eat."


    "Oh, no, you don''t," Maxine said forcefully, "Sit your butt down and let me make your lunch. I should be the one spoiling you."


    "Alright, but I expect you to make me something good," Emily said with a smirk.


    "When have I not?" Maxine asked with a confident tone.


    "Good point," Emily said as she sat down while Maxine headed into the kitchen. But after a few minutes, Emily asked, "Maxine, you said that your attribute can emulate any other type, right? Did you ever consider that it can do this since it''s the form that primordial energies take?"


    "I did, but that''s impossible. Shadow is too stable to be primordial chaos," Maxine replied while she swiftly cut up some veggies and set some water to boil, "Although, it''s possible that shadow might be a step below it." I would''ve literately been torn apart the first moment that I ever tried using my energies if my attribute was primordial chaos. But my shadow attribute is resistant to fully becoming something else. Hence, why I can only mimic different energy types without it becoming them.


    "That''s an interesting thought," Emily said, "It''s like your attribute is a combination of yin and yang from eastern mythology, but not quite the same thing."


    "You''re not wrong," Maxine admitted and decided to change the subject, "Anyways, how is your work at the hospital? Nothing too hard, I hope."


    "I''m swamped with parents hoping that I can cure their children," Emily complained, "You don''t have any idea how hard it is to tell them that I can''t cure cancer, or grow them a useable limb if they didn''t have one in the first place."


    "That sounds rough, but ... it''s not entirely impossible to help those kids," Maxine said and she could feel Emily''s incredulous look directed at her back, "Well, cancer is easy for me to remove, but growing a new arm or leg from scratch is hard as hell. Making sure that all of those small bones, nerves, blood vessels and muscles are in the right place is maddening."


    "You can seriously do that?!" Emily asked in surprise.


    "Yeah," Maxine said, "But I can only help them one at a time since it requires my entire focus and before you ask, don''t ask me to fix a deformed limb. Bones that have already taken shape are extremely resistant to change and it''s near impossible to shift the blood vessels and nerves to where they need to be without making any mistakes." Potions can do the job better anyways. It''s too bad that ones that are gentle enough to be used on normal people are rare, not to mention stupidly expensive.


    "I see," Emily said as her excitement diminished somewhat, "Still, you''d be able to help a lot of people and children."


    "I''ll see what I can do after you eat your lunch," Maxine said as she continued to make Emily''s lunch. Hmm, cancer already has had a cure developed by the Technological Union. I think they use some kind of sonic device to kill it without using any kind of surgery. I wish I knew how it worked or at the very least, what frequency they use. It would make it far simpler. Maybe, I could use my voice as a carrier for my energies to gently eliminate any cancer or harmful micro-organisms within any of those kids. I could also use that same method to repair any damage that they may have suffered as well. As a bonus, I could entertain those kids with a song while I treat them using this method. This should be fun.

 Chapter 204

    "Thank you for making me better," a bald little girl said happily as she hugged Maxine. Moments before, Maxine sang to a group of children and used her voice as a carrier for her energies. She managed to remove every last cell of cancer out of every child in the room. Most of the kids present wouldn''t have lasted more than a couple months if she hadn''t helped them.


    "You''re welcome, little one," Maxine said as she hugged her back, "Now, can you do me a favor?"


    "Sure!" the little girl said happily.


    "I want you to go play, and be as happy as you can," Maxine said happily, "It will make both me and your parents extra happy."


    "''Kay!" the little girl said happily, "I''m gonna eat a lot of yummy foods too!"


    "You do that," Maxine said with a big smile plastered on her face as the little girl smiled back and ran to her parents.


    "Um, can I ask a question?" a teenage boy asked and Maxine nodded her head, "Why are some cultivators assholes?" Maxine reflexively snorted in amusement.


    "Well, when someone can lift a car over their head with one hand, it tends to fill them with such confidence that they feel that they can behave however they please," Maxine explained, "But that isn''t the case. There is always someone stronger that will take offense to their behavior and it helps their attitude if they''re reminded of that fact."


    "Oh, but why don''t you act like that?" the boy asked, "You''re the strongest person on Earth."


    "I''ve learned it''s just easier to be polite when you first meet someone. It prevents many problems from happening," Maxine said honestly, "After all, there are some super strong cultivators out there that like to hide how strong they are."


    "But why would they do that?" an innocent looking little girl asked.


    "They''re lonely," Maxine answered, "Everyone is so scared of them that they need to hide how strong they are. If they don''t, everyone would be super polite to them, but it doesn''t give those super strong people what they crave. And that''s genuine human connection."


    "Um, okay," the innocent little girl says as she scampers off. Well, I guess that was a bit too much for their minds to understand at this point. They''ll get it once they get older. Anyways, I need to go look at those kids with varying levels of paralysis. Their lives are not in immediate danger, but they need help just the same.


    Maxine stood up and began to move to a different part of the hospital. She sighed in annoyance when she heard a familiar set of foot steps following behind her. She glanced behind her and saw a pair of elves following her. They''ve been watching me since this morning. It''s clear they want to ask me something. So, why won''t they just come out and ask me what''s on their mind? Ugh, it''s very irritating. I hope it doesn''t have anything to do with the fact that I''m healing these kids. I''ve been doing this for nearly a week. If they had a problem with it, they should''ve just come out and said so.


    When Maxine arrived at the area where they gathered all of the children suffering form some form of paralysis, she scanned them with her spiritual sense. The vast majority either had a spinal injury of some kind. The rest suffered from either a head injury, blood flow problem or an infection of some kind that damaged some delicate nerves.


    After she was done, she spotted the parents of the children and slowly walked towards them. They tried to speak to her, but she held up her hand to let them know to wait for her to speak first. "I''ve already looked at all of your kids and I already know what''s wrong with them. The kids with the back injuries are the easiest to heal so, I''ll heal them as a group. As for the rest of them, I''ll have to heal them individually."


    "How can you make such a quick judgement?" a particularly angry looking man asked, "You havn''t even looked at their charts!"


    "I scanned their bodies with my spiritual sense the moment I walked in the door," Maxine said calmly, "While I understand it''s hard for you to comprehend this, but my mind works thousands of times faster than yours does. And my spiritual sense gives me many times more detail than even the best MRI available. Now, does anyone else have a question? If not, I''ll begin."


    "How will you heal our children?" a concerned mother asked.


    "Normally, healing requires physical contact, but I don''t need to physically touch them to heal what ails them. Instead, I use my voice as a carrier for my energies. This way I can heal a large group such as this in short period of time. It''s less efficient energy wise, but with my reserves, I could heal in this manner for most of the day without getting overly tired," Maxine answered, "As a bonus, you and the children get to hear me sing and I''ve been told I have a very beautiful singing voice." She felt the pair of elves look at her back intently at the mention of her singing. Why would they be interested in that? I know the night elves were capable of speeding up the growth of crops and perform wood-shaping through the use of songs. So, healing through the use of one shouldn''t be that big of a deal.


    "I don''t care what method you use so long as my son can walk again," a rather thin man said with a surprisingly deep voice.


    "He won''t be able to walk right away, but he should regain sensation in his legs and feet today. As for walking, that''s depends on how much work he''s willing to put into it," Maxine replied, "That reminds me. Most of these kids will need physical therapy to regain full use of their bodies after today. Healing techniques can cure all sorts of ailments. They can even regrow lost limbs, but any long term loss of a limb or immobility always requires some time for the patient to relearn how to use it. Any other questions?"


    No one appeared as if they had any more questions. "No?" Maxine asked and waited a few seconds before she spoke, "In that case, please, make yourselves comfortable while I get ready to start."


    Maxine slowly walked over to a space directly infront of all the children and began singing. She used songs that were both sung by women and were about healing. Within moments, the elves gave her looks of pleasant surprise and it confused her. What are they surprised about? It shouldn''t be that rare for someone to heal through song, right? I mean countless cultivators have already figured out how to confuse, cause other''s to hallucinate and injure through the use of music. Why would it be surprising if someone could heal using it as well? At least, they''re not bothering me while I''m healing these kids.


    Once she went through a few songs, she checked many of the children over with her spiritual sense and smiled in satisfaction to herself as she walked towards a small boy in a wheelchair. She knelt down infront of him to put herself at his eye level and gently pinched his thigh. "Do you feel that?" Maxine asked, but she hardly needed to. The little boy looked at his leg in surprise and immediately hugged her while practically chanting the words ''thank you.''


    His parents swiftly thanked her as well and she disengaged from the little boy before moving onto the children that needed individualized treatment. Each time that she healed one of them, both the child and their parents thanked her profusely and to her surprise, the elves seemed to get more pleased by the second. Okay... starting to get a little weirded out here. It doesn''t help that I can''t tell if they''re men or women. Wait, their ears are a little longer than normal. Damn it. They''re high elves. Now, I''m really worried.


    When she was finished treating the last child, she stood up and walked purposefully towards the elves. "What do you want?" Maxine demanded, "You''ve been following me for most of the day and it''s bothering me."


    "Apologies, we were hoping to talk to you in private," the high elf on the left said in a masculine tone.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    "About what?" Maxine asked.


    "We were hoping for increased trade of chocolate to our people," the high elf said.


    "You should be talking with the merchants then. Personally, I prefer to stay out of such negotiations," Maxine answered simply, "And I''m certain they wish for the same."


    "You should reconsider," the high elf said in a threatening tone and she felt him blast her with his killing intent. Although, to her, it was rather weak. He hasn''t killed more than a dozen people.


    Maxine in turn directed the full force of her killing intent at him. He instantly started sweating as blood drained from his face. "You will not tell me what to do on my homeworld," Maxine said calmly, "And if I find out that you''re threatening any earthlings to get a better deal, I''ll literately kick you between your legs hard enough to put you into orbit. Am I clear?"


    "Y.. yes," the high elf said nervously.


    Maxine immediately shifted her gaze to his companion and raised an eyebrow. "Are you here to discuss matters of trade as well?" Maxine asked, "If so, my answer will remain the same: Talk to the merchants yourselves."


    "No, I am not here on that matter. I just came to observe you in particular," the high elven ''woman'' said, "You''re more powerful than anyone else on this planet, yet you still treat everyone equally. I find it an unusual, yet refreshing, approach."


    "I was raised to be polite to everyone, until they give me a reason not to," Maxine answered honestly, "Oh, by the way, why were you watching me so intently earlier while I sang?"


    "I was just appreciating your skill in the use of healing songs," the high elven woman said, "It''s so rare to see such a talent among humans. Most of your kind that can use song for healing don''t. Instead, they use their songs as a weapon."


    "I''ve seen that unfortunate pattern myself," Maxine admitted.


    "I agree. It is unfortunate," the high elven woman lamented before seemed to realize something," Forgive me, I''ve forgotten to introduce myself. I''m Allana Trenz and I''m very pleased to make your acquaintance."


    "As am I and I''m sure that you''re aware that my name is Maxine Cinderson," Maxine answered, "Although, my legal family name is Levings. I still prefer Cinderson."


    "I imagine there is a reason behind this preference," Allana Trenz pointed out.


    "There is, but I would prefer not to talk about it," Maxine answered calmly and glanced at the wall clock, "Oh, it seems that I need to head home for the day. I hope that we can both find the time to chat again."


    "I look forward to such an encounter," Allana Trenz said with a smile.


    As Maxine walked away, she marveled internally at how polite Allana Trenz was. Normally, high elves always carried themselves as if they were superior to everyone else, but this high elf woman did not. In fact, she treated Maxine as an equal. Well, there are always outliers to every group. Allana Trenz must be one of them. Then again, she might be showing me respect due to daddy. Or she''s a political animal looking to quietly manipulate me into helping the high elves. Sadly, I wouldn''t know if that was the case. High elves have had a very long time to perfect that kind of method to a literal art. Anyways, time to head home. I need to check on Lucas'' progress with the hydrakin inheritance. He shouldn''t be practicing anything other than the beginner techniques.


    As soon as she exited the hospital, she created an arch to return home. She didn''t see Lucas in his usual spot infront of the TV or waiting patiently outside of the kitchen for dinner. Good, he must be in the training room.


    Maxine made her way to the training room and took a peek inside and smiled in pride at Lucas'' dedication. He was practicing the basics of a strange unarmed fighting style that incorporated the use of the unique energy pathways of his species and it was producing very potent results, even with his low level of skill. However, she rather he focus more on speed than power. That little guy can have all of the hitting power in the world, but it''ll be useless if he can''t hit his opponent. It''s why I focus on speed. With our venom, one scratch from our claws is usually enough to decide a fight as long as we play it safe afterwards.


    "Very good," Maxine praised him and he immediately whirled around to face her with a smile on his face, "You''re getting the hang of those basic movements faster than I thought. Keep this up and you''ll be learning the next set of techniques in another four to five months."


    "Why not sooner?" Lucas asked.


    "You need a solid understanding of the basics first," Maxine replied and added when she saw his disappointment, "Think of it this way. The basics are like the foundation of a building. The better the foundations, the bigger and sturdier the building can become. Do you understand?"


    "I think so," Lucas replied and returned to practicing his moves.


    "That''s the spirit," Maxine said encouragingly, "Now, I''ll go help mom with making dinner. You just keep at it and I''ll come get you when it''s ready."


    "''Kay," Lucas responded calmly while he continued practicing.


    Maxine left the training room and made her way to the kitchen. But as soon as she got there, Hellen was already in the middle of preparing dinner. Maxine recognized what her mother was trying to make and chipped in to help get it ready. It didn''t take them very long to finish and notify both Guan and Lucas that dinner was ready.


    Once she was at the table, Guan simply stated, "Be careful around those high elves. It rarely bodes well for anyone when they''re polite like they were with you today. A friend of mine died when he was lured into a trap by a ''polite'' high elf. I don''t want you to end up in a similar situation."


    "Understood," Maxine answered simply before she began to dig in.


    "Spar?" Lucas asked Maxine after they were all done eating.


    "Let''s put our dishes in the sink, first," Maxine said calmly, "And I''ll be happy to spar."


    "YAY!" Lucas shouted happily and swiftly took his and Maxine''s plate to the sink. I didn''t expect him to do that. He must really want to test out his moves. She started walking towards the training room and was surprised when she felt Lucas'' hands push against her lower back to hurry her along.


    "Alright, alright," Maxine chuckled, "I''ll move faster." With that, Maxine proceeded to walk quickly towards the training room.


    As soon as she was there, she took up an unarmed fighting stance just before Lucas rushed at her. Maxine leaned back as he swiped at her with his claws and slightly tapped the back of his hand to make him spin like a top. "Make sure both of your feet are grounded whenever you strike like that. Otherwise, your opponent can take advantage of you, like I did just now," Maxine advised and swayed to the left when Lucas thrust his claws forward at her stomach, "Better, but make sure to have a follow up if your first strike misses. Try to think of a combo that''s difficult to avoid. Like this one."


    Maxine intentionally threw a slow jab that Lucas avoided and immediately kicked him in the gut with a swift kick. "See. It''s hard to avoid, isn''t it?" Maxine asked. Unless, of course, you know that it''s coming, but that''s another lesson. Getting some basic moves is a must. After that, he can start learning how to anticipate his opponent.


    "Yeah," Lucas said as he rubbed his stomach for a moment and without warning, he lunged at her. Against someone else at his level, it would''ve had a decent chance of working, but Maxine simply side-stepped to dodge it. However, his tail whipped out to hit her ribs and she let it connect. Unfortunately, for Lucas, it did absolutely no damage to her due to the difference in their cultivation.


    "Nice combo," Maxine praised him, "You''re learning very quickly." He''ll need more pointers on how to improve, but he''s coming along very nicely.


    They continued sparring for a couple hours until Maxine''s phone rang. She checked the caller id and it was the UN secretary. "Hello. Is there something wrong?" Maxine said calmly while using one hand to continue sparring with Lucas.


    "Hello, Maxine. Do you remember that young man that you chased out of my office the other day?" the UN secretary asked.


    "Yes, I remember," Maxine acknowledged.


    "Well, he''s now stating to several news outlets that you ambushed him in order to ''defeat'' him when he was trying to challenge you for your position and he''s demanding a rematch," the UN secretary explained, "How do you want to handle this?"


    "I would like to laugh in his face at his stupidity, but that wouldn''t help matters," Maxine replied, "And seeing how I have very little experience dealing with this I think I would choose silence. Anything else might give his advisors an opening to exploit me politically."


    "Normally, that would be the best choice, but Tang Zhiqiang has convinced his nation that he is more powerful than you are," the UN secretary replied, "And they''ve come to an agreement of sorts with several other nations to pressure the UN until this ''rematch'' happens."


    "Fine, just set up a time and place. I''ll be there," Maxine said in annoyance, "But just to be clear, I want you to send this message to those morons: I spared Tang Zhiqiang''s life once out of a desire for our world to be stronger and I shall not do so again if he can''t see that he''s outmatched."


    "I''ll be sure to let them know," the UN secretary said and Maxine could hear him gulp nervously.


    "Is there anything else?" Maxine asked.


    "No, there isn''t. I''ll let you go then," the UN secretary said calmly.


    "Bye," Maxine said as she ended the call and glanced at Lucas, whom looked very frustrated.


    "No fair," Lucas said grumpily.


    "Well, what did you expect?" Maxine asked, "I''m over two stages above you in strength."


    "Not that," Lucas said, "Supposed to spar, not talk on phone."


    "I''m sorry about that, but I have responsibilities that I can''t ignore," Maxine explained to Lucas, "I''m hoping that someone can take over for me soon, but thus far, the one guy that could isn''t exactly the right kind of person for the job."


    "Oh," Lucas said before yawning, "Sleepy."


    "Alright, let''s head to bed," Maxine said cheerfully. Well, you can go to bed here, but I''m going to go to Emily''s place. It''s been too long since I''ve spent the night over there. In fact, I should either move in with her or she with me. I''ll talk with her about that before my deathmatch with that idiot.

 Chapter 205

    While floating roughly three hundred feet above ground, Maxine growled in frustration for the umpteenth time at the locale of her duel. She had suggested to the UN that they set up her duel in an desert to minimize the damage to the landscape, which they listened to. However, a city was no less than three miles away, and was well within the danger zone if either of them decided to use some kind of ranged attack. I''ll try to lure him further away from that city. Hopefully, Tang Zhiqiang obliges me. If not, I''ll just have to end the fight quickly before he does anything stupid. Hmm, that gives me an idea.


    She glanced at the camera crews a mile away and smirked as they set up high speed cameras as well as special listening devices that could hear a conversation between a pair of fleas two miles away, if they were so disposed. Still, she didn''t think they would see much considering how fast she''ll most likely be moving.. If they got their equipment from the Technological Union, they wouldn''t have to worry about that though. Although, it would make me wonder where they got the money to afford such a thing.


    Maxine glanced at the position of the sun and started to get annoyed. Her adversary was late. If he can''t even show up for a fucking duel on time, how can he be expected to show up at an important Alliance assembly? Those things are held within a minute or so of the prescribed time and even then, only last about ten minutes due to how fast our minds work while in that virtual space.


    Maxine spotted Tang Zhiqiang flying towards her at a leisurely pace in the distance. She felt her eye twitch in annoyance and knew that he was trying to piss her off. And the closer he got, the angrier she became. He had this smug look on his face and his clothes were disheveled. As soon as he got close enough, she could tell from his scent alone that he had been having sex not that long ago.


    "You''re late," Maxine said to Tang Zhiqiang in a cold tone in cantonese.


    "I had to entertain a few of my fans before coming here," Tang Zhiqiang replied as a spear with a red tassel hanging off the spearhead appeared in his hand.


    "That didn''t sound like an apology or an excuse," Maxine said while repressing the urge to punch him.


    "It wasn''t meant to be," Tang Zhiqiang said while showing a lustful smile, "And I intend to ''entertain'' you after I defeat you." That fucker intends to rape me if I lose?! That''s it. No mercy.


    "I was just going to kill you without making you suffer much, but you just couldn''t keep your mouth shut," Maxine said while unleashing her killing intent, "Now, you''ll die screaming." In an instant, she withdrew both of her blades from her dimensional ring and simultaneously, summoned a hundred of her shadow wolves out of the shadow beneath her hair.


    "WHAT?! You can''t have any outside help! You''re violating the rules of the duel!" Tang Zhiqiang roared.


    "No, I''m not. I created each of these lupine constructs myself. Hence, they''re a part of my combat strength and do not violate any rule on duels in accordance with Alliance law," Maxine stated with a cruel smile, "You should REALLY have read up on those before challenging me. Now, my pets attack!" However, only four of her wolves attacked. She wanted to probe his strength before going all out.


    Her shadow wolves rushed at Tang Zhiqiang and pounced at him almost at the same time. She expected him to fend them off, but that isn''t what happened. He unleashed a flurry of spear thrusts and wounded only a couple of her wolves before he began to get overwhelmed. He was even getting wounded from their glancing bites and scratches. Is this guy for real? My wolves are just amped up versions of copper stage wolves. They don''t have any special moves and attack primarily on instinct from it''s base design. He should be able to handle a couple dozen of them easily, but he can''t handle the four that are jumping around him. He''s either faking his skill level or he really is this inexperienced. But that begs the question: How the hell did he survive his tribulation?


    With a burst of speed, he lashed out with ferociously and threw off the shadow wolves around him before charging at her. He roared like a lunatic as he unleashed another flurry of thrusts at her. She contemptuously dodged his attempt at ending the fight with minimal effort before slipping past his defenses and kicking him in the balls. "Pathetic," Maxine said coldly as he recoiled away from her while gritting his teeth in pain, "It''s almost like you''ve never been in a serious fight in your entire life and you''ve had someone hold your hand while you advanced to this stage. Hell, I bet your country purchased a fairly potent formation array to help you breakthrough to gold. How else could you be this unskilled at your level?"


    "Shut up!" Tang Zhiqiang roared at her and tried to rush her once more. It seems I guessed right.


    "You seem to be forgetting something," Maxine said a moment before her shadow wolves bit down on his arms and legs, "Always have your guard up in a battle. It''s something experience teaches you, but I suppose you won''t live long enough for you to appreciate my advice. Any last words?"


    "I''ll fuck you to death as soon as I get free, you bitch!" Tang Zhiqiang cursed.


    "Do you really want those to be your last coherent words?" Maxine asked, "Nothing for me to pass along to your relatives or loved ones?"


    However, he remained silent as he glared at her angrily while struggling to free himself. "I feel bad for your family," Maxine said in a sad tone, "They''re going to loose a relative due to his overly inflated ego. And it could''ve been avoided if you had just heeded my warnings. I know that it doesn''t matter much at this stage, but I wish things could''ve been different. Just know that I will return your remains to your homeland to ensure a proper burial and I''ll leave your head relatively undamaged for your family''s sake." After she finished, she signaled her wolves to start slowly chewing his hands and feet off. Almost instantly his screams filled the air. By the time, his hands and feet fell to the ground he had lost consciousness due to the excessive pain. She didn''t see any further point in making an example out of him and promptly cut off his head.


    With a thought, her shadow wolves return to the shadow world. He''s unskilled and had a lower than average pain tolerance for a cultivator, especially for someone at his level. He''s definitely been brought up like a fucking flower in a greenhouse. Then, someone over inflated his ego into thinking he could defeat a battle tested warrior in single combat. Whoever they are, they''re just as responsible as this idiot is for this farce.


    Maxine slowly floated to the ground and tossed a simple coffin on the ground before placing Tang Zhiqiang''s body inside of it. She saw the reporters approaching her out of the corner of her eye. She closed the coffin before they arrived and turned to face them.


    Before they could ask her any questions, she spoke up, "He brought this on himself. I made it perfectly clear that this would be a fight to the death and he suffered for his arrogance and lack of skill."


    "Why did you torture him before killing him?" a reporter asked, "Are you not worried about the political backlash?"


    "He threatened to rape me. I have no doubt that with your recording devices that you heard it just as clearly as I did," Maxine said bluntly, "Now, if you don''t mind, I need to return his remains to his homeland to be buried. Regardless of what he said or did, his family still deserves that curtesy. Farewell."


    Maxine swiftly placed the coffin into her dimensional ring and flew towards Beijing at top speed. It only took her a few hours to reach the city and a few additional minutes to locate their politicians. They were having an emergency meeting.


    She landed infront of the building that housed their central government and began walking towards the main entrance. A couple guards tried to stop her, but she didn''t understand a single word that they were saying nor did she care what they were saying as she walked right past them. A few of the guards tried to tackle her to the ground, but she kept walking with them latched onto her. When she came up to the main assembly hall, she could hear several men arguing inside and used her energies to force open the door. Next, she gently pushed the guards off of her before walking inside.


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    The entire assembly hall silenced as she walked towards the center of the room. She could feel their eyes follow her as she advanced and without any warning, she withdrew the coffin containing Tang Zhiqiang''s body from her dimensional ring before gently placing it on the ground.


    [Be sure that this man''s remains are returned to his family so that they may bury him,] Maxine said calmly via spiritual sense to every man and woman in the room, [I do not want to find out that you disobeyed me in this. Oh, and if I find out which one of you goaded him into challenging me, I will make sure that your remaining time on this world is as unpleasant as possible.] She waited five full seconds for any sign that one of them was responsible, but didn''t detect anything. I should''ve expected this much from seasoned politicians. They''ve most likely trained themselves to have minimal reactions since they realized that cultivators can read surface thoughts. No matter. Someone here will probably figure it out eventually and contact me about it in return for a favor.


    She turned around and walked out of the assembly hall. Once outside, she created an arch to take her to a park near Emily''s home. She had taken a moment to think about going to the hospital to heal some children, but after her recent brutal display, she doubted anyone would let her get anywhere near them. Or at the very least, they would feel very uncomfortable just being in her presence for the next couple weeks at a bare minimum. I wouldn''t have to avoid the hospital for the next couple weeks, if that idiot had been a decent enough person for me to pass on my responsibilities to. I really hope that the next one will be good enough. I''m getting tired of all this random bullshit that only I can seem to deal with and it doesn''t help that I don''t have the mentality to pull of long term schemes. I prefer to keep things simple, such as beating the ever living shit out of my enemies to the point of death, but not enough for them to actually die from their injuries, if I leave them afterwards. Those sort of tactics just don''t work in politics.


    While Maxine walked through a park, she heard a couple young men chatting in Alliance common nearby. "Are you certain that she likes to walk through this particular park?" one of them asked, "We''ve been wandering around this place for three days and havn''t seen a single sign of her."


    "I already told you that she''s an infrequent visitor to this park, but after she finishes her fight with that Tang fellow, she''s most likely going to go for a walk to ''unwind,''" the other one said, "So, you''ll just have to be patient, Zell."


    "So, another hour, then?" ''Zell'' said. This caught Maxine''s attention and she looked right at the pair of young men. Zell was blonde, quite tall and had rather bulky muscles. The other one was more athletic, but shorter.


    With a thought, she shadow-stepped behind them and spotted a strange book in Zell''s hands. "It''s your fault that we''re even here," the other young man said, "You just had to meet the daughter of poison emperor Guan."


    "She''s the most easily approachable of the girls in this book," Zell said, "And least likely to kill us, if we anger her."


    "That''s true, but her standards are ridiculous," the other guy said.


    "Are either of you going to tell me what this ''book'' is all about?" Maxine asked and smiled teasingly as both of them went rigid before turning around to face her.


    "It''s-" Zell started to say, but Maxine cut him off, "Oh? Is this it?" And she swiftly swiped it out of his hands. Maxine nearly facepalmed when she saw the title: ''The 100 most desirable unmarried women in the Alliance.''


    "I can explain," Zell''s companion said swiftly.


    "No, I get it," Maxine said with a blank stare, "You just want to ogle at the pretty girl and see if what they say in this book is accurate."


    "I sincerely apologize," Zell said while bowing deeply towards Maxine.


    "Don''t worry about it. I''ve gotten used to the leering gazes," Maxine said offhandedly, "Just so long as you know that if you try to touch, I will kick your manhood hard enough to bring it to your chin. Understood?" Both of them nodded swiftly.


    "Good," Maxine said as she started to walk away and stopped when she realized she was still holding the book, "By the way, I''m keeping this as punishment." Not to mention that on some level I want to know what my ranking is. Hmm, I wonder if Emily is listed in the top 100 as well.


    After walking a certain distance, she opened up the book and flipped through it. She didn''t find Emily in it, but she found herself. She was ranked 73rd. She thought it was odd that she wasn''t ranked higher considering who her father was. To find out why, she began reading to figure out their reasoning.


    It started off with describing her appearance and build to a disturbing level of detail. They could literately order a skin tight full body suit with these measurements. It only got worse from there. It described her habits when in public and stated that she enjoyed healing children, walking in parks and singing. Which she did, but it still creeped her out. She wasn''t even aware herself that she typically wore a certain style of clothes whenever she was working at the hospital. To get this level of detail, someone had to have been stalking her for a long time.


    At this point, she decided to put the book into her dimensional ring and tried not to be freaked out. Who the fuck is watching me that closely? Turan? No, he wouldn''t give anyone that kind of information. If not him, then who could''ve given out that level of information? As Maxine thought, she spotted a young woman with silvery hair like her own and a realization struck her like a lightning bolt. Fuck! Why didn''t I realize it sooner?! God damn fan clubs! Their collective information gathering puts even the most devout stalker to shame. I never thought that becoming a role model would have this kind of side-effect.


    Maxine immediately created an arch to go home. As soon as she did, Hellen spotted her and asked, "What''s wrong?" Maxine didn''t bother answering.


    "Just read my bio. I''m ranked 73rd," Maxine said as she tossed the book to Hellen. Hellen gave her a strange look and began reading.


    "Oh, my," Hellen said in amusement, "It seems you have quite the following for them to gather this much information."


    "It''s creepy," Maxine stated.


    "Oh, yes. It is that," Hellen agreed, "But you have to expect this level of attention considering who you are. In fact, I''m rather surprised they havn''t surmised who Emily''s child is. So far, they believe it to be some unknown male."


    "Seriously?" Maxine asked incredulously.


    "Oh, yes," Hellen said calmly, "Your father''s gender inversion potion isn''t exactly well known outside of certain circles. Which in this case is a benefit. They can''t target your and Emily''s baby, if they don''t know that it''s yours."


    "There is that," Maxine agreed. That''s more of a relief than I realized. Still, they''re unlikely to target Emily while she''s pregnant. Their pride as cultivators would prevent it. Although, it didn''t stop those assholes that attacked Hellen when she was pregnant with me. Although, they might not have been aware of it at the time.


    "You''re mistaken," Guan said as he walked into the room, "Anyone that wants either to hurt me or to get their hands on my alchemical knowledge will be able to figure it out rather easily. So, the chances that our grandchild will be targeted isn''t zero."


    "Then, I suggest that after the little one is born Emily should live with us," Hellen offered and she looked at Emily, "Afterall, who would be insane enough to attack this place?"


    "I agree. It''s a good idea," Guan agreed.


    "Hold on a second!" Maxine said angrily, "Are you guys even going to bother asking me and Emily what our opinions are?"


    "Even if you say no, I''ll still bring her here," Guan said bluntly, "You may be powerful for your level, Maxine, but if even a weak immortal decided it was necessary to capture you, you''d have to use every trump card that you have just to match up against them and there would be no chance that you could kill one."


    "I thought you said that I would be ready to stand up on my own when I reached gold stage," Maxine said as she glared at Guan.


    "That was before an immortal-stage alchemist lowered himself to personally capture you," Guan pointed out.


    "And I still escaped before he could get his hands on me," Maxine retorted.


    "That''s only because he was careless and wanted you capture you alive," Guan answered calmly, "If he truely wished to harm you, we wouldn''t be having this conversation."


    "What about my position as Earth''s representative?" Maxine asked, "Won''t harming me have some sort of repercussions?"


    "Yes, but they''re not enough to deter the most determined and wealthy," Guan said calmly, "You know this." He''s right. If you have a certain level of wealth, you can just pay the fines associated with harming a planetary representative. Ugh, I never realized how skewed the laws of the Alliance were to the overly wealthy.


    "Fine, I''ll talk to Emily and try to convince her that it''s in her best interest to move in," Maxine said in defeat, "I still don''t understand why you can''t protect her from here. You can almost instantly arrive anywhere on Earth with your speed, daddy."


    "True, but even I''m not faster than a teleportation trap," Guan said calmly. He''s got a good point. Once a teleportation trap is activated, it holds you in place and teleports you in less than half a second. It''s nearly impossible for him to save anyone from it. He has to be literately standing next to Emily if he wanted to save her from it before it activates.


    "Fine, you win," Maxine said as she walked away towards her room and tried to think of a way that would best convince Emily to move in with her and her parents. It shouldn''t be too hard as long as I also invite Howard along. She doesn''t like being separated from her grandfather for very long ever since his health has started to show signs of declining a few days ago and having Daddy nearby should ease her worries somewhat. Still, Howard probably has a few years left in him, even if nothing is done.

 Chapter 206

    "You''ve got to be joking," Maxine said incredulously as she helped Emily pack, "Do they really not care that I killed Tang Zhiqiang?"


    "It''s not that they don''t care. It''s more like they''re not surprised by it. You gave him fair warning that it would be a fight to the death," Emily pointed out, "Then, he threatened you with rape if he won. Trust me. The majority of people, women in particular, don''t blame you for what you did. In fact, a few of the more vindictive one think you should''ve ripped ''it'' off and left him to bleed to death."


    "That''s ... enlightening," Maxine said.


    "Are you two okay in here?" Howard asked as he walked by the room.


    "Yes, we''re fine and why are you moving around so much, grandpa?" Emily asked in return, "You should be resting! Or did you forget about the doctor''s orders for you to take it easy?"


    "I didn''t forget, but just it doesn''t feel right to be taking it easy when your girlfriend is doing so much of the work," Howard pointed out, "Not that there is much for me to do. Maxine created quite a few of those ''clones'' of hers to do most of the work. In fact, if this keeps up, they''ll be done boxing everything up in another hour or so."


    "That''s what I intended to do," Maxine admitted.


    "It''s almost like you are hurrying us along," Emily said with a small smirk, "I guess you really want us all to live together."


    "Actually, I just didn''t want either you or Howard to do to much," Maxine said honestly and spotted Emily''s glare out of the corner of her eye, "What? You''re pregnant and your grandpa''s health is beginning to decline. I''m the only one here that''s in top condition. It only makes sense that I do most of the work and I couldn''t think of any way to keep you guys from helping. So, I created those clones to help you pack as quickly as possible. I just don''t want either of you to over exert yourselves."


    "Grandpa isn''t anywhere near being decrepit and I''m not helpless," Emily said firmly, "But I know your heart is in the right place, so could you tune down the over protective crap for awhile?"


    "I''ll try," Maxine said with a small smile, "And I''m sorry again about this. Daddy just wants to make sure his grandchild is as safe as possible."


    "I get that," Emily said, "He''s lived his whole life being hated and feared. He has every right to be paranoid about the safety of his family now that he has one. Although, I''m surprised he hasn''t been as pushy towards Orianna as he is with you."


    "Orianna has a battle god for a husband and believe me when I say that NO ONE wants to enrage someone with the battle god physique if they can help it. That includes daddy," Maxine explained, "As for me, daddy''s reputation is a shield all on it''s own, but since he hasn''t been vicious lately, it''s not as effective as it should be."


    "I''ve noticed," Emily said, "Is that why you''re so vicious to your enemies?"


    "Yes, in part at least," Maxine admitted, "But it doesn''t matter how vicious you are if you don''t have the raw might to back it up with. Gold stage is the minimum strength needed to make my father''s enemies think twice about messing with me. Although, at this point, I have a few of my own."


    "Like the Alchemist Association?" Emily asked, "That reminds me. How the hell did you manage to piss off an entire faction?"


    "They were after daddy''s alchemical knowledge and believed that I have a full copy of everything he knows in regards to alchemy," Maxine explained, "And by defending myself, I''ve pissed them off. If they''d asked nicely, I might''ve shared a small portion of daddy''s inheritance, but now, they can eat shit and die for all I care."


    "Is being polite that much of a rarity amongst cultivators?" Emily asked.


    "It''s rarer than you would think. If you''re not powerful, have someone powerful backing you, or a very rare talent, don''t expect anyone to be polite to you," Maxine replied, "And expect someone to pick fights over random bullshit."


    "That''s stupid," Emily remarked.


    "I agree, but it''s quite common on worlds aligned with the Alliance," Maxine said sadly, "Which is why I insisted on having a code of conduct established for cultivators on Earth. It''s too bad that some nations refused to endorse it."


    "Oh, yeah. I recall a bunch of posters being made and sent to the local guilds," Emily remarked, "But why did you pick a panda for your mascot?"


    "Pandas rarely start fights, and are happy to be left alone while they eat their bamboo. But if you piss them off, you better be ready for a savage beating," Maxine replied.


    "That''s not entirely accurate," Howard chimed in as if to remind them that he was in the room, "While panda bears are generally docile unless provoked, there have been instances where they attack people for no apparent reason."


    "Yeah, but most people don''t know that little detail," Maxine retorted, "Anyways, we need to finish packing up in this room. My shadow clones should be finishing up shortly. Hopefully, daddy will have the addition to our home finished by that time."


    "How does someone add onto their home when it''s on the moon?" Emily asked, "How does he manage to keep the rest of the house from decompressing?"


    "A formation array surrounds a large area around the house and keeps the atmosphere from escaping as well as establishing a standard gravitational field," Maxine answered calmly, "But I have no idea how to set up a similar formation array. I don''t think daddy does either. He probably got a friend to set it up for him."


    "Hmm, how hard would it be to learn how to set up formation arrays?" Howard asked.


    "Extremely," Maxine replied, "In fact, it''s harder to learn than alchemy. Hence, why there are fewer formation array masters than alchemists."


    "I believe it," Emily said. I''m not surprised there. I remember telling you a few stories about Horatio Quay throwing me into a formation array that contained endless battles.


    "You should... Hrm?" Maxine said as she sense a strange fluctuation of energy to the south and realized in the next moment what it was. She extended her spiritual sense to the south and found the source of the fluctuations. It was a pair of fraternal brazillian twins. One was male and the other female. Unfortunately, due to their proximity to each other and their near identical cultivation level, she couldn''t tell which one was undergoing the breakthrough. What concerned her was that they were in the middle of the rain forest and they were running from a large group of beasts.


    "Someone is undergoing a breakthrough to gold and I need to move them to a better location. Be right back," Maxine said before she shadowstepped next to the siblings and grabbed both of them by the shoulders. Next, she swiftly created a globe around the three of them and teleported to the middle of the same desert that she underwent her tribulation at. She immediately threw them in opposite directions to ensure that they were at least half a mile apart.


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    With them that far apart, she could finally tell it was the male sibling that was undergoing the tribulation and immediately appeared at his side while shoving a lightning protection and healing potion into his hands. [Drink these. They will increase your chances of surviving your lightning tribulation,] Maxine said via spiritual sense and when he started looking around, she added, [Don''t worry about your sister, she isn''t that far away. Just focus on surviving. I''ll keep anyone from interfering.] He nodded and swiftly drank the two potions as Maxine moved to his sister''s side.


    His sister got into a defensive stance the instant Maxine appeared. [Relax, I''m here to help. Your brother is undergoing his lightning tribulation and I''ve given him all the help that I can to ensure he survives it. The rest is up to him.]


    The girl looked past Maxine at her brother and looked as if she wanted to run past Maxine. [Don''t even think about it. You will only make your brother''s lightning tribulation harder if you interfere,] Maxine warned the girl.


    [But he could die,] the girl finally replied.


    [He could, but for now, all either of us can do is watch and pray,] Maxine said firmly.


    At that moment, the first bolt of tribulation lightning fell towards the girl''s brother. The young man roared as he punched it and Maxine reflexively winced. Fighting a tribulation with nothing but your body is a very bad idea. If he''s lucky, he''ll only be covered in severe burns. Wait! Is that fist energy? That increases his odds quite a bit. Still, he''ll still get some burns. They just won''t be as bad. The lightning scattered before his strike and nourished his body. Although, it did quite a bit of damage to his clothes. I guess it''s a good thing I have a bath robe in my dimensional ring. He''ll definitely need it after this is over.


    Each subsequent bolt of lightning was scattered by his punches until he reached the final one. The final tribulation lightning bolt that fell was as thick as Maxine''s thigh and even though, the young man punched with everything he had, it wasn''t enough to scatter it. Roughly, a quarter of that energy arced all over his body and left second degree burns all over his body. However, it wasn''t enough to put him down for good.


    Maxine glanced up to make sure that his tribulation was over before swiftly moving to his side and began healing his injuries. Thankfully, they were no where near as bad as hers had been when she brokethrough to gold and there wasn''t nearly as much tribulation lightning lingering in his wounds.


    [Will my brother be alright?] the girl asked.


    [He''ll live,] Maxine answered as she healed his wounds, [Now, what are your names?]


    [I''m Andrea. My brother''s name is Miguel,] the girl answered.


    [Family name?] Maxine asked.


    [Our family name is Silva,] Andrea replied.


    [And I''m Maxine Cinderson, if you were unaware,] Maxine said calmly and finished up healing what she could, [Now, would you like me to return you to your homeland?]


    [No, thank you,] Miguel said, [The cartels will not leave us alone if we returned in our homeland.] That sounds like complete bullshit to me. He shouldn''t have had any trouble with the cartels. If anything, they would try their best to befriend them. Fist energy is rare. I better ask Amanda to keep a close eye on them.


    [In that case, I can have a word with my government about giving both of you citizenship, but I suggest that you at least learn how to speak english,] Maxine advised as she tossed him the bathrobe from her dimensional ring.


    "I can speak english, but my brother can only understand it," Andrea said, "He never learned how to speak it properly."


    "He should start practicing, then," Maxine told them, "And it wouldn''t be a bad idea to learn about the history of my country."


    "Alright, but where will we stay?" Andrea asked.


    "I have a friend that I can ask to provide you with some temporary housing," Maxine said.


    "Thank you," Andrea said.


    "It''s the least I can do," Maxine said, "And our world needs all the gold stage cultivators that it can get. Although, I didn''t expect another one to crop up quite so soon."


    "Trust me. My brother didn''t expect this either," Andrea said.


    "I imagine so," Maxine said, "You were being chased by essence beasts and weren''t even trying to break through to gold. Perhaps, the stress of the situation forced out his potential. Regardless, he''s gold stage now and if you two are ready, I can create a portal to my friend''s guild."


    Andrea looked at her brother for a moment and turned to Maxine to say, "We''re ready."


    "Alright," Maxine said as she waved her hand and created an arch that lead to the front of the Fire and Ice Guild headquarters, "Follow me."


    As soon as she was through, she paused for a moment when she saw Emily standing next to the entrance with Hellen and Amanda. Amanda did not look happy.


    "So, I can assume that you want me to take care of these two strays?" Amanda asked, "Your mom filled me in."


    "Yes, these are the two," Maxine said and added via spiritual sense, [You might want to keep an eye on them. Their story doesn''t make a whole lot of sense.]


    "Alright, but you''re going to teach a class on blade energy. You can meet them on the training field," Amanda demanded, [I was going to anyways and don''t worry about calling any government officials. I''ll take care of it.]


    "I thought I told you that people either learn it or they don''t, but if you insist, I''ll still do it. I Just don''t know if it will go very far," Maxine complained, [Thanks. You''re a life saver.]


    "Can we watch?" Emily asked.


    "I don''t see why not," Maxine said as she walked into the building and made her way to the back where the training fields were. She only had to take one look at the training field and groaned in annoyance. Most of them were young women with their hair dyed silver and looked as if they were about to squeal in excitement when they spotted her. Just fucking perfect. Fan girls.


    Maxine found a small spot The gathered cultivators noticed her rather quickly and got quite excited as they gathered into a group infront of her. She even heard a few excited squeals before all of the students finished assembling.


    "Okay, you guys requested to learn how to use weapon energy, but to be honest, it''s one of those things that you normally need to figure out on your own," Maxine explained in a calm voice, "But I can tell you what it is. Weapon energy is similar to killing intent. If your killing intent is strong enough, you can kill a weaker adversary simply by focusing your killing intent on them. The same applies to weapon intent. If your intent to cut, crush or harm your opponent is strong enough, it will enhance your strikes to reflect that intent. For example, my blade energy enhances my ability to cut though nearly anything so long as my intent to cut or cleave it is powerful enough."


    "What about people who fight bare handed?" a rather muscular and tall man asked, "Is fist energy a thing?"


    "Yes, it is and it''s quite potent. And it has the most variations out of any other kind of intent," Maxine replied, "But it''s also one of the weakest when you first start out."


    "What do you mean by it has the most variations?" a fangirl that was slightly shorter than Maxine asked.


    "Well, every intent is unique to each individual," Maxine explained, "But when it comes to weapons. The intent''s effect usually revolves around what the weapon can do on it''s own, but with a bare hands, it can vary greatly. A hand chop could cut like a blade, a fist could smash like a maul, a finger poke could pierce like a spear or any other number of things could be possible."


    "Cool," a younger cultivator said, "Does that mean if we train up our fist energy enough that we can throw punches without actually using our fists?"


    "I guess that would be possible, but don''t hold your breath," Maxine said honestly. I''ve never heard of anyone pulling that off using just fist energy.


    "What about being able to use a stick as a medium for sword energy?" a young woman asked.


    "You could do that, but it wouldn''t be anywhere near as effective as using an actual sword," Maxine answered, "Regardless of what energy you use, it only enhances what''s already there. Now, are there any other questions?"


    They asked a few more questions, but they were questions she already answered with different wordings. "Well, with all of that out of the way, I''ll try to see if I can stimulate any of you to unlock your weapon energy."


    "Um, how will you do that?" a smaller woman asked in a confused tone.


    "So glad that you asked," Maxine said as a vicious smile appeared on her face, "Brutal training. Oh, and if you havn''t figure it out yet, you should be arming yourselves." They swiftly pulled out various weapons and surrounded Maxine. She chuckled at them and created eleven shadow clones before rushing at them with her bare hands. This is the safest way to stimulate them without them actually going into battle and as a bonus, it will teach them how to cooperate with others on the spot.


    While she sparred with the students, a thought popped up in her head: How was it possible for 3 cultivators from the same planet, including herself, to have natural breakthroughs to gold stage within the time span of a year? This is very concerning. It could still be a coincidence, but I need to watch for others that have natural breakthroughs. Hopefully, it''s a coincidence, but it could be a unique feature for people born on Earth. If that''s the case, I''ll have to do my best to make it appear that I''ve been supplying all of them with breakthrough potions. Otherwise, Earth will get hectic from too many offworld cultivators wanting to start families on it.

 Chapter 207

    Maxine mentally groaned in frustration as she looked at dozens of students laying exhausted on the ground. This was the fifth session so far and none of them even knew how to properly manage their energies in drawn out fights. They hadn''t lasted even fifteen minutes. If I don''t correct this, they''ll be lucky to return after their first extended hunt. This needs to be corrected.


    "You guys need a lot of work before your first job or some of you won''t be coming home," Maxine told them directly, "First thing is that none of you practice any martial arts. While some moves can''t be used in a fight, they can teach you how to properly control your muscles and minimize your movement when you do attack. So, once you are able to stand, I''ll show you a few basic katas to help you master proper muscle control and it wouldn''t hurt for some of you to improve your flexibility as well."


    "And how does flexibility relate to combat?" one of the more muscular male students asked.


    "Being flexible allows for a greater range of mobility and indirectly improves your speed," Maxine explained, "Think of it this way. When you stretch rubber, the first few inches are rather easy and the further you stretch it the greater the resistance is. Bulky muscles like yours tend to behave in a similar manner. We stretch to make those bulky muscles more limber and thus should improve your speed without reducing your power. Any other questions?"


    "Are any of us any closer to developing weapon energy?" a tiny girl asked.


    "A couple of you are very close and just need another push to awaken it," Maxine replied honestly, "Unfortunately, I don''t know how to force it to awaken without an extreme external trigger."


    "Then, what have we been doing here all this time?!" a rather large man asked.


    "Learning as much as you can before you throw yourselves into actual danger," Maxine said coldly, "I''ve been on multiple battlefields and I can assure you that none of you would''ve survived more than a few hours had you been at any one of them."


    "Bullshit!" the rather large man said as he jumped to his feet, "I''ve gone through multiple hunting trips and survived!"


    "On Earth, no doubt," Maxine said calmly as she looked him in the eye, "But let me remind you, that Earth is the equivalent of easy mode compared to the rest of the universe. I''ve seen and experienced nightmare mode and suffered horrible injuries from the smallest mistakes. For example, I was participating in a conflict between two clans and tried to save some beastkin children that were being used as trackers by some particularly abusive pricks. I made the mistake of approaching them before checking them over with my spiritual sense. If I had checked, I would''ve noticed the teleportation trap hidden on one of them. I was almost immediately teleported into the middle of the enemy''s camp with those two kids. After suffering a severe beating from a much stronger opponent, I just barely managed to escape with them in tow. So, how exactly do you think you would fair when I can beat the ever living shit out of all of you while using a tiny fraction of my full strength?"


    "Wait, what?" the large man asked in confusion.


    "Oh, you didn''t notice?" Maxine asked in surprise, "I''ve been limiting my strength and speed to be not much more than your own and havn''t used blade energy during our training sessions. I thought by doing this that you would be humbled at the difference in our skill levels. Instead, it seemed to have the opposite effect. So, allow me to let you experience a measure of my full strength. Now, SIT!" With a single thought, she unleashed enough of her killing intent to frighten all of the assembled students. The large man took a step back in fear and lost his footing. He ended up landing on his butt. The other students reacted in different, but they were all fear responses. She made a mental note of the students that pulled out their weapons as they took on a defensive stance. I''ll need to remind them it''s sometimes better to run than to fight back. As for the others, I need to chew them out later for freezing up. That''s literately the worst thing they could do.


    "Maxine, could you please retract your killing intent before those kids have an accident," Amanda said as she walked closer to them.


    "Oh? Sure," Maxine said calmly as she retracted her killing intent and smiled when she noticed something amongst her students.


    "I hope all of you now understand that angering Maxine is a very bad idea," Amanda advised the students, "And if any of you are wondering, why Maxine''s killing intent is so intense. Let me remind you that killing intent is built up through killing both people and beasts. So, for her to have such intense killing intent, she must have killed quite a large number of enemies. Keep that in mind the next time that any of you feel like testing her."


    Amanda turned to Maxine with an angry glare, but she froze for a moment once she noticed that Maxine was smiling. Maxine simply pointed at the tiny woman and said, "Congratulations, you''ve awoken sword energy. If you want proof, just go over to that training dummy and attack it with the intention to cut it." The tiny woman walked towards the training dummy like she was asked and slashed out with her short sword. Sword energy immediately appeared around her weapon and cleanly cut the training dummy in half.


    "Alexis! You used sword energy!" Amanda said excitedly, "Congratulations!"


    "Yes, very well done," Maxine praised, "Now all you need is a bit of practice to perfect it and at this stage, there is very little I can do to help you. So, you can train off to the side while I continue with these guys."


    "Thank you!" Alexis said in an excited squeal as she dropped her sword and gave Maxine a hug.


    "You''re welcome," Maxine said as she gently hugged Alexis back, "Now, try to practice. It would be a shame for you to forget how to use it so soon after acquiring it. And once you''ve perfected it, I can imagine there will be a lot of groups that would want you to join them. It''s not every day that they can team up with a user of sword energy, especially one at your age."


    "You got it!" Alexis said happily as she swiftly snatched up her sword and began training off to the side. Her sword energy wasn''t evenly distributed across the edge of her sword, but she was swiftly making progress as she slashed and stabbed out her sword. Huh? Where did she get all that energy? She had collapsed from exhaustion a few minutes ago. She must''ve taken a potion while I wasn''t looking. I''ll caution her against that in the future. Potions can be expensive when she gets more powerful and she shouldn''t be wasting money like that.


    "Now, is there a reason that you wanted to come see me?" Maxine asked Amanda.


    "Yes, there have been complaints about your ''rough'' training methods. Are they entirely necessary?" Amanda asked.


    "It is," Maxine said directly, "I''m harsh on them because I want them to survive. The harsher that I train them, the more prepared they''ll be for the real thing."


    "It looks like I''ll have to update the introduction for your class to give fair warning to your future students," Amanda sighed.


    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    "Alright, but be sure that they know that my training is going to be intense by their standards," Maxine said and she glanced at her still recovering students, "And after my little display of killing intent, I think most of these guys have had enough for today. Even if they could keep going, I don''t think they would be able to pay attention enough for it to be of any help."


    "You heard her. Get up and go home," Amanda shouted at them and they dragged themselves to their feet before heading out, "So, what are you going to do about Alexis?"


    "Nothing," Maxine answered honestly, "It''s all up to her how far she can take her sword energy."


    "No, I mean do you want me to reveal that you helped her awaken it," Amanda clarified.


    "I just provided a training environment to speed up the process," Maxine replied, "Her innate talent is what helped her awaken sword energy this quickly. In fact, the earliest that I was expecting her to awaken a weapon energy was after two months of this training. But that just demonstrates how much raw talent that Alexis possesses when it comes to sword energy. Oh, and the rest of them do not have much talent, if any, for weapon energy."


    "How do you know that?" Amanda asked.


    "Alexis was able to use sword intent within a day of me explaining it," Maxine said, "And the others havn''t figured it out yet. A couple of them are close to figuring out weapon intent, but it will be months, if not years, for any of them to figure out how to use weapon energy. So, for now, these training sessions will just help them improve their stamina and their ability to work in teams."


    "And here I thought you were just beating them up for fun," Amanda said in amusement.


    "Pain is one of the better motivators for people to improve," Maxine pointed out, "But I am being careful to only give them bruises. Hence, why I''m training them without using my blades."


    "I suppose that makes sense," Amanda said uncertainly, "Anyways, those elves want to talk to you about something. I think it''s important since they''re being far more insistent than they usually are."


    "Alright, I''ll go see what they want," Maxine said while mentally sighing. Can''t those high elves find someone else to bother?


    Maxine threw out her spiritual sense to find the high elves and began walking towards them. It figures that they would be in the medicinal garden. When she reached them, she greeted Allana Trenz, "Hello, Miss Trenz. Amanda said you wished to talk with me about something. Could you elaborate?"


    "Straight to the point. I''ve always been fond of that trait amongst humans. And yes, I wished to tell you something of importance," Allana Trenz said with a smile as she held up a small disk before a hologram of a small hydrakin appeared above it, "Some kind explorers found this small child on a desolate planet and brought her to a world controlled by my people. They wanted to find her homeworld to return her to her people. Sadly, the only other known member of her species is in the care of your parents and they''re notoriously difficult to get in contact with. Do you think that they would be willing to take this little one in?"


    Maxine immediately looked over the hologram to compare it to Lucas'' physiology. She''s older than Lucas and I think I spot some odd growths below her arms and on her back. Maybe, growing extra limbs is a sign that they are reaching adolescence. Certain types of hydras undergo something similar as they age by growing extra heads. Although, those types typically cap out at nine heads and the ones with more are rare enough that no one has studied them to know how or why it happens.


    "She definitely appears to be a hydrakin, but without a thorough physical examination, I can''t say for certain," Maxine said out loud, "But I don''t see why my parents wouldn''t take her in. They''ve already adopted Lucas." And I should ask them to keep an eye on the little thing as well. It''s strange that such a ''coincidence'' happened. Still, I really hope that this really is a coincidence and not some scheme.


    "Excellent," Allana Trenz said in a pleased tone, "I already took the liberty of having my people bring her here as soon as I heard about her and she should arrive within the next few weeks. I''ll leave it up to you to bring her to introduce her to your parents. In the meantime, I want you to know that there are two problems with the child. She doesn''t speak Alliance common or any other language that my people have encountered before and the other problem is that she is quite frankly too wild and savage to safely handle by my people. She''s nearly killed four of her handlers already."


    "Ahh, gotcha," Maxine nodded in understanding, "Those little guys can be quite vicious if you don''t look like one of their kind."


    "We''ve noticed," Allana Trenz said dryly.


    "Anyways, I should go tell my parents about this," Maxine said.


    However, before either of them could say a word, Guan chimed in via spiritual sense, [No need. I heard everything. I''ll see to informing my wife.]


    "Does your father do this often?" Allana Trenz asked cautiously.


    "Far more often than I would like," Maxine complained, "But you shouldn''t mind it too much. He''s just being overly protective of me."


    "I can relate with that," Allana Trenz said with a smile, "My own father wouldn''t allow me to go off world until I was well over five hundred years old and even then I could only do so with powerful protectors in tow."


    "Daddy isn''t that bad, but he makes sure that I''m suitably equipped when I need to go anywhere," Maxine said as she played with a warp stone in one hand and a poison vial in the other.


    "I see," Allana Trenz said in clear discomfort.


    "Well, I have other things that I would like to do today. So, have a good day," Maxine said as she stood up to leave. Today, I need to make another batch of healing and breakthrough potions for Amanda''s guild and I need to make a few pills that uncle Zeph requested. And I need to check up on Andrea and Miguel Silva to see how they are settling in.


    "You as well," Allana Trenz said calmly.


    Maxine created an arch with a thought and walked through it to the other side of the headquarters near the recruit barracks. That was where Andrea and Miguel Silva were staying for now. They were still studying American history and in Miguel''s case, learning how to speak english.


    She walked up to Andrea''s room and gently knocked on the door. A few moments later, Andrea answered with a smile, "Maxine, what are you doing here?" Maxine spotted Miguel with a sour look on his face as he made a show of trying to read on a datapad.


    "Just see how you and your brother are settling in so far," Maxine said calmly, "And to see how far along your studies are coming. It shouldn''t take you guys that long to learn everything that you need to."


    "Well...," Andrea said reluctantly, "Miguel isn''t very good at studying. He takes several times longer to learn something than I do."


    "I doubt that," Maxine said with a straight face, "Even a very slow learner can absorb all of that information in a matter of hours with his cultivation. He probably doesn''t want to or doesn''t see a point to it due to how powerful he is."


    "Are you sure?" Andrea asked.


    "Absolutely," Maxine replied, "There were a few ''young masters'' that thought they could get away with yelling at some earthlings in Alliance common, instead of the local language, because their strength was greater. Let''s just say that they learned to speak the language of the land very quickly."


    "What happened to them?" Andrea asked cautiously.


    "It''s what normally happens when an overgrown man child has a tantrum," Maxine explained, "Someone got tired of their shit and either gave them a beating or scared the hell out of them." A cycle of being beaten and healed will teach anyone how to behave. Although, it is a bit of a pain when I have to teleport them to some remote location to avoid assault charges.


    "So, how does that apply to my brother?" Andrea asked.


    "All I''m saying is that I''m not asking him to do any more than any other immigrant. Even normal people can pass that test and the American government would be more than happy to have him," Maxine emphasized and raised her voice enough that Miguel could hear her, "So, he can either behave like an overgrown man-child and get deported. Or he can do the bear minimum to become a naturalized citizen. It''s his choice. I''m not going to break or bend any rules for him, if he won''t even give it a decent try. No matter how much I might want to."


    "I''ll pass that along," Andrea said nervously.


    "Now, do you need anything from me?" Maxine asked, "Better studying materials?"


    "No, you''ve done enough for us already," Andrea replied.


    "Alright then," Maxine said, "I hope you two have a decent day. See you when I see you."


    "Bye," Andrea said as she closed the door.


    Maxine decided to take a stroll through the Fire and Ice guild headquarters before she worked on her alchemy. She felt annoyed when a few of her fans spotted her before she spotted them, but she put up with it. However, whenever any of them tried to touch her, she used a pulse of her energies to form a sturdy barrier around her without hurting anyone. She tried to make it clear that they can talk to her all they like, but touching is off limits.


    After entertaining them for a few minutes, Maxine shadow-stepped to a quiet room and brought out various medicinal ingredients. Now, time to get to work on this. I''ve got a lot of stuff to make and not that long to make it before that possible hydrakin girl shows up. I wonder how Lucas will respond to seeing her.

 Chapter 208

    Maxine was waiting patiently near the spaceport while keeping her gaze skyward. The ship carrying the possible hydrakin girl was arriving in the next few minutes and it was nearly a full week early. She had no idea what happened to cause their ship to move that much faster, but thankfully, it didn''t interrupt her schedule that much. On the plus side, I''ve finally figured out why Andrea and Miguel Silva wanted to leave so badly. I never thought that offworld cultivators would be interested in narcotics found on Earth. Then again, there will always be someone that wants to make their wealth through shady methods. Although, I''m surprised that they didn''t try to recruit those two. Or maybe they did, but got rejected. That would account, at least in part, for the attempts on their lives. Thankfully, even those unscrupulous guys knew to back off once I got involved. I guess the reputation that I''ve built up is starting to have some effect.


    "I apologize again for the unexpected change in their arrival time," Alana Trenz apologized for the fourth time.


    "It''s fine," Maxine said, "This just means that I can check her over sooner. Oh, and that reminds me. Be right back." She walked to the nearest bathroom and entered one of the stalls. She changed into her battle garb and transformed into her full hybrid state. I hope this will make the little girl a little more receptive to me. Next, she put on the special gloves and shoes to avoid accidentally scratching someone with her venom laced claws.


    Maxine checked herself over once more to make sure she didn''t miss anything and walked back to where she was previously. "Good idea," Alanna Trenz commented, "She should be much more receptive with your current appearance."


    "That was my intent," Maxine said simply as she spotted a small dot in the sky that was gradually getting larger.


    "Oh! It seems her ship is on approach," Alanna Trenz said, "Shall we meet them at the docking pad six?"


    "We might as well," Maxine said as she started making her way to the docking pad. However, while she walked, she sent out her spiritual sense to scan the ship for the possible hydrakin child and became angry at number of restraints on the child. However, she quickly calmed down since she understood the necessity of such measures. The little girl''s hands were entirely encased in metallic mittens and were chained together. The poor girl''s feet were also encased in thick leather sacks as well to prevent her from using her foot claws on her handlers. While I don''t like it, I understand these measures. That child has already tried repeatedly to kill her handlers.


    Maxine had to take in a deep breath before continuing with her swift examination. The little girl had beautiful green scales, yellow eyes and shoulder-length brown hair. Maxine even spotted some quills mixed in her hair. Thankfully, they were not laced with venom like Maxine''s were. That''s interesting. I wonder if the high elves know that they can be launched out like little darts. Maybe that kid is saving that little trick as a surprise. Now, lets check out her internals. It should be immediately clear if she is or is not a hydrakin. And after a few moments, Maxine discovered that this little girl indeed was a hydrakin. Her organs, blood and energy pathways all marked her as a hydrakin.


    "It seems that I will be taking that little one with me to see my parents, afterall," Maxine commented.


    "What do you mean?" Alanna Trenz asked, "You havn''t examined her yet."


    "I examined her with my spiritual sense and I can assure you that she is a hydrakin," Maxine said with a smirk as they walked onto the docking pad and waited for the occupants to disembark.


    It took them longer than she thought to disembark, but when they did, Maxine quickly saw why. The hydrakin girl was kicking and screaming for all she was worth. It took four high elves a full stage above her to keep her restrained. I''ve seen enough.


    Maxine quickly approached them and growled at them once she was within earshot. All of them, including the hydrakin girl, froze. The girl started making a strange whining growl that seemed to pluck at Maxine''s heart strings. That must be the hydrakin equivalent of a child crying out for help.


    With a growl and gesture, Maxine got all four of the elves to back off and she began removing the restraints on the child. "I wouldn''t recommend that," one of the high elves warned, "She''ll attack as soon as their off."


    Maxine ignored him and instead, spoke to the child in snake-tongue, "What''s your name, little one?"


    "Reena," the hydrakin child answered, "Where am I?"


    "You''re on the world called Earth," Maxine answered and removed the last restraint, "Please don''t attack the pointy-eared people. They were just trying to help you and got scared when you started hurting them."


    "I don''t like them," Reena replied grumpily as she gave an angry glare at the nearby high elves.


    "I don''t like them too much either," Maxine said, "Their kind often see themselves as superior to everyone else. It''s rather annoying."


    "That''s not why I don''t like them," Reena commented, "They refused to give me meat to eat. Instead, they kept giving me green blocks to eat. They satisfied my hunger, but tasted horrible." That sounds like high-protein nutrient blocks designed for carnivorous species. Their taste is almost unpalatable. Beyond that though, they''re actually an excellent emergency food.


    "Anyways, where are your parents?" Maxine asked to change the subject and immediately wished she hadn''t. Reena quickly became depressed.


    "They''re dead," Reena answered simply as tears threatened to fall from her eyes.


    "I''m so sorry," Maxine said as she gently hugged the poor child. She found it odd that Reena didn''t cry onto her shoulder, but guessed that it was because it had been awhile since it happened.


    "I''m sorry to interrupt," Allana Trenz said apologetically in Alliance common after a few moments, "But we need to vacate the docking pad so the ship can leave."


    Maxine picked Reena up and felt the little girl bury her face into her shoulder as she hugged Maxine with both her arms and legs. "Alright," Maxine said to Alanna Trenz in Alliance common before switching back to snake-tongue, "I''ll take you to where I live. It''s safe there and there are nice people living there that are willing to take you in. There is also another little one such as yourself. He''s a little younger than you, so it''ll be like you have a younger brother."


    "There is a male?" Reena asked innocently, "Is he to be my future mate?" Now, that came out of nowhere.


    "Only if that is what the both of you desire," Maxine replied.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Reena became quiet for a few moments and Maxine felt Reena''s tail wrap around her waist. Maxine smiled to herself while they walked out of the spaceport and created an arch before turning to Alanna Trenz. "Thank you for bringing her to me," Maxine said in Alliance common.


    "You are most welcome," Alanna Trenz said as she bowed her head slightly and smiled at Reena as she added, "As are you, little one."


    "I''m sorry that I forgot to mention this, but her name is Reena," Maxine said while smirking, "Now, I better head home to introduce her to the rest of the family. I hope that she handles it well." She should considering mom was making a literal feast for dinner tonight. There''ll be at least six different meat dishes.


    "Thank you for letting me know and take care," Alanna Trenz said with a gentle smile.


    "I always do," Maxine said as she created an arch to her home and walked through it. She was immediately greeted by a bouquet of meaty smells and her stomach involuntarily growled. As she walked around the house, she spotted Lucas hanging just outside of the kitchen while his tail waved back and forth expectantly.


    Meanwhile, Reena turned her head and began to sniff at the air. When she saw Lucas, she froze for a moment and stared at him intently. A moment later, Lucas turned his head and saw Reena in her arms. He too began to stare back at her. It was only after a few seconds that she noticed that the scales around his face raised slightly to vent off some excess heat. Is that the hydrakin version of blushing? It must be the case. Reena is having a very similar reaction.


    "Lucas, this is Reena," Maxine said in serpent-tongue, "Will you look out for her and help teach her how to speak English and Alliance common?"


    "Yes, I can," Lucas said, "Should I also teach her those techniques that you showed me?" What the? That''s almost the longest sentence he''s ever spoken. That''s definitely a good sign.


    "I''ll pass the knowledge to her another time, but you can help her perfect it. How does that sound?" Maxine asked him.


    "That sounds great," Lucas said with a smile.


    [Maxine, could you help set the table?] Hellen asked, [I would do it myself, but my hands are full with finishing up in here.]


    [Sure, I''ll send a couple shadow clones to help you out,] Maxine replied.


    "Now, let''s get to the table," Maxine said as she walked towards the table while creating a few shadow clones just outside of Reena''s vision to avoid startling her and controlled them to head to the kitchen, "Our evening meal is almost ready, Reena. I hope you enjoy it. Mom worked very hard to prepare it."


    Reena didn''t speak. Instead, she climbed out of Maxine''s arms and approached Lucas. "Are the people nice here?" she asked Lucas. I didn''t realize how short she was until she was standing next to Lucas. She''s half a head shorter than him and he''s barely four feet tall. She''s at least a year, probably two, older than him. Perhaps, she hasn''t been getting enough food for any kind of growth. Mom''s cooking and the quantities she makes should solve that issue very quickly. If not, they''ll just have to be shorter than everyone else.


    "Yes, especially mother. She prepares the most delicious meals," Lucas answered and he glanced at Maxine before adding, "And big sister teaches me all sorts of things like how to fight and hunt."


    "Big sister? Who is that?" Reena asked.


    "She''s right next to you," Lucas answered.


    "Oh," Reena said in realization, "Does your mother look like us?"


    "No, she doesn''t look like us. She''s a human, but she''s very nice so long as you behave like you are supposed to," Lucas said with a smile, "You do not want her angry at you. She gets REALLY scary when that happens." Maxine nearly snorted in amusement at such a typical answer, but he wasn''t wrong. Hellen could get quite intimidating when she was angry.


    "We can talk about that after dinner," Maxine said, "Now, go sit down at the table. Mom''s bringing the food out."


    "Okay," Lucas said before grabbing Reena''s hand and lead her to her seat.


    Maxine smiled to herself before joining them. Emily, Howard, and Guan joined them just as Hellen walked out of the kitchen with the first dish. Maxine''s shadow clones were hot on her heels with the rest of the food.


    Reena looked confused as she looked at Maxine and her shadow clones. "I can create temporary copies of myself," Maxine explained to her, "They''ll disappear in a few moments."


    "Care to introduce us to our new arrival, Maxine?" Howard asked in english.


    "Oh, yes," Maxine said in realization, "This is Reena. She''s a hydrakin like Lucas. She doesn''t speak or understand english, but that can be remedied after a little work."


    "I can help with that if you need me to," Emily offered.


    "Thanks, but I think this little girl will feel more comfortable if either myself or Lucas did that," Maxine replied, "And it''s also why I''m in this form. It makes her feel more at ease."


    "I see," Emily said, "Well, just be sure to tell her the truth soon."


    "I will. Let''s give her a few days to get situated first," Maxine said and turned to help Reena get some food on her plate. However, Lucas beat her to it. He was enthusiastically explaining proper etiquette in serpent tongue. Maxine smiled at such a scene. He definitely has a little crush on her. I wonder if it will hold up in the future.


    "That''s adorable," Hellen said, "Oh! By the way, where is Silkie? Is she dining with Lan, again?"


    "Yes," Maxine said, "And they''re keeping their interactions relatively chaste for now. Although, I don''t imagine it''ll be too much longer before Lan proposes to Silkie."


    "I believe she prefers to be called Silke these days," Emily pointed out, "And yes, I think it won''t be too much longer either. He asked me for suggestions on the style of ring that he should get her."


    "He also approached a dwarven smith to make the ring itself once he decided on a style," Guan chimed in.


    "And why were you spying on him, daddy?" Maxine asked while giving Guan the evil eye.


    "Even though she is adopted, Silke is still my grand daughter," Guan replied simply, "I didn''t want her to be mistreated by Lanitherin so I kept an eye on him."


    "Guan, we talked about this," Hellen said in a warning tone, "You are not supposed to spy on others."


    "I''ll try to restrain myself in the future," Guan said.


    "Anyways, I think I''ll be taking Reena and Lucas for a hunting trip in a few days," Maxine said to change the subject, "It''ll be a good bonding experience for them and I''ll be able to teach them an important skill for the future. Oh, and I''ll drop by Silkie''s shop to get Reena outfitted with some gloves and shoes for when she''s in public. We can''t have her accidentally scratching anyone with her venom-laced claws."


    "What about her quills?" Emily asked.


    "I checked them earlier. They''re not coated in venom like mine are," Maxine replied.


    "That''s a relief," Emily said, "Still, we should educate her on why it''s important not to hurt other sapient beings."


    "I intend to," Maxine replied.


    "There''s not need for you to visit Silke''s shop. Catch," Guan said as he tossed over a matching set of gloves and shoes in Reena''s size.


    "When the hell did you manage to get her measurements?" Maxine asked.


    "About ten minutes ago," Guan answered, "They''re just beast basic leather for now. Give me a few weeks and I''ll have something more durable that will adjust to her size as she grows up."


    "I didn''t know that you were an artificer," Maxine commented.


    "I''m not one. I simply learned some minor enchantments," Guan answered, "It''s nothing compared to that armor that I had made for you. That reminds me. Why havn''t you been using it lately?"


    "It''s not as effective as it used to be. Hell, right now, it''s defensive value isn''t even a fraction of my scales," Maxine answered honestly.


    "That was before it had sufficient time to be nurtured by both your blood and energies," Guan answered, "It''s defensive power should be much higher than your natural defenses."


    "Seriously? You never mentioned that feature," Maxine said.


    "Yes, I did. I explicitly mentioned in the letter that it would grow with you," Guan answered, "It just needed time to adjust to your rapid increase in strength."


    Maxine opened her mouth to retort, but closed it again when she realized that he was right. His letter had that detail included. She just never considered the possibility that it takes time for the Shadow''s Embrace armor to adjust to her increase in strength.


    She turned to look at the food on the table to grab something to eat and nearly panicked when she saw that a little more than half of it was already gone. She swiftly started piling food on her plate and immediately began eating. Shit, I didn''t realize how much Reena and Lucas could put away in the short time that I was talking with everyone. At least, those two are starting to slow down. Otherwise, I might not be able to eat enough to satisfy my hunger in this state and judging by they way Reena keeps glancing at everyone, she might want to sleep next to me tonight. That''s just as well. Daddy hasn''t mentioned anything about the new addition being completed anyways.

 Chapter 209

    Maxine laid in her bed while brushing her hand through Reena''s hair. She had another nightmare last night. I wish I could just ask Madam Neshan to talk to her, but that might be a bad idea. She is having trouble just assimilating into my family. It''s best that I just make her feel safe for now and work on her emotional issues after she gets used to us. On the plus side, she''s learned how to understand English and Alliance common well enough. I just wish she could speak properly. Her difficulties makes me realize why Lucas always kept his responses short. While I''m thinking about him, he seemed rather excited to go on a hunting trip with me and Reena today. Perhaps, he wants to display his skill and strength to her.


    Maxine was drawn out of her own thoughts when Reena started to stir and open her eyes. She immediately smiled at Maxine and hugged her. "Tank you, big sissster," Reena said in English.


    "You''re welcome and it''s pronounced ''thank'' you," Maxine corrected Reena and gently tapped her nose, "Now, let''s get up. I think I smell breakfast."


    Reena instantly jumped out of bed and tried to put on her new clothes with some difficulty. Her quills and extra limbs made it difficult for her to put on the clothes that Silkie had made for her. They were made from arachne silk, so Maxine had no concerns that Reena would tear them apart any time soon.


    Maxine also got up and put on her battle garments since she was still in her full hybrid form. It only took the two of them a few minutes to get dressed and head to the dining table. When they got there, the table was already set and everyone had started without them. Breakfast was pancakes with maple syrup, bacon and eggs.


    Not surprising, she saw that Lucas'' expression brightened up visibly when Reena sat down beside him. Yeah, he''s fallen for her and from how Reena doesn''t rebuff him, she must have some affections for him as well.


    "Those two have a healthy appetite," Hellen remarked as she finished off her breakfast.


    "Reena''s going through a growth spurt from the looks of it," Guan said and he smiled as he looked at Hellen, "It''s probably due to the amazing meals that you''ve been preparing."


    "Oh, you flirt," Hellen said with a smile.


    "Breakfast is yummy!" Lucas said happily inbetween bites.


    "I have to agree," Maxine said after taking a few bites, "You''ve really outdone yourself, mom." She didn''t wait for anyone else'' response as she swiftly dug into it. She needed the calories if she was going to take Reena and Lucas on a hunting trip. She knew that it could take a good part of the day to track down and kill any potential prey. And I don''t know if Reena''s parents taught her how to hunt or track without spiritual sense. Which means this might not be a successful hunting trip.


    "Thank you," Hellen said with a pleased smile, "Now, when do you intend to leave?"


    "Right after we are done eating," Maxine answered.


    "Alright, then. I''ll be talking with your father if you need me," Hellen said as she stood up from the table and headed towards Guan''s training room.


    "Understood," Maxine said before she finished off the last few bites of her breakfast and took her plate to the kitchen. Lucas and Reena had already done that and were waiting for her expectantly next to the spot that she normally creates her arch shaped portal.


    "Heh, I see you two are ready," Maxine said to them, "So, which type of terrain would you like to go hunting in? Grassland? Forest? Dense jungle?"


    "Forest," Lucas said firmly. That figures. He''s the best at tracking when in forests.


    "Just a second," Maxine said as she created the archway that lead to a dense forested region in the north America. That should do nicely and there should be a large variety of beasts that we can hunt. I just hope Lucas doesn''t decide to hunt something too strong for him to take down on his own.


    "Let''s go," Maxine said as she walked through the arch and saw the dense foliage once she was through. Reena and Lucas followed behind her beside each other.


    Almost immediately, Lucas got on all fours and started examining the ground. Maxine smirked at such antics and glanced at the ground around them. There were a few faint traces of ordinary animals, but most of them weren''t any larger than a medium sized dog. It took Lucas a few moments to realize that.


    "Now, before you get too excited, we''re going to be hunting deer," Maxine announced, "I don''t think Reena has ever seen one. So, let''s show her what one looks like and how it tastes. Alright, Lucas?"


    "Yep!" Lucas said as he took the lead to look for a game trail. He found one after a few moments and kneeled down on the ground.


    "What do you see?" Maxine asked for Reena''s benefit.


    "Four bronze stage wolves based on the size of the prints, five deer-type beasts and one fox in the iron stage," Lucas answered as he pointed to the various faint imprints on the dirt.


    "Very good, but you missed the shadow cat trail," Maxine said as she gestured to the edge of the tail, "It''s understandable why you didn''t see it. They have a tendency to traverse on the outside edges of any game trails to make it harder for humans to track them. They''re also one of the few beasts that can conceal their energies, but typically, only the less intelligent members of their species choose not to."


    "Wow, that''s amazing, but why don''t you track them by scent?" Reena asked innocently in serpent tongue after Maxine finished speaking.


    "I don''t know how," Lucas answered honestly.


    "Here, I''ll show you," Reena said as she walked up beside him and inhaled deeply as she slowly walked up and down the trail, "You must isolate each of the smells by finding each scent on the surrounding plants. Regardless of what animal it is, it always leaves a scent on the surrounding plants that it happens to brush against. It''s how mom -" She choked back her words as tears formed in her eyes.


    "It''s alright to cry," Maxine said as she gently placed one of her hands on Reena''s shoulder. Reena swiftly hugged Maxine and cried. It was almost as if Reena was waiting for her permission to cry, but Maxine took it in stride as she gently stroked Reena''s head in an attempt to comfort her. Meanwhile, Lucas looked unsure of what to do. I don''t blame him for his indecision. Perhaps, I could give him a hint.


    Maxine mouthed the words, ''Give her some chocolate.'' She knew that he had brought some along in the pouch at his waist.


    Once Reena calmed down somewhat, Lucas pulled a piece of chocolate out of his pouch and presented it to Reena as he said, "Here. Eat this. It should make you feel a little better."


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    Reena turned her head to look at the chocolate and examined it for a moment before opening her mouth. Lucas gently fed her the chocolate and Reena''s face brightened up slightly. Oh, wait. That''s the first time she''s had chocolate. To her surprise, Reena was actually chewing the chocolate slowly rather than eating it like someone that hadn''t eaten in three days like she usually does.


    "It''s good, isn''t it?" Maxine asked as Reena finally swallowed.


    "Yes, it is. Can I have more?" Reena asked with eyes reddened from crying.


    "Yes, but later," Maxine said, "We still have a deer to catch." It''ll be a good way to get Reena''s mind off of depressing thoughts. Part of me wants to know what really happened to her parents. God knows that I''ve been tempted to take a peek at what her nightmares are just to find out what happened. Fuck it. I hope she doesn''t get too upset when I take a peek.


    "Okay," Reena said as Lucas got into position to follow the deer tracks.


    "Alright, Lucas. Lead the way and remember you two, we need to be stealthy just in case the deer are close," Maxine reminded them. They nodded at her reminder as the three of them made their way through the forest.


    When they finally caught up to the deer, Maxine gestured to Lucas to take down one of the deer. He gave her a surprised look. This would be the first time that she actually allowed him to do this on his own. After a moment, he came to his senses and slowly climbed a tree before jumping soundlessly from branch to branch to get above the grazing deer. When he was in position, he drew a small knife from his waist and leapt down on top of a large buck. With a fluid motion, he slit the deer''s throat and kicked off of it''s back before it could gore him with it''s antlers. The beast bolted into the woods, but it only managed to run a few hundred feet before collapsing from blood loss. The rest of the herd scattered in almost every direction.


    Lucas started to rush towards the downed beast, but Maxine swiftly grabbed him. "Do not approach it until after it breathes it''s last breath," Maxine warned him, "Even at death''s door, that deer can still kill you. One swift strike of his cloven hoof to your head is all it would take."


    "Alright," Lucas said.


    "But, beyond that, you''ve done very well," Maxine said approvingly, "Now, all we need to do is gut this big boy before we take him home. Do you remember how to do that? Or do you want me to do that?"


    "I can do it," Lucas said as he readied his knife, "Is it safe to approach it now?" Maxine glanced at the beast and checked it''s heartbeat with her spiritual sense.


    "Yes, it is," Maxine said, "His heart stopped a few seconds ago. Oh! And be sure to share the heart and liver with Reena." Those are some of the tastier parts so long as they are eaten immediately after the animal dies and both are a good source of nutrients for their growing bodies. Although, if they were humans, they would want to slice and cook them an over an open flame first to kill any parasites. I would love to see any of those things thrive more than a few minutes in a hydrakin''s acidic blood.


    "Okay!" Lucas said as he ran forward with his knife and began gutting the beast. He actually made quick work of it and managed to preserve the hide of the animal in the process.


    When he finished, he cut the deer''s liver and heart in half and gave Reena a portion of it before he began eating it. If someone saw those two right now, they would probably run away screaming. They look like a pair of pre-teen murders with how much blood they''re covered in. I''ll need to take them to a river to get that blood washed off before we head home and I need to remind them not to eat raw meat of any kind in a public setting.


    "Once you two are finished eating, we need to get cleaned up. Mom will be furious if you get any blood on her furniture," Maxine said. Lucas simply nodded and Reena was too focus on eating to really pay attention to her. While they ate, Maxine stashed the deer''s carcass into her dimensional ring to be further processed later.


    Still, they went to a nearby river and went for a short swim before basking in the sun on a large rock to dry off. Oddly enough, Reena fell asleep and Maxine didn''t have the heart to wake her. So, she sat down next to her. Meanwhile, Lucas kept a look out. However, within a few minutes, Reena started showing the early signs of one of her nightmares. Damn it. I know I shouldn''t do this, but I need to know.


    With extreme care, Maxine extended her spiritual sense out and brushed it against Reena''s mind to peek into her dreams. What she saw in Reena''s dream made her jaw drop. Reena used to live in a village full of hydrakin and they were all staring up at a male azure-scaled dragonkin floating in the air. A few of the elders flew up to talk to the dragonkin, but were cut down in a bloody spray before they could even speak a single word. What followed next was a lot of yelling and screaming as her village was slaughtered. Her parents died protecting her and she only survived because a high elf got inbetween her and the dragonkin. Reena woke up with a start before Maxine could see what happened next. Holy shit! This is not what I was expecting. I actually thought the high elves were using Reena in some sort of scheme, but they were genuinely trying to protect her from that murderous dragonkin.


    Reena was looking around wildly in a panic and calmed down somewhat when she saw Maxine. Maxine swiftly pulled Reena into a hug. "It''s alright. You''re safe. Nothing can hurt you while you are with me," Maxine said comfortingly as she stroked Reena''s head, "I promise." Reena simply hugged Maxine tighter.


    Lucas chimed in, "I''ll protect Reena too!" He swiftly brandished his claws against an unseen enemy.


    "How brave," Maxine said with an approving smile, "But right now, we should head back home. Only a truly foolish entity would dare attack it while daddy is there." And I can go have a nice chat with Allana Trenz about Reena''s origins while mom looks after these two. She has some explaining to do.


    With a wave of her hand, Maxine created an arch and the three of them went home through it. Immediately, she went looking for Hellen and found her reading a book in the living room. "Hey, mom. We''re back. Is it alright if I go run a quick errand on Earth?" Maxine asked.


    "Of course," Hellen answered, "Just try not to take too long. Reena is more relaxed when you''re present."


    "I won''t be gone more than an hour," Maxine replied.


    "Alright, have fun then," Hellen replied.


    "Will do," Maxine said as she spread out her spiritual sense and almost immediately found Allana Trenz. She created an arch practically infront of the woman and walked through it.


    "Oh, Ms. Levings. I hope everything is going well with young Reena," Allana Trenz said without loosing her composure.


    "She has nightmares every night," Maxine said bluntly, "But you already knew that. I''m also quite certain that you know exactly why."


    "I am," Allana Trenz said while looking guilty for the briefest of moments, "My clansmen were unable to save anyone else. Although, I''m rather surprised that Reena told you about what happened this soon."


    "You should''ve told me upfront what happened," Maxine said angrily.


    "I''m aware, but we had our reasons," Allana Trenz answered.


    "Is that all you have to say?" Maxine asked.


    "I don''t know much else besides that Reena was rescued and brought here. The elders were very careful with restricting what I was allowed to know," Allana Trenz replied, "Still, Reena will need your protection for a few more months. After that, the one that committed those crimes will be dealt with." Okay, that''s enough of a clue for me to figure out the rest.


    "I''ll hold you to that and I sincerely hope that you''ve completed all of your business on my world," Maxine said angrily, "Now, get off my planet. You are no longer welcome here."


    "Why?" Allana Trenz asked.


    "You misled to me about why you brought Reena here," Maxine explained, "And now, I''ll have to worry about a murderous dragonkin coming to my world and causing havoc."


    "He wouldn''t dare so something so foolish!" Allana Trenz said swiftly.


    "So, you do know who he is," Maxine said coldly, "But you''re wrong on that point. If he''s bold enough to slaughter a village infront of your people, he''s bold enough to come to my world and cause trouble. You have until the end of the day to get off my planet. Am I understood?"


    "Completely," Allana Trenz said with a hint of fear.


    "Good," Maxine said as she created an arch and returned home. I didn''t get all of the information, but I got enough to figure it everything out. I just need to prepare for this dragonkin''s arrival. Although, I''m not entirely certain that he will come. He might be a bold son of a bitch, but he would have to be pretty stupid to start shit here with daddy around. Still, the possibility of that isn''t zero, but I''m quite curious why he thought that he could get away with murdering all of those hydrakin. The Alliance has very strict laws prohibiting the killing of rare or endangered species, particularly sapient ones. If anyone were to be caught violating such laws, they would be thrown head first at the next galactic threat. It''s practically a death sentence. So, that''s what''s going on! Those fucking high elven pricks! They didn''t just want me to protect Reena. They wanted me to teach her how to speak Alliance common so she could testify in court as their star witness. And now, they know that I won''t tell them to fuck off after I found out what that dragonkin did to her parents. At least, they''re not trying to get me to do something that I would object to in the first place. Still, it would''ve been nice if they were upfront about it.

 Chapter 210

    It had been a month since Maxine had kicked Allana Trenz off of Earth and to her surprise, there had yet to be any signs of the dragonkin''s reaction to Reena''s presence on Earth. She had expected something to happen by now, but there was nothing. This lack of action made her more concerned than anything else. It meant that the dragonkin were either much smarter than any of her previous opponents or they just didn''t think it was worth worrying about a young, traumatized hydrakin.


    Still, there was some good news for her to be happy about. Reena''s nightmares had become less frequent. Now, she only had them every other night. Unfortunately, tonight was one of those nights and Maxine was in the process of gently stroking Reena''s head to soothe her. Whatever punishment the Alliance unleashes on that dragonkin, it won''t be enough to even the scales. I doubt he would survive whatever they have him do anyways.


    Hellen opened up the bedroom door to peek in. She was still in her nightgown and had a worried look on her face. [Another nightmare?] Hellen asked via spiritual sense.


    [Yes,] Maxine said, [And I wish I could get my hands on the bastard that''s the root cause of them.]


    [As do I and the high elves,] Hellen replied, [They may act superior to everyone else, but they also feel the need to look after the more vulnerable races. I believe they''re the one that patroned the laws to protect endangers species.]


    [Yeah, that sounds like something elves would do,] Maxine said knowingly, [Anyways, you should go back to bed. I''ve got it covered in here.]


    [Alright, try to get some sleep,] Hellen said.


    [I will,] Maxine replied as Hellen closed the door.


    Once the door was closed, Maxine looked at her clawed hands. She had explained to Reena that she wasn''t a hydrakin a couple weeks ago and reverted back to her base form infront of her. But, even with all of that, Reena still had a full blown panic attack and only calmed down after Maxine transformed back into her full-hybrid form. Maxine had maintained this state ever since to avoid a repeat of that. What''s more is that Reena refused to sleep alone or with anyone other than Maxine.


    However, a certain thought had been gnawing at her ever since she found out about Reena''s village: Why had no one heard about other hydrakin when there was a village of them on another world? It had kept her up for several hours on multiple nights. She considered it was most likely due to high elves concealing their existence as a means of protecting them. It would explain their reluctance to share any information. That way it would prevent any accidental leaking of information by their less experienced members. Still, the appearance of individual hydrakin would have to be a rare event. For the high elves to have concealed them for this long is quite impressive to say the least. Unless, they''ve figured out the exact environmental requirements that are needed for a hydrakin to appear naturally and actively monitor the worlds with those conditions. And after one appears, they pick them up and bring them to a planet hosting a village within high elven space. That would explain why there was a village of them to begin with and that also suggests that there would be more than one village. Afterall, why would they place the entire population of an endangered species in a single location and risk their extermination if something horrible were to happen? But I still can''t understand why they would hide the fact that the hydrakin exist from the rest of the Alliance. I''ll just have to ask the high elven representative at the next Alliance assembly to find out their reasons.


    She stopped trying to think about the reasons for the high elves'' action since it was starting to give her a headache. Thankfully, she was given a distraction when her dimensional disc vibrated. She pulled it out of her dimensional ring and frowned. She had gotten two messages One was from the Alliance and the other was from Allana Trenz. The message from the Alliance was a notification of an early meeting to resolve a conflict between the high elves and dragonkin and it was happening in a month and a half. That message was something she was expecting just not this soon But the message from Allana Trenz angered her. The wording was apologetic, but it still boiled down to her asking that Maxine bring Reena into the virtual realm so that they could ask her some questions during the next Alliance Assembly. I was expecting this message, but it still pisses me off that they''re asking her to do this. I don''t even know if she will be able to even talk about it with me. Forget about talking in front of all of those people. At least, Allana''s explaining why Reena needs to testify. They have literately no other source of information on what started the whole thing. If the high elves didn''t have Reena, the dragonkin could easily twist the whole thing to make it seem like the hydrakin attacked him first and only get a fucking slap on the wrist for killing the rest of the village.


    Maxine sighed in frustration and tried to sleep. Unfortunately, she was too worried about the upcoming Alliance assembly to fall asleep. Eventually, she just gave up and stroked Reena''s hair to ensure her dreams stayed pleasant. It was several hours later that Hellen opened up Maxine''s bedroom door and her expression became concerned when she noticed that Maxine had been awake before she entered.


    "What''s gotten you so worked up that you couldn''t sleep?" Hellen asked.


    "The contents of the next Alliance assembly," Maxine replied, "They want Reena to testify in a trial."


    "Why?" Hellen asked, "What do they think she witnessed?"


    "She witnessed the slaughter of her village full of hydrakin," Maxine answered, "And I only know because I peeked into her dreams when I couldn''t stand not knowing what was tormenting her any longer."


    Hellen just looked at Reena in sympathy. "No wonder she didn''t want to speak of what happened," Hellen said.


    "I don''t blame her either," Maxine agreed, "But to ensure that the bastard is punished, she needs to. Otherwise, that creep can just say that the whole tribe attacked him first since the high elves don''t have someone that was there or any functioning observation devices present when the fighting started." In fact, the high elven observation satellite had been heavily damaged less than an hour before the village was slaughtered. It''s suspicious, but not damning enough evidence.


    "That''s unfortunate," Hellen said sadly and a few moments later as Reena''s eye''s began to flutter open, her tone became kind, "Good morning, Reena. Why don''t you and Maxine get ready while I go make breakfast, alright?"


    "Okay," Reena said groggily as she rubbed her eyes and walked towards her dresser. It was unfortunate that there wasn''t much variation in the clothing that Reena could wear due to her physique. Maxine had a similar problem when it came to her battle dress since it needed to be able to adjust it''s size when she transformed. Still, given enough time, Maxine know that Silkie could come up with several clothing styles for Reena.


    Maxine got up herself and walked to the bathroom to wash her face. She really didn''t need to look through her closet or dresser for clothes. Most of what she owned was in her dimensional ring. Unfortunately, like Reena, she didn''t have a lot of options just yet due to her unusual body shape in this state. Maxine had a similar problem while in her full-hyrbid form, but thankfully, Silkie had come to their collective rescue. She had woven a few dresses for them that would fit them without being difficult to put on. It really was ingenius of Silkie to have it so that I just need to step into the dress, pull it up and tie the strings behind my neck and tail to hold the dress up. She even came up with a way to hide my underwear with the use of a pair of wide ribbons that I tie together into a bow above my tail. She really is a talented seamstress, even among the Arachne species as a whole.


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    "Pretty," Reena stated as she saw Maxine in the soft yellow dress that Silky made for her, "Can Silke make me one too?"


    "Of course, she can," Maxine said happily, "We just need to drop by her shop and have her take your measurements." I know that I''m spoiling her a little bit, but she needs a little pampering. And satisfying her desire to look pretty is done easily enough.


    "''Kay," Reena happily chirped while brushing her hair and when she finished, she put a few small faux flowers in her hair. I''m glad that I bought those for her the last time I took her to Earth to explore.


    "You look beautiful," Maxine complimented Reena, "Now, let''s go show daddy. I bet he''ll love it just as much as I do." Reena flashed a smile and ran out of the room towards the dinning room table. Maxine followed behind her.


    "Oh? Is there a special occasion to have flowers in your hair, young lady?" Guan asked Reena as Maxine walked into the room.


    [You were supposed to say she looked pretty with them in her hair,] Maxine admonished Guan via spiritual sense.


    "No," Reena said as she looked up at Guan, "Do they look pretty?"


    "Not as pretty as you, Reena," Guan said as he gently tapped her nose. Reena immediately smiled and hugged Guan''s waist for a few moments before disengaging. She swiftly ran off. Maxine guessed Reena went to pester Lucas until breakfast was ready.


    "And here I thought you were lousy with kids," Maxine commented.


    "I have my moments," Guan answered simply, "Now, we best head to the table before those two bottomless pits eat everything."


    "They''re not that bad," Maxine said.


    "Compared to you, perhaps, but to any sane being, they eat nearly five times as much as a human child can," Guan stated, "Maybe, you should take them to an eating contest. They would win due to the sheer volume that they can put away."


    "Don''t tempt me," Maxine said with a knowing smile. It would save some money on our food bill. Hell, if me and daddy were not so rich, we would definitely be feeling the drain on our finances. Still, this level of consumption isn''t normal. Lucas normally eats three times as much as a human boy his age does. Perhaps, he''s going through a growth spurt.


    "In any case, you might want to go hunting again this week," Guan said simply, "The meat from those elk that you managed to take down is nearly gone." Shit, I thought a four hundred pounds worth of meat would be enough to feed us for more than two weeks. I guess not.


    "Alright, but I better go alone this time. While those two are getting better, I''m simply more efficient when I hunt alone," Maxine stated and caught the scent of freshly cooked bacon, "And, it smells like breakfast is about to hit the table. We best get in there or mom will get angry at us for holding them up."


    "Agreed, Hellen can be quite spirited when she is angry," Guan said simply and started heading towards the dining room.


    Maxine followed behind him and saw that Lucas and Reena were already seated. However, they didn''t not appear to be waiting patiently since their gaze was locked onto the kitchen doorway. She smiled to herself as she walked to the kitchen to give Hellen a hand.


    She walked in just as Hellen finished filling the plates. She had her own and Guan''s plates in her hands. Maxine gave her a smile and grabbed the other plates. Although, they were more on the lines of serving platters rather than plates.


    She set two of the platters infront of Reena and Lucas before taking her seat. "So, what''s on today''s agenda?" Hellen asked Maxine.


    "Well, I''m going to make some potions for Amanda''s guild," Maxine said simply, "After that, I suppose I''ll go hunting. Beyond those two things, I don''t have a lot planned for today."


    "Oh, then you don''t mind if I take Reena shopping while you are out and about?" Hellen asked.


    "Not at all," Maxine replied after taking a bite out of a sausage and looked at Reena out of the corner of her eye, "I bet it would do her some good to interact with people besides us."


    "Will we look at dresses?" Reena asked innocently while pausing from eating her breakfast.


    "I don''t see why not," Hellen answered, "Just be sure to let me take a picture of the ones that you like. Silke might be able to make one that would fit you."


    "Yay!" Reena said happily before she dug back into her breakfast. Maxine smiled at Reena''s childish reaction. She even spied a small smile on Guan''s face out of the corner of her eye.


    Maxine shook her head as she began to eat her breakfast in earnest, but when she was halfway through, Guan talked to her via spiritual sense, [What are you planning on doing to that dragonkin?]


    [If the Alliance punishes him properly, nothing,] Maxine replied simply, [If not, I will make his life a living nightmare. Death is too good for him.] I''m only making that poison because I know that there is a possibility of a backroom deal to make that murderous prick''s sentence lighter or he finds a legal loophole that will let him walk away. I cannot and will not accept anything less than a brutal punishment after he orphaned Reena.


    [Ruthless. I approve,] Guan answered simply, [Now, finish your breakfast and get to making those potions for your friend.]


    [Will do,] Maxine said with a mental smile as she severed the spiritual connection and finished off her breakfast.


    "Have fun," Hellen said to Maxine as she created and walked through an arch.


    Maxine appeared infront of the Ice and Fire guild headquarters and walked inside. She frowned when she saw a ''young master'' in opulent robes with an old attendant talking to the receptionist and from the looks of it, he was actually being polite. Which was rare.


    "I simply wish to know what times Ms. Cinderson will be here," the ''young master'' asked politely, "I have something that I wish to talk to her about."


    "As I said before, I can''t reveal any information about her schedule as per her wishes," the receptionist answered honestly and smiled when she spotted Maxine in her full hydra form, "But if you really must talk to her, she''s standing behind you."


    "Really?" the ''young master'' said as he turned around and paled when she saw Maxine, "By the maker! You startled me!" His attendant merely looked slightly surprised.


    "Sorry about that. I didn''t mean to scare you. I sometimes forget to change back when I''m not training," Maxine said calmly, but she kept both of them beyond arm''s length. She still feels uncomfortable around men she doesn''t know.


    "It''s quite alright, Ms. Cinderson," the ''young master'' said while looking nervous and Maxine finally noticed a singular draconic horn that just barely extends out of his hair just above his hairline, "I''m Alistair Draken and as you''ve clearly noticed, I''m a dragonkin." He extended his hand out for a handshake, but Maxine didn''t shake his hand. If anything, she was more guarded than normal around him since she was almost certain her was here to find Reena''s location or threaten her into silence.


    "Uh, hi. May I ask why you wanted to talk with me?" Maxine asked.


    "I simply wished to announce my presence within your territory," Alistair Draken said, "As I''m sure that you are unaware, it''s a social protocol amongst dragonkin or those that possess a draconic bloodline, like yourself."


    "Thank you for enlightening me. I shall endeavor to return such curtesy should I ever find myself in the territory of a dragonkin," Maxine said, "Now, if there is nothing else, there is something that I need to attend to. Enjoy your stay on Earth." She didn''t give him a chance to respond before she walked away and discreetly sent one of her spider constructs into his shadow. I know eavesdropping isn''t the most effective means of spying, but it''s the best that I''ve got. Unfortunately, by now, it''s a well known tactic of mine. Honestly, I doubt that it will yield anything at this point since it''s easily countered by using spiritual sense to communicate.


    Maxine made her way to the back room where she performed alchemy for Amanda''s guild and found a list of what they needed as well as a large stockpile of medicinal ingredients. It only took her a few moments to look through the list to make sure that they had all of the necessary materials in stock and began to work. It took her a few hours to finish her work. However, she wanted to do something else in this room.


    With a wave of her hand, she spread out her spiritual sense to lockdown the room before she pulled out a few ingredients of her own, but instead of making a potion, she was making a poison. Now, what, specifically, shall I do to that dragonkin that murdered Reena''s village? I could make a poison that causes his body to slowly rot over the course of several years. While cruel, it''s not enough. Who knows how many people that prick has killed and gotten away with it. I need him to live a long time to act as a living example for others.


    Maxine began to think of various medical conditions and one just popped into her head. That''s just what the doctor ordered. It''s sufficiently cruel while giving him enough hope to be cured so long as they hire an alchemist with skill near daddy''s level. Although, hiring an alchemist of that level is stupidly expensive. It would probably drain whatever wealth he''s gotten a hold of throughout his life. It''s perfect. Now, all I need to do is convince Reena to testify and see how the Alliance deals with that murderous dragonkin.

 Chapter 211

    It was only half an hour before the Alliance assembly and Maxine felt nervous. Although, not nearly as badly as Reena was. The poor little thing was trembling and clutching onto Maxine''s dress for dear life. "I know it feels scary, but I''ll be with you the entire time," Maxine soothed her, "Remember, you just need to answer a couple questions and the bad man that killed your parents will be punished one way or another."


    Reena nodded nervously and they continued to wait. However, her communication disc vibrated a few minutes early and Maxine quirked an eyebrow up as she saw that it was Alistair Draken. How the hell did he manage to get my communication disc frequency?! No, the better question is why would he bother trying to get a hold of me this late?


    She almost rejected the call reflexively, but still answered since she was genuinely curious as to what he would say. [Apologies for contacting you just before the meeting, but it''s quite difficult to arrange for a private meeting with you,] Alistair Draken said in a polite tone.


    [I prefer it that way. I don''t like to entertain random people that want me to ''improve'' their supply of chocolate,] Maxine replied calmly, [I leave such matters to the merchants. Now, what is it that you felt the need to contact me about.]


    [I humbly request that you do not allow that hydrakin child to testify in the trial,] Alistair Draken said, [It would be very embarrassing for my race if one of our own were to be found guilty of such crimes.]


    [Then, he shouldn''t have committed them in the first place,] Maxine replied bluntly, [The lot of you will just have to swallow your pride and allow him to suffer the consequences.]


    [Then, you should be prepared to face the consequences of not cooperating,] Alistair Draken replied without breaking his polite tone. He isn''t as smart as I thought he was.


    [You should be well aware that I do not respond well to threats,] Maxine replied coldly, [And if you actually move against me, my family or my world, I will visit upon your entire species a nightmare from which even my father would have difficulty undoing. Or did you forget in your arrogance that I am not only a very capable alchemist, but a poison master as well?] She didn''t even allow him to reply as she cut off the connection. I hope he doesn''t challenge me on that bluff. Catering a poison for an individual is easy, but making one that would universally target an entire species without effecting those closely related is beyond difficult. It would be prohibitively expensive and I would need at least six months to engineer such a poison. Although, the poisons that I come up with on the spot are difficult for even the Alchemist Association to cure. Hell, they''re still trying figure out how to even partially cure that poison that I hit them with and I didn''t work on that recipe for more than a few days.


    "Who was that?" Reena asked.


    "Someone very foolish," Maxine answered calmly, "Regardless, it''s time for us to attend the trial. Put your hands on this disc like I showed you earlier and close your eyes."


    "Okay," Reena said nervously as she gently placed her hands on to the communication disc and with a gentle motion of her energies, she pulled both herself and Reena into the virtual world for the Alliance assembly.


    Instantly, she found herself standing behind her seat. Reena swiftly grasped her dress and practically hid behind Maxine when several Alliance members turned to look at them. You would think that they''ve never seen me in this state before. I sure as hell know that there are video and holographic files of me in this state circulating around long enough for at least half of these guys to have seen it. Perhaps, they thought it was all fake.


    "Make them stop looking at us," Reena whined in english as she buried her face into Maxine''s side.


    "Can you gentlemen direct your gazes elsewhere?" Maxine asked loudly so that she could be heard, "You''re frightening the poor child." Even before she finished speaking, many had redirected their gazes away and the rest had done as she asked. Maxine wanted to thank them for complying, but paused when she noticed that Reena''s behavior had changed. She had become motionless and was breathing very quickly.


    Maxine turned her head to look at Reena and saw her frozen with fear with her gaze locked on something. Maxine followed her gaze and felt her claws reflexively twitch in a sudden surge of anger. It was the dragonkin that had murdered Reena''s entire village and he was sitting beside one of the dragonkin representatives. So, he''s a western type dragonkin. I wasn''t sure from peeking in Reena''s dream, but there is no mistaking those spike like horns. Eastern dragonkin have something more akin to antlers sticking out of their heads. But his face definitely matches up with Reena''s memory. Still, I''m surprise she didn''t try to lunge at him claws first. I know that I had to resist that urge myself.


    "It''s alright, Reena. He can''t hurt you while you are here," Maxine said to soothe Reena. Reena''s only response was to grip Maxine''s hand tightly and nod her head.


    "If the representatives could find their seats, this assembly shall begin," the governing AI stated. Maxine sat down and pulled Reena onto her lap.


    "This assembly was called in order to put Rigel Draken on trial for the slaughter of an originally thought to be extinct species of sapient beings known as Hydrakin," the governing AI stated, "Representative Trelnas of the high elves present your evidence and witnesses, please." Wait, Rigel Draken? So, that''s what''s going on! He must be a close relative of Alistair Draken.


    "Of course, the first piece of evidence shall be this recording of Rigel Draken''s ship approaching the planet that was home to the hydrakin," representative Trelnas said as a four sided holographic screen appeared in the center of the massive room and played a very clear video of a star ship on approach, "This video clearly shows that the defendant''s ship on approach to the planet and I have several eye witness accounts of high elves stationed on that planet of his presence near the scene of the crime before and after it was committed. Their testimony will be given after the witness to the crime itself has given her testimony. Our witness is the poor, frightened child standing beside representative Cinderson of Earth. Representative Cinderson, if you would be so kind as to allow us to ask Reena a few questions."


    "Of course, but I reserve the right to intervene if your line of questioning becomes too aggressive," Maxine said as she stood up and she said gently to Reena, "Just answer their questions truthfully and that man who did those bad things will be punished."


    "I wouldn''t expect anything less of the woman known as ''The Guardian Mother'' by so many," representative Trelnas said as Maxine urged Reena to stand up and face him, "Now, Reena do you remember that horrible day?"


    "Y, yes," Reena said nervously. Maxine spotted the dragonkin present scowl at the fact that Reena could speak Alliance common fluently. It left no chance of any kind of any kind of mistranslation or misinterpretation of what she meant to say.


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    "Can you tell us what happened?" representative Trelnas asked gently.


    "A bad man with sharp horns came and started yelling at my village. I couldn''t understand him and my parents couldn''t either. The elders knew many different languages went to see why he was so angry. But he killed them before they could say anything. Daddy tried to stop him while momma and me ran away," Reena said with tears in her eyes, "We didn''t run that far before I heard daddy scream for us to run away and hide. We ran harder, but I wasn''t fast enough. Momma yelled at me to keep running while she tried to fight the bad man. The bad man, he... he cut her in half! He killed my Momma! He would''ve killed me too if a pointy eared man hadn''t kicked the bad man in the face and grabbed me." At this point, Reena fell to her knees and began crying. Maxine knelt beside Reena and rubbed her shoulder gently. I didn''t know that a high elf kicked that prick in the face. He shouldn''t kicked him in the balls. It would''ve slowed him down more. Still, Reena survived so I can''t really complain too much. But, I wish Reena had larger vocabulary in Alliance common, but this was the best that I could do on such short notice. To make matters worse, she didn''t exactly want to learn Alliance common. She was more interested in learning english since that''s what everyone around her kept speaking in.


    "I know you''re upset, but I have to ask one more question," representative Trelnas asked as he got much closer to Reena and lowered himself to her eye level, "Do you see the bad man here today? If you can, could you point him out."


    "It was HIM!" Reena said as she pointed right at Rigel Draken and Maxine saw the bastard''s expression darken with rage. It looked like he was about to make a scene, but his clansmen were swift to stop him. They talked to him in attempt to make him see reason and from what she could tell, it worked. However, he was still furious.


    "Thank you, Reena," representative Trelnas said with genuine gratitude and he looked to Maxine, "Representative Cinderson, please, soothe this poor child."


    "You need not ask," Maxine said as she gently picked up Reena and let Reena bury her face into Maxine''s shoulder. However, before she could even sit down, the dragonkin representative spoke, "I believe it''s my turn to question the witness."


    Maxine simply gave him an angry glare, but otherwise did nothing. "Representative Longst is correct. Continue," the governing AI stated. She didn''t like how this representative Longst was grinning when he heard the governing AI agree with him. Reena didn''t either since her tail immediately wrapped around Maxine''s waist.


    "Child, are you certain that he is the one that killed your kin?" representative Longst asked.


    "Yes," Reena answered after pulling her face away from Maxine''s shoulder and turning her head.


    "I don''t believe you are. Trauma such as what she''s experienced can muddle anyone''s memory. Let alone a child who just watched her parents be brutally murdered. It could easily transform her savior into the one who committed the crime," representative Longst stated. Maxine saw a few representatives nodding their heads in agreement with his statement.


    "This is indeed the case with most sapient creatures in regards to PHYSICAL trauma, particularly with blows to the head," representative Trelnas stated, "With emotional trauma, your memory either becomes remarkably clear, somewhat blurred or you don''t remember the event at all. And in this case, her account coincides with the testimony of the very high elf that both saw Rigel Draken standing over the remains of her mother and ''kicked him in the face'' as Reena put it." Maxine smiled and nodded her head.


    "Very well. No more questions," representative Longst said calmly, but Maxine could tell that he was not happy with that.


    "Ranger Goras Reyren, please, stand," representative Trelnas asked and Maxine saw a red-headed high elf stand, "Tell us in your own words what transpired that horrible day."


    "I was patrolling the forests surrounding the hydrakin village to ensure no particularly aggressive predators strayed too close. However, midday, I heard sounds of combat coming from the village and rushed towards it to come to their defense. I found dozens of slain hydrakin before I came across a hydrakin child with Rigel Draken standing over her mother''s bisected corpse. He was glaring with intense hostility towards the child. Thus, I moved to save her life by kicking him in the face and I swiftly grabbed the girl before making my escape. It pains me that I was too late to save her mother, but at least, she found a suitable protector in the form of ''The Guardian Mother,''" Ranger Goras Reyren explained calmly, "If any find my testimony lacking, I will submit to a spiritual sense scan of my memories in regards to this event." Oh, shit. That essentially confirms that he''s speaking the truth from his perspective. Almost no one would even try to poke holes in his testimony.


    "No questions," representative Longst said with a sour look on his face.


    The next hour or so various high elves gave their testimonies that reinforced Reena''s and ranger Goras Reyren''s testimonies. However, it was clear that the representative Longst knew that he was going to loose this trial. The final piece of evidence cemented that fact when it was shown that trace amounts of Rigel Draken''s energy was located within the bodies of the murdered hydrakin. He''s royally fucked. Those high elves really know how to work within the law and there is no doubt that Rigel Draken is guilty. I don''t see any way that he can get out of this. Perhaps, I didn''t need to make that poison at all. Still to be on the safe side, it''s best that I don''t dispose of it just yet.


    It was finally time for a sentencing in the form of a vote amongst the planetary representatives. The governing AI gave the results, "By majority vote, the Alliance finds the defendant, Rigel Draken, guil...." Unfortunately, Rigel Draken cut it off by shouting at the top of his lungs, "I demand a trial by combat!" This sudden outburst caused everyone to give Rigel Draken a dumbfounded look, including representative Longst.


    "Since the only survivor of this incident is a child and significantly weaker than yourself, she may appoint a champion to fight in her stead," the governing AI stated calmly, "Hydrakin Reena choose your champion." At this point, Maxine was struggling not to laugh at his stupidity. I can''t believe he did that! He actually threw himself into a situation where if Reena''s champion beats him, they can literately do whatever they want to him. Perhaps, this is what the high elves were expecting Rigel Draken to do.


    "What does that mean?" Reena asked quietly.


    "It means that you can choose someone to fight for you, but they have to be in gold stage, the same as Rigel Draken, to make it an even contest," Maxine explained in snake-tongue, "So, you can pick me, grandma Victoria or mama Hellen. Then, these nice people will arrange a battlefield that will restrict their cultivation rank to the weakest of the pair." If you can''t decide, I''ll just volunteer myself to fight him. Which is within my rights as her ''guardian'' during this trial.


    "Oh, I pick my big sister, Maxine. She''s super strong," Reena said in Alliance common. Maxine simply nodded and turned to face Rigel Draken as she revealed a malevolent grin. I wonder how he will react when he finds out what my poison does. Although, I really wish I had the time to manufacture a virus that would slowly turn the prick into an ordinary cultivator human, but I didn''t have enough time to do that. It''s just too hard to alter the genetic structure and biological makeup of a gold stage cultivator. I had to go with an alternative punishment. Which if I''m being honest is actually worse.


    "Very well. In a month''s time, a battle will be held on the planetoid known as Pluto in the Sol system," the governing AI stated, "The formation array shall be set up on the spot under the observation of both parties."


    "Is there a way to expedite this process, if I were to provide a suitable formation array master?" Maxine asked.


    "How soon would sed individual arrive in the Sol system?" the governing AI asked in return.


    "I can have him in the system within seven days," Maxine answered. Although, I could get Horatio Quay on Earth within the hour if I really wanted to. There is still travel time to take into consideration for Rigel Draken.


    "Then the battle shall be seven days from now," the governing AI stated, "If there is nothing else. This assembly shall be adjourned." Oh, he''s closer to Earth than I thought. The governing AI wouldn''t make such a miscalculation.


    However, before she logged them out of the virtual assembly room, she gave Rigel Draken one last look. He was smiling confidently as he looked at her. He either doesn''t know about what I can do or he''s supremely confident in himself.


    With a thought, she logged them out and Reena swiftly hugged her. Maxine sighed and began stroking Reena''s head. That was very stressful for her. I wish it hadn''t been necessary, but her testimony was the final nail in that prick''s sentence. Still, I need to contact Horatio Quay to see if he''s willing to come here to set up that formation array.

 Chapter 212

    Maxine watched on from the starship''s porthole as Horatio Quay was setting up a very specific formation array on Pluto. He had been working on it for the past few hours and was nearing completion. It still surprised her how quickly he assembled such a complicated formation array.


    She pulled her gaze off of Pluto and glanced up to see the small speck across from her that was Rigel Draken''s ship. Both Rigel and Alistair Draken were on that ship. It''s a good thing that Rigel Draken asked his cousin to leave Earth before he did anything stupid. He was quite literately ten miles away from the Levings household with clear malicious intentions when he was told to leave Earth. Although, I would''ve stopped him before he could do anything and it would''ve given me an excellent guinea pig for my poison.


    [What do you believe your chances are?] Guan asked via spiritual sense.


    [Good enough,] Maxine answered.


    [Just be careful,] Guan said, [He''s wearing the very best armor available and has the best weapons for a gold stage cultivator. He''s even wearing several life-saving treasures as well as a few offensive treasures.]


    [He probably purchased all of that with his own wealth. Otherwise, the governing AI wouldn''t have allowed it,] Maxine pointed out, [If he doesn''t want to face me in a fair contest of skill, I''ll just avoid close combat. It''s too bad that they won''t allow me to use anymore than four of my pre-made constructs.] Which suits me just fine if I''m being honest with myself. I''ve wanted to test out a few new battle tactics and Rigel Draken is just the unfortunate soul that is my unknowing guinea pig. I doubt that I will get to test all of them though. The recordings of his combat prowess from a few decades ago leave much to be desired. He shouldn''t last very long even if his skill level jumped dramatically. The problem is that he relies too much on the strength of his body and less on his skill. The biggest issue that I''ll have to face is the reach of his preferred weapon, a spear, but I''m not going to fight up close like I usually do anyways. So, that shouldn''t be that big of a problem.


    [That it is,] Guan agreed as he suddenly appeared next to Maxine, [Now, let me see this poison of yours.]


    [Sure, here you go,] Maxine said as she retrieved a single vial of her poison and handed it to Guan, [What do you think?]


    Guan examined the vial for a few seconds before he answered, [I see you took into consideration his poison resistant physiology by using your venom as a base. In turn, that makes it extremely difficult to formulate an antidote and I see you''ve also added several of Earth''s unique flora to the mix. That will make it even harder for any alchemist to make an antidote for it. I imagine that it would take my peers a handful of years to figure out how to even partially remove this from his system. And if I''m not mistaken, the effect is to completely paralyze his body, spiritual sense and energy. He''d be lucky if he could move his eyes. Might I ask why you chose that particular effect?]


    [Dragonkin are so very proud of their powerful bodies, so imagine how horrifying it would be for that very body to be rendered useless,] Maxine explained, [The indignity of it all to need to be bathed, clothed and tended to around the clock by beings you see as inferior. He will become a living example of why anyone shouldn''t commit any slaughter of nearly extinct sapient beings ever again while I''m still around.]


    [Indeed,] Guan said in an approving tone, [I''ll leave you to prepare for the battle and if you want any advice, simply ask.]


    [Thanks, daddy, but I''ve already have a few tactics prepared in advance,] Maxine said confidently.


    [Good to hear, but you should still be careful,] Guan said calmly, [I''ll leave you to your preparations.]


    Maxine didn''t reply as she went over several tactics that she could use as Horatio Quay applied the finishing touches to the formation array covering Pluto. When it looked like he was nearly finished, she stood up and made her way to the airlock. Just as she reached it, she received a message on her communication disc to make her way to the battleground. They don''t waste time. I best get out there. OH! I nearly forgot! She swiftly put on a breathing mask before stepping into the airlock and letting herself into space.


    Maxine allowed herself to float for a moment and proceeded to head towards Pluto. She spotted Rigel Draken wearing all sorts of armor. I see daddy wasn''t kidding when he said the creep was wearing a bunch of life-saving treasures.


    [Well, look at you. You''re wearing enough defensive equipment for three people,] Maxine stated to Rigel Draken via spiritual sense, [Meanwhile, I''m practically naked in comparison. If I didn''t know any better, I would think that you''re afraid of me.]


    [I do not fear you,] Rigel Draken replied simply.


    [The five life-saving treasures that you''re wearing say otherwise,] Maxine pointed out as the both of them landed on Pluto roughly two hundred meters from each other, [Although, those are just the ones that I can see. There are probably others that I can''t.] With a thought, Maxine began expanding her shadow outwards. I wonder if he realizes that I''m just messing with him to buy enough time to set up my assault. I''m actually surprised he didn''t attack me right off the bat. Did he not notice? Or perhaps he noticed and is letting me prepare?


    [Just because you can''t afford such things doesn''t mean that you can call me a coward,] Rigel Draken said calmly. She knew he was trying to mock her, but she really didn''t care.


    [It''s not that I can''t afford it. It''s that I''m fast enough to avoid most attacks that you could throw at me,] Maxine replied calmly while lifting up her upper right arm to show off a bracelet, [But I do understand that I can''t dodge everything. That''s why I have a life-saving treasure of my own.] Not that I''ll need it if he intends to keep talking.


    [Enough!] Rigel Draken shouts, [Let''s get this over with.]


    [Very well,] Maxine said as she fell backwards into her shadow and created dozens of her ''manic kamikazi'' fairy constructs to rush him. They were only a foot tall, but appeared to have two bandoliers of dynomite strapped in an X shaped pattern across their chest with a deranged expression on their faces.


    Rigel Draken was stunned for only a moment before retreating a few steps and stabbing out with his spear when one came into range. Unfortunately, for him, that''s what she wanted him to do as the first one detonated with enough explosive force throw him off balance long enough for the remaining kamikazi faeries to hug tackle him. One of them gave him a quick peck on his armored cheek before all of them exploded. From within the shadow, she could see a small mushroom cloud rising up from where he had been standing, but she could sense that he took almost no damage from that attack. No surprise there. Although, if he were not armored, I imagine he would be in quite a bit of pain.


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    A pulse of energy cleared the smoke cloud from around Rigel Draken as he looked around wildly for Maxine. He froze when eleven of Maxine''s shadow clones seemed to form out of the shadows surrounding him and all of them were wielding two blades each. As one, they charged at him and nimbly evaded his spear as he stabbed and swiped at them. Within moments, her shadow clones got close enough to hit him, but since he was so heavily armored, none of the strikes injured him.


    While he was distracted by her clones, she created a single essence shard and dipped it into a vial of poison before getting positioning herself within the shadows covering the ground. She waited for a few moments for an opening before throwing her essence dart at a weak point of his armor in the armpit. It was one of the hardest parts of the human body to effectively armor. Unfortunately, he moved at the last second and it deflected harmlessly off of his armor. There goes my chance for an easy win. And I can''t use any more sneak attacks like that since he''ll be on guard for them. No matter. It gives me a chance to try something else.


    Rigel Draken retaliated ferociously with a barrage of spear energy aimed at each of her shadow clones. Three of them popped out of existence when they took a lethal wound while the remaining ones evaded his counter attack. With a thought, Maxine replaced her destroyed shadow clones and sent them out to continue to harass him. While she could use this method to wear him down, she had other plans. So, did Rigel Draken for that matter. He was constantly on the move and shifting his stance to avoid being locked down like he had before. Unfortunately for him, it held no bearing on her next tactic since she designed it for a more mobile adversary.


    She waited for a few moments to see if there was any pattern to his movements. Sadly, there was no pattern. It was a sign that he had seen a lot of combat against many opponents or had a lot of training to fight against groups. He doesn''t want to get surrounded by my shadow clones. Smart. And those random movements ensure that no one can predict where he''ll be to perform a sneak attack against him. It makes me wonder how he''ll handle what comes next.


    Maxine smiled as hundreds of shadow tendrils erupted out of the ground and tried to latch onto Rigel Draken while he was fending off her shadow clones. This new variable in their fight made him surprised him for a single moment and that was all she needed to wrap his arms and legs with many shadow tendrils.


    He swiftly used another barrage of spear energy projected in every direction in an attempt to free himself. Sadly, his efforts were barely more than a mild hindrance. Her shadow tendrils were thin enough that his strikes either missed or only lightly damaged them. It only took a thought to repair them. Matters became worse for him when her shadow clones tackled him to the ground so more of her shadow tendrils could latch onto him. Within a handful of seconds, he was immobilized. Still, she was reluctant to approach him. She had seen him unleash his spear energy in every direction like a nova without any kind of movement. While such an attack was relatively weak, it could still give her some nasty wounds if she was close enough.


    [Maxine Cinderson, you''ve clearly defeated my cousin. Release him,] Alistair Draken demanded.


    [No,] Maxine answered simply and created a tiny spider construct roughly the same size as a black widow. Next, she opened up the poison vial and had the spider dip it''s fangs in the substance before it skittered off towards Rigel Draken. It climbed into a tiny gape in his armor and found an exposed part of his skin near his neck and bit down. Within seconds, his struggling within her shadow tendrils weakened. After a full minute, he had stopped moving entirely and she released him as she rose out of the shadows near his feet.


    [What did you do to me?] Rigel Draken asked weakly.


    [I poisoned you,] Maxine simply stated, [A poison of the non-lethal variety to be specific, but believe me when I tell you that you would''ve preferred a slow agonizing death. In fact, I''m surprised you can even use your spiritual sense at all. That poison was supposed to completely paralyze it along with the rest of your body. And before you call me a cheater, I made sure that non-lethal poisons were allowed for this duel, but they made the mistake of not specifying that the effects had to be short term. The effect on mine is permanent.]


    [Coward,] Rigel Draken growled at Maxine.


    [Call me what you want, but I still win,] Maxine said smugly and she took on a more sinister tone, [And you''re going to live a nice ''long'' life, even if I have to pay a fortune for it to happen.] Oddly, he didn''t reply, but she could sense his anger and fear. Oh, it seems my poison has finally taken full effect. Thankfully, he did acted exactly as I expected him to and relied on brute force rather than skill to face me. Although, he did put a pretty good fight against my shadow clones and they were only able to inflict shallow strikes against him.


    [Please, show mercy!] Alistair Draken begged Maxine, [Let my cousin live.]


    [I never intended to kill him,] Maxine replied, [However, I think he would prefer death in a few months.]


    [Thank you,] Alistair Draken said as he landed next to Rigel Draken, [What''s wrong with him? Why doesn''t he answer when I talk to him?]


    [He can''t so long as he''s under the effect of my poison. You need to probe more deeply into his mind to hear his answers,] Maxine replied, [As for what the poison does specifically, you''ll have to ask him yourself. I hate explaining things twice. Also, I''ve already prepared a medical team on my homeworld for him. They''ll attend to his every need while you look for suitable caretakers for your cousin. If there is nothing else, I have other duties that I need to attend to. Farewell.] Maxine didn''t give him a chance to reply as she opened up a portal and walked through it to return to her ship. I don''t actually have anything else to do today, but I just didn''t want to stay there while he begged me for an antidote that doesn''t exist.


    She quickly made her way to where Reena was waiting. She had insisted that the young hydrakin be able to see the unfolding events. She needed to seem me punish that asshole. Now, I just hope that she listens to what I have to say before she gets angry with me.


    As soon as Maxine walked into the room that Reena was in, she received an angry glare from Reena. "Why did you let him live?" Reena asked angrily. Lucas was sitting nearby and Guan was hanging out in a corner just out of Maxine''s line of sight.


    "Because it wouldn''t balance the scales of your pain or the harm that he has caused," Maxine answered, "If you hadn''t noticed, he didn''t leave under his own power. In fact, I''ll be amazed if he''ll ever move again without assistance."


    Reena looked confused, but still angry, before she asked, "What do you mean?"


    "I poisoned him with a unique and very potent paralytic," Maxine replied, "He can feel every sensation on his body while his ability to move is gone. He can''t use his spiritual sense or energy either. His body is now his prison and he shall remain that way unless he can find an alchemist near daddy''s level willing to spend a few years, most likely decades, to formulate a cure for him." Or until someone does the merciful thing by killing him.


    "And it would be ruinously expensive to do so," Guan chimed in, "A cost that I doubt his clan is willing to pay I might add. It would be far cheaper to hire some caretakers for him until he dies of old age and that''s if they don''t kill him outright. Although, that is highly unlikely since Maxine has made it clear she wants him to live a long life."


    "Wait, how did she do that?" Reena asked in less anger and more confusion.


    "By preparing a medical team for Rigel Draken," Guan answered, "While it is a subtle approach, the message is still clear."


    "Oh," Reena said, "Is making him like that really that bad?"


    "Yes," Maxine said firmly, "Yes, it is. It would be a living nightmare for anyone. In fact, I''m hard pressed to think of a crueler punishment for someone like him." Being unable to move, soiling myself on a daily basis, and the general inability to socialize would start to drive me crazy after a few days. As for Rigel Draken, I imagine he''ll be a raving lunatic after a month of that. At which point, it would be considered a mercy to kill him and his family will be reluctant to perform such a deed.


    "Fine," Reena huffed as she crossed her arms.


    "Now, let''s go home," Maxine said as she held out her hand towards Reena, "If I recall correctly, mom is making an extra large lasagna tonight." Reena seemed to perk up slightly at that and grabbed Maxine''s hand.


    Maxine straightened while holding onto Reena''s hand and opened a portal to home. Lucas and Guan walked through first before Maxine walked through it with Reena. I wonder how long it will take for them to ask for an antidote. I can''t wait to see their reaction when I tell them there isn''t one.

 Chapter 213

    "I know how you alchemists think! You had to have made an antidote in case you poisoned yourself!" a very angry dragonkin by the name of Ernst Draken roared at Maxine through his communication disc, "Just name your price." Maxine wanted to go take Emily out for a date. In fact, Emily was sitting across from her on the couch while she waited for Maxine to take her out on sed date. As if I would poison myself. Daddy''s notes are quite extensive on how to avoid that kind of thing and while I''m immune to most poisons, I still err on the side of caution. Daddy''s notes are quite extensive on the precautions needed to avoid self-poisoning. Still, I''m pissed that Ernst Draken had the nerve to bother me right before I went on a date with Emily. I know he has people watching me, so he should know better than to contact me right now. If he had any sense, he would''ve called me an hour ago. Ugh, I need to put him out of my mind and focus on Emily tonight. To do that, I need to end this call.


    "It doesn''t matter how you threaten or bribe me. There is no antidote," Maxine replied, "And even IF there were, I wouldn''t be inclined to give it to you regardless of the price. I loathe child-murdering psychopaths."


    "Fine, then. How much will it take for you to make one?" Ernst Draken asked hostilely, "Everyone has their price."


    "I do not appreciate being called a whore," Maxine stated coldly.


    "What?!" Ernst Draken asked incredulously, "When did I call you one?"


    "Just now when you said ''everyone has their price.'' It implies that everyone is a whore and I''m part of everyone," Maxine replied with a frosty tone.


    "I...uh... erm...," Ernst Draken stammered and Maxine cut him off, "Find someone else to cure your piece of shit son." She didn''t even give him any time to reply as she shut off her communication disc. After taking a deep breath, a smile spread across her lips. Finally, he slipped up enough for me to use it against him. Although, it was a bit of a stretch to use that particular method, but the fucker''s been harassing me for three weeks. Although, at this point, it''s already too late to even give him something to even partially remove my poison. If I were him, I''d be on the verge of going completely insane and it would take at least a day or two for any antidote to take full effect. At this point, It''d be more merciful just to kill the poor bastard.


    "How many times does that make?" Emily asked.


    "I lost count after the thirtieth call," Maxine replied honestly. Although, if she really thought about it, she could probably remember the exact number. It''s just that she really didn''t want to. It would force her to remember the details of the calls as well. It was the biggest downside to having the excellent memory of a cultivator.


    "Well, at least, it''s unlikely for him to call you again after your latest ''talk,''" Emily said with a smirk.


    "Unless, true enough," Maxine said, "So, are you ready for our date?"


    "Yes, I was ten minutes ago," Emily said with a hint of grumpiness in her tone, "Where are you planning on taking me?"


    "Well, I think we need to get the both of you fed first. I was thinking of that nice high end restaurant that opened up recently. It''s serving fresh essence beast meat along with a few other tasty goodies," Maxine said as she stood up and protectively placed her hand over Emily''s swollen belly, "And after that, we''ll see where the night takes us."


    "Sounds good to me, but no flying around or portals," Emily said firmly, "We have no idea what that will do to the baby."


    "That''s why I had..," Maxine was interrupted by a knock on the front door, "And that would be our driver."


    Maxine walked to the front door and opened it to see Vellus Callaran in a three piece suit and tie. "Good evening, Maxine," Vellus Calaran said with a smile, "I''m your limousin driver tonight. I take it that the both of you are ready for me."


    "Yes, we are," Maxine said as Emily immediately flanked her. Vellus Calaran moved to open up the back seat door of the limousin and gestured for them to get in. The both of them got into the limo and got comfortable as Vellus took his place as the driver.


    "I don''t know if I''m being rude, but I''m curious as to who the father of Emily''s baby is," Vellus Callaran asked as he started driving them to the restaurant, "As you can imagine, it''s cause quite a stir amongst your fans."


    "I am," Maxine said with a smirk, "Or rather, my male clone is."


    "I ... didn''t know that you had a clone at all. Or how it''s possible for you to have a male clone as a woman," Vellus Calaran said.


    "I used my blood as a base and borrowed my father''s Y chromosome to create it," Maxine answered while leaving out the more important details.


    "That''s amazing," Vellus Callaran said.


    "You have no idea how amazing her male clone is," Emily said with a perverted smirk.


    "How long until we reach the restaurant?" Maxine asked to change the subject.


    "About fifteen minutes," Vellus Calaran replied.


    "Alright," Maxine said and was about to have a chat with Emily when her dimensional ring started vibrating, "Damn it. Who''s calling me now? Oh, it''s Orianna."


    With a thought, Maxine pulled out her communication disc and was immediately greeted by her sister, "Hey, Maxine. I got a look at those blood samples you sent me a few days ago and what I found is not good." I sent her Reena and Lucas'' blood to see if there were any kind of bloodline curses coursing through their veins. And Orianna was terrifyingly capable when it came to hexes and curses in the previous timeline. The shit that she told me that she did still makes my blood run cold just thinking about it.


    "Define not good?" Maxine asked.


    "Not good as in multiple curses. There is a curse of extreme aggression, a curse to lower intelligence and even a unique curse that makes it harder for them to become a beastkin," Orianna explained. I thought it was always odd why the dragonkin were so rare. Those fucking dragons must''ve placed a curse on the hydra species when the realize that they couldn''t win without heavy losses and made it so the lesser species would help them keep the hydras numbers down. And to top it off, the dragonkin probably didn''t like the competition any more than the dragons did and they put a curse of their own.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    "Thank you for letting me know, sis," Maxine said. Now, what will I do with this knowledge? I could share it with


    "There is more," Orianna said, "These curses were extremely difficult to find. I looked over those samples a dozen times before I found them. What''s worse is that the curses cannot be removed without knowing exactly how they were applied in the first place."


    "Damn," Maxine cursed, "But do these curses effect Hydrakin?"


    "Only one of them does. The curse that amps their aggression and even then it''s considered very mild compared to the original effect," Orianna answered.


    "There is that at least. Thanks again for looking into it so thoroughly," Maxine said, "I''ll talk to you later."


    "Talk to you later," Orianna said happily as she ended the call.


    Maxine looked up at Emily and she looked angry, very angry. "You know, I''ve never actually seen you this angry before," Maxine remarked.


    "Are you going to tell the Alliance about this?" Emily asked with cold fury.


    "I''ll tell the high elves about it," Maxine replied, "They already have a grudge against the dragonkin and they''re better equipped to use that information."


    "Good," Emily said before she started some breathing exercises in an attempt to calm herself down.


    "Just a heads up, but I think that our date will be interrupted," Maxine said in annoyance when she sensed Alistair Draken at the very edge of her spiritual sense.


    "You''d think they''d take the hint," Emily angrily remarked, "Maybe, you need to ''discipline'' him."


    "I would love to, but I''ve been advised not to do that unless he tries something stupid," Maxine replied, "And if he''s dumb enough to really annoy me, I''ll just teleport him away." Onto a massive pile of cow shit. I know where one is too for just this occasion.


    "On another topic, have you heard from the Alchemist Association?" Emily asked.


    "No, I havn''t actually," Maxine said as she furrowed her brow in confusion, "In fact, their spies went quiet nearly a month ago. I guess they''re afraid of my latest poison." Not that I can blame them. But perhaps, I should''ve mentioned that there is only one vial of it in existence and that I''m the only one that knows how to make it. Well, daddy could probably figure it out if he wanted to, but he''s more inclined to kill rather than give someone a fate far worse than death.


    "Probably, it''s nightmare inducing just thinking about what it does to people," Emily said.


    "No kidding," Maxine answered, "Which is why I didn''t make much of it and why I never wrote the recipe down. I can''t risk anyone getting a hold of it. I can''t trust the judgement of others with something so cruel."


    "You should destroy whatever is left of that poison," Emily said firmly.


    "Already did," Maxine answered honestly. Creating a flame hot enough to incinerate it completely would''ve been dangerous had I done it on Earth, instead of the moon. I might''ve accidentally ignited the atmosphere.


    "That''s a relief," Emily said calmly and she glanced outside the window, "Oh, it seems we''ve arrived. Although, I wonder what the owners were thinking when they called it the Silver Lady. A fan of yours, perhaps?" Emily flashed a teasing smile at Maxine.


    "Probably, but they''re one of the few places in the state that can cook essence beast meat without ruining taste or dispersing the energies lingering in the meat," Maxine pointed out as Vellus Calaran opened the door for them.


    Maxine got out first and helped Emily exit the limousine by extending a hand. However, as they walked inside, Maxine''s mood soured immediately. Alistair Draken was waiting inside for them. Still, she ignored them and walked straight host and said, "We have a reservation under the name Maxine Cinderson."


    "If you ladies would follow me," the host said as he lead them to a table. To Maxine''s displeasure Alistair Draken was following them and giving Maxine pleading looks. As they sat down, Alistair Draken got on his hands and knees as he silently begged Maxine with his eyes for the antidote. He''s throwing his pride away to help his cousin. I actually feel for him, but there isn''t much that I can do. Truth be told, I did try to make an antidote, but I lack the skill to actually do it. However, what I made can ease up one of the effects somewhat. Although, I doubt he will thank me for this later.


    Maxine audibly sighed and in an exasperated tone, said, "I''m far better at making poisons than making antidotes, but I do have something." She tossed a small vial towards Alistair Draken. He caught it with surprising care. "It won''t cure him, but it''ll at least allow him to communicate with people within a few feet of him. That''s be best that I can do with my limited experience. Be warned. There will be an additional effect to that serum." Technically, I''m not lying. I know that it will cause him to have random bouts of itchiness as long as the poison is still in effect. Also, this serum may or may not make it harder to cure entirely.


    "Thank you," Alistair Draken said gratefully as he bowed his head once more and swiftly left. Wow, he didn''t even ask what the side-effects are. He''ll regret that later.


    "I didn''t think you had it in you to do that after what that man did," Emily said.


    "I didn''t," Maxine said, "All I did was give his closest relatives a front row seat as they listen to Rigel Draken''s descent into madness. I would''ve preferred to spare them that, but they asked for this themselves."


    "Why have I never heard of anyone with full body paralysis going insane then?" Emily asked.


    "Many of them won''t have an intense itch that keeps appearing and disappearing at random," Maxine pointed out and tried to warn Alistair Draken about the side-effect via spiritual sense. Unfortunately, all of her attempts to warn him fail to get through the hull of his ship. He wasted no time getting to his ship. Now, what happens is his own fault for not asking what the side-effect was.


    "What?!" Emily asked in surprise.


    "Yeah, Alistair Draken was in such a rush to get out of here with that serum that he failed to ask what the side-effect was," Maxine admitted, "And I''ve tried to let him know through spiritual sense, but so far, I havn''t been able to get through to him."


    "Hopefully, he realizes that before he gives it to his cousin," Emily pointed out, "Having an unreachable itch is bad enough, but not being able to even wiggle to alleviate it would be maddening."


    "Tell me about it," Maxine agreed and tried to change the subject, "On another topic, how''s work? Is your pregnancy causing any issues yet?"


    "Work is fine and aside from loosing a bit of potency to my healing, there is nothing out of the ordinary to report," Emily answered.


    "Good," Maxine said, "Just be sure to pay attention to your cravings."


    "I know," Emily said with a smirk, "This is like the fourth time that you''ve mentioned something along those lines today. Stop worrying."


    "I can''t help it," Maxine admitted as several horrid memories flashed by in her head.


    "Is it because of what happened in your visions?" Emily asked.


    "Partially," Maxine answered.


    "And the rest?" Emily asked.


    "Nerves," Maxine said honestly, "I''m anxious about becoming a parent." Although, I do have some experience handling small children from raising Silkie, but nothing when it comes to infants.


    "We still have quite awhile before we need to worry about that," Emily pointed out, "And both of your mothers have offered to give us a hand during the first few months."


    "I''m surprised grandma Victoria hasn''t offered," Maxine commented, "As far as I know, she''s either with Orianna right now or on her way. She''s practically ecstatic to see her great grand babies."


    "Can you really blame her?" Emily asked, "She literately didn''t know either of you existed ten years ago and now she''s going to be a great grandmother two times over in less than a year. If I was her, I would be smiling ear to ear for months, if not years."


    "You forgot about her overenthusiastic affection," Maxine pointed out, "I''ve been the victim of her hug tackles. She accidentally broke my nose more than once. If there weren''t any skilled healers nearby and my impressive regenerative abilities, I would''ve had a crooked nose."


    "Yes, you''ve mentioned that before," Emily remarked, "Oh! It seems our dinner has arrived, but I don''t recall ordering anything."


    "I had it arranged while I made our reservation," Maxine said as a fish fillet with a salad and very generous sized piece of key lime pie were set infront of Emily, "I selected a meal that would both taste amazing that would be beneficial for our baby. I also included your favorite desert, key lime pie." Maxine''s meal mostly consisted of several kinds of meat dishes and a very large slice of lemon meringue pie.


    However, before she could dig into her dinner, she felt a vibration coming from her dimensional ring. She didn''t even have to look to know it was Alistair Draken. Of course, he decides to call me when my food arrives. At least, it''s soon enough that I can tell him what the side-effect for that serum is now. Might as well get this over with.

 Chapter 214

    Maxine mentally cursed as she watched a swiss man by the name of Alexander Schmidt go through his lightning tribulation. This situation more or less confirmed that people born on Earth had a much higher chance to breakthrough naturally than people born on other worlds. Thankfully, she had already made her worries known to the UN and they had collectively decided to limit immigration, severely. Although, it took some convincing on her part to get them to go along with it, but they swiftly agreed once they saw the damage that can be caused from a lightning tribulation. Thus, they spent several days discussing where cultivators could breakthrough to gold stage while causing minimal damage to both the environment and nearby cities. It had been an annoying, but it needed to be done. It did not help that she had been feeling restless the whole time for some odd reason.


    However, as she finished her mental complaints, the swiss man''s lightning tribulation ended. The poor bastard was covered in burns and, thankfully, still had all of his fingers and toes. Maxine practically teleported beside him with how fast she moved and force fed him a healing pill.


    [Calm down. It''s just me,] Maxine told him via spiritual sense as he feebly resisted her efforts to help him, [Remember? I told you that I would have to treat your injuries after your breakthrough. Just sit still and try not to talk. After all of your flirting, I thought that you would be overjoyed to be in my care.] That got him to stop actively resisting her and allowed her to bandage his wounds without further incident.


    [How long before I recover?] Alexander Schmidt asked.


    Maxine scanned his injuries and found trace amounts of lightning tribulation remaining in them. [A month at the earliest if you take the medications when you''re supposed to,] Maxine answered honestly, [However, you should be able to take care of yourself in a few hours as long as you don''t mind the pain. Just avoid any rigorous activities until you recover completely. Also, remember to eat heartily for every meal of the day. While nutritional pills will suffice, nothing beats a homemade meal when it comes to nourishing the body. As I said before your tribulation, you will need to take one healing pill in the morning every day until they''re gone.] As she finished giving him instructions, she placed a small bottle in his hands.


    [Is there any chance that I could convince you to cook those ''homemade'' meals for me?] Alexander Schmidt asked with a charming smile, even though half of his face was heavily burned. She quite impressed at his pain tolerance. After her lightning tribulation, she could barely move without being in horrendous pain.


    [Nice try, but no,] Maxine answered in a tone laced with amusement. The man had tried flirting with her a lot on their way to this place.


    [That''s too bad. I was looking forward to that. No matter. What about the other thing?] Alexander Schmidt asked, [You know about me taking over as Earth''s representative?]


    [I said that you just have the potential to take over for me, just like every other native gold stage cultivator,] Maxine answered honestly, [Unfortunately, none of them have met my minimum requirements. I may ask you to assist me in handling a few matters pertaining to being Earth''s representative, but that''s a topic for another time. For now, you need to rest and recover.] Although, if I''m being honest, he would make a decent replacement, but I need to hammer it in his head to not flirt while attending an Alliance assembly. He could get challenged to a death match by someone''s very angry spouse.


    [Alright,] Alexander Schmidt acquiesced, [Can I at least get your number?]


    [No,] Maxine bluntly refused as she opened a portal beneath him and deposited him onto his bed at his apartment. Seriously, how can he think about that shit while in his condition? He has second degree burns on his thighs, arms and half of his face. Does he just not feel any of that?! Then again, adrenaline could account for his lack of pain, but he''ll be feeling it in the next few minutes. That''s for sure.


    Maxine created a portal and returned home. However, as soon as she walked into the living room, she spotted Reena watching TV, but she kept glancing around every few seconds as if she were keeping an eye out for a predator. Maxine narrowed her eyes in suspicion and quickly looked for Lucas. He was practicing his martial arts in the training room, but his moves seemed more aggressive than normal. Shit. This is not good. If it was just me feeling uneasy, I would pass it off as paranoia, but with both of them acting up too, that more or less confirms that something or someone is triggering our survival instincts. But who or what could do that? My enemies wouldn''t even try going after Lucas and Reena with daddy and mom here. That just leaves daddy''s enemies.


    Without missing a beat, Maxine swiftly went to Guan''s personal training room/alchemy lab and reached to knock on the door. However, it opened before she could and she saw worry in his eyes. "Care to fill me in on what the hell is going on and why my instincts are acting up?" Maxine asked.


    "I don''t know what it is, but I know it''s coming in less than three months," Guan answered and that worried Maxine more than anything else, "But be prepared to take your mother, Emily and the children into hiding soon. In fact, it might be wise to prepare your replacement as Earth''s representative during this time." He''s feeling it too. Whatever, it is. If it''s a major threat even to him, I can''t do a damn thing to fight it in that case.


    "How bad?" Maxine asked somewhat fearful of his answer.


    "I''m not sure. Whatever, it is, poses a significant threat to me," Guan answered. I''m starting to freak out here. Daddy always has the answers. He''s literately the most knowledgeable, not to mention powerful, person that I know of.


    She was about to have him clarify, but her communication disc began vibrating. She pulled it out and received a message from the Alliance. ''Warning! Deity of unknown origin''s descending process detected. Estimated time of arrival 67 standar days. Reminder: These powerful beings cannot stay in our plane of existence for very lengthy periods of time before they''re ejected.'' is what it said. Well, that qualifies as bad. Although, I''m more interested in how long someone like that can stay.


    "Uh, daddy, is there any chance that one of the clans or sects that you wiped out had a senior that became a deity?" Maxine asked nervously.


    "Possible," Guan answered, "I didn''t bother looking that kind of information up before I released my poisons. I only investigated into their current and potential combat power beforehand. Did this question have anything to do with the message that you just received?"


    "Yes, it did," Maxine answered, "Apparently, a deity is descending in roughly 67 days. By the way, how long can someone like that stay in our plane of existence?"


    "A decade at most and that''s only if they don''t abuse their powers," Guan answered, "Less than a year if they do. It''s best to avoid entities of that level of power, if at all possible. Unfortunately, if I am their target, I do not know if I can hide from such an entity. My strength would be like a torch at midnight to their senses, even if I were to mask it. But you and your mother, on the other hand, would be nearly impossible to find due to so many other''s having similar levels of strength. That is why I''m asking you to take her and your adopted siblings into hiding. Preferably to a place that is both remote and one that you''ve never ''publicly'' visited before. Do you understand?"A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    "Yes, I do," Maxine replied, "I have the perfect place in mind." That magic world with those glowing blue gems fits both of those criteria as far as I''m aware. It''s a good thing that I marked it with my spiritual sense. In fact, I could flee there right now. I have enough supplies in my dimensional ring to feed me and those to gluttons for the better part of a year.


    "What about Orianna?" Maxine asked.


    "She has Maxwell," Guan answered, "Even deities would be wary of enraging someone with a battle god physique. Once a battle god''s rage reaches a certain threshold, they effectively become indestructible while they continuously get more powerful up until their enemy is slain. After that, their bodies self-destruct from the overwhelming power that they used."


    "Why wasn''t that mentioned in your notes?!" Maxine asked incredulously.


    "Its an extremely rare occurrence," Guan answered, "It''s only happened maybe seven or eight times in recorded history, most of which happened when a overly confident fool killed the wrong person''s wife or child." That''s both the most broken and heartbreaking ability that I''ve ever heard of. Perhaps, that''s why it''s much more dangerous for them to reach gold stage and practically a death sentence for one to try to reach immortal stage. It''s a way for the universe to balance out their ridiculous abilities.


    "I see," Maxine said, "But regardless, that deity might not even be descending for you."


    "True, but it''s better to err on the side of caution," Guan reasoned, but Maxine noticed a slight variance in his voice before he continued, "I rather just put myself at risk than any of you. If nothing else, perhaps, my reputation for being the deadliest poison master in the Alliance should work in my favor. Poisons are wonderful equalizers when it comes to a large differences in power."


    "True enough," Maxine replied, "Still, it might be a good idea to warn Orianna and Maxwell about this."


    "I already have," Guan answered calmly, "And oddly enough, she hasn''t felt any sense of restlessness. Neither has Maxwell. Perhaps, it''s my proximity to you and the children that''s the problem. Or her instincts are duller than yours due to your preference for close quarters combat."


    "Or my instincts are just warning me to keep my head down while the big strong guy is in the area so I don''t get blasted into oblivion," Maxine pointed out, "If you havn''t forgotten, Orianna is in an entirely different galaxy compared to us."


    "That''s possible explanation," Guan answered, "But I would still prefer it if you go into hiding."


    "Fine," Maxine said in exasperation, "I just have to figure out how to convince Emily to go along with this. Wait, what about Silkie and Lan?"


    "They should be fine," Guan answered, "Neither are directly related to you via blood. At most, they would assume that you raised Silkie and taught young Lanitherin as a means of occupying your mind. Beings that live as long as hydrakin do tend to think differently."


    "I guess," Maxine agreed uncertainly, "I''ll make the arrangements to go into hiding a week or two before that deity arrives. Hopefully, that new guy will be sufficient. He''s certainly smart enough for the job. I just wish he wasn''t such a flirt with every pretty girl he meets."


    "Oh?" Guan said with one of his rare smiles, "That could certainly cause some issues, but nothing too damaging. Earthlings are already known for their promiscuous nature."


    "They think we''re all sexual deviants," Maxine said in frustration. I''m just grateful that they havn''t caught wind of some of the more perverse fetishes just yet, but it''s only a matter of time before they do. Ugh, I''m already getting more than my fair share of strange looks.


    "Only when compared to the other members of the Alliance," Guan agreed and change the subject in the next breath, "Now, I need to make a few potions for Lucas and Reena for when they attempt breakthrough to silver. I know you could make them just as easily, but I want to make it for them in advance." That''s disconcerting. He never talks like this. It''s almost as if he''s expecting to die soon.


    Maxine examined Guan a little more closely and realized he was tense. "You''re not restless. You''re genuinely afraid," Maxine said out loud, "Whoever it is, is coming for you."


    "Yes, but I''m not entirely certain of this either," Guan admitted without looking guilty in the least, "Still, I intend to confront this deity shortly after they descend and only if they come towards me."


    "Does mom know?" Maxine asked.


    "Not yet," Guan answered, "I was going to tell her this evening."


    "What are your chances if he''s hostile?" Maxine asked, but felt like an idiot for even asking it a moment later. A deity was literately too powerful to exist in the lower planes of existence. If I were to do a comparison, it''s like daddy, a three-dimensional being, facing off against a forth dimensional being. The shear difference in ability would be a gap too great for daddy to breach even with the deadliest of poisons.


    "Eighty five percent chance," Guan answered and Maxine started to feel hopeful before his next words killed hope in a very brutal fashion, "Of my death."


    Maxine was stunned into silence for a moment before she got up and tried to drag Guan to Hellen. "You need to run. He can''t chase you to the shadow world," Maxine reasoned, "You said it yourself that you could only get there because I created the portal for you."


    "Maxine, stop," Guan said as he refused to move and gently patted Maxine''s hand, "You have no idea how much it gladdens my heart to see you act like this, but it''s no good. A deity is not restricted in the same way as other being. In facts, I doubt hiding in that pocket dimension would do us much good. Chances are they would be able to force their way in, much like you can. They''re already doing such a thing by descending to our plane of existence."


    Maxine stopped and growled out, "I know, but I can always hope, right?"


    "There is nothing wrong with that," Guan answered, "But I know better. I am not afraid of death. I am afraid that you and your mother will get hurt because of what I''ve done. So, please, do as I ask and hope that my preparations are for nothing."


    "Alright, daddy," Maxine said in resignation as she released Guan''s hand.


    "Good girl," Guan said as he spun her around and hugged her, "Just do me a favor in case the worst happens and have lots of children. It will make your mother happy."


    "What are you going to do?" Maxine asked as she looked up at Guan.


    "I thought that much was obvious at this point: I will prepare the best that I can," Guan answered as he released her, "You probably won''t see much of me before you leave due to that. Even if I loose, I''ll be taking my opponent down with me. He will not harm you or my grandson inside of Emily''s belly."


    "I appreciate the thought, daddy. But why did you tell me that Emily''s going to have a boy?" Maxine asked in exasperation, "Emily and myself wanted the gender of our child to be surprise."


    "I''m sorry. I wasn''t aware of that," Guan said.


    Maxine wanted to yell at him, but let it go. She didn''t want any potential last memories of him to be one of anger and conflict. "It''s water under the bridge now," Maxine said and decided to make her exit as she created an arch back to Earth, "Go spend some time with mom. I''m going to hang out with Silkie. She wanted to talk with me about something. She wasn''t real big on the details." But knowing her, she''s probably wants to ask my opinion on various wedding dress designs. She intends to be more than prepared for when she finally marries Lan. Hell, she''ll have the whole event planned out quite thoroughly at this rate. All I will have to do is pay for it and I''m quite happy with that kind of result. I''m horrible at planning things like that.


    "Alright, have fun," Guan said as Maxine walked through the portal.


    She immediately spotted Silkie weaving an arachne silk undershirt while browsing through a wedding dress catalog for various beastkin. Called it, but I''m curious as to where she got ahold of that catalog. Wait, is it written with japanese kanji? I think it is. I guess this makes it a little easier to help her pick out a wedding dress. It''s the least I can do as her adoptive mother.

 Chapter 215

    Maxine had been very busy the past two months. She had taken Alexander Schmidt to an Alliance assembly and taught him everything that she could think of. It frustrated her to no end that she had to repeat herself half a dozen times for him not to flirt with the other representatives. Once she was certain that he could handle everything without causing any problems, she passed on her responsibilities to him, but warned him if he screwed up too badly that she would reclaim her position.


    Still, that wasn''t the most time consuming thing that was on her agenda. She hadn''t realized how dependent Earth was on her potions and was forced to teach a handful of earthlings the basics of alchemy. However, she kept the bulk of Guan''s alchemical knowledge to herself. It was, afterall, a family inheritance.


    Emily was surprisingly easy to convince to leave. Her grandfather, Howard McKenzie, on the other hand refused to leave. Emily tried desperately to convince him to leave with them, but he remained firm in his decision. He had told Maxine a few days ago that he was nearing the end of his life and wanted to die on Earth. Nothing either of them could say or do would change his mind. It was frustrating, but it was his choice.


    Lastly, Silkie somehow found out about their intent to go into hiding and insisted that Lan and herself go with them. Maxine had forgotten how potent arachne familial bonds were. They refused to abandon their family, no matter how dangerous the situation. It was a massive pain in her ass, but in the end, she let it go. Two more people wouldn''t make much of a difference when she thought about it. She already had to take her clones, Reena, Lucas, Emily and Hellen. So, she saw no harm in it. At least, she didn''t have to worry about Kerrigan. No one, including deities, would risk the wrath of the other hive matriarchs by harming her.


    Right now, however, Maxine was picking up Silkie and Lanitherin. Both had just left to grab their bags from their respective rooms. "Me and Lan have everything packed up and ready to go," Silky said as she walked into the room, "How is the world that you picked out?"


    "It has a breathable atmosphere and the continent that I can send us to is mostly composed of humans. Also, there is a war going on near our entry point. Unfortunately, I heard at least a dozen different spoken languages from the locals so I didn''t bother learning their language until I figured out which group we''d end up with," Maxine answered. She had scouted it out a week before and it was not good. The locals were humans and had recently developed an propeller driven aircraft. Unfortunately, they were also in the midst of a large scale war. While it made it easier for them to appear as refugees, it also put them under greater scrutiny as possible spies. Still, it was better than a group of strange people showing up out of nowhere.


    "Um, what are we going to do about Lucas and Reena?" Silkie asked, "They''re hydrakin and the locals are almost entirely humans." It''s just that the continent that I can transport us to is primarily composed of humans. There are at least a dozen continents on that planet and humans only control three of them. The rest are controlled by various other species, including the beastkin. A few of which I don''t recognize. And if I can''t recognize them, it''s probably a planet that the Alliance has either very little or no contact with, whatsoever.


    "Don''t worry about that," Maxine assured Silkie, "I found a technique that allows them to shift their form into that of a human. The only drawback is that their hair color will stay the same. It just makes explaining Lucas'' green hair a pain in the ass, but I''ll cross that bridge when we get there." I could just say some rogue wizard tested a potion on him that turned his hair permanently green.


    [Maxine, get everyone out of there. NOW!] Guan roared into Maxine''s head. She barely had time to process Guan''s command when she felt her restlessness transform into a desperate need to flee. It felt like she was a small child being stared at by a ferocious predator.


    Silkie showed an expression of concern as Maxine grabbed her wrist and shadow-stepped beside Lanitherin before leaping through a portal straight to the others. When she saw the others, their expressions were fearful. She wasted no time and created an arch on a wall as she shouted, "Go, go, go!"


    Maxine waited for the others to get through and glanced at Gaun as he headed for the airlock. With a thought, she created a spider construct and had it enter his shadow. She created a dozen more to act as relays to avoid being tracked through them before she followed after Silkie and the others. "Come back to us alive, daddy," Maxine said just before she walked through the arch.


    She passed through multiple arches that took her from one world to the next until she was finally in her intended spot. However, the glowing blue gems that were in this small cavern were gone. So, the locals see them as a valuable resource. I don''t see any reason why they would take a bunch of glowing gems otherwise. This is good to know. I still have one in my dimensional ring. Perhaps, I can pawn it off for some of the local currency, but that''s only if we have to stay here.


    "Is everyone okay?" Maxine asked.


    "Yes," Emily answered, "Although, our baby did not like the sudden movement. The little guy is kicking for all they''re worth." Maxine glanced at Emily''s very swollen belly and remembered Orianna had given birth recently. Maxine had forgotten to contact her with everything that''s been going on. Shit, now that I think about it, how the hell am I going to explain to the little guy that we''re not from this planet? Welp, that''s a problem for future Maxine.


    "Good. Now all we have to do is wait," Maxine said, "I placed a construct on daddy before I left to keep an eye on him. And from what little I know, they should have a confrontation in the next few days. Thankfully, I have enough food and water in my dimensional ring to last us two weeks. After that though, we''ll have to go out and forage." Now, I just hope that the deity can''t track me down after I went through the trouble of creating a dozen different arches to bounce us all over the place.


    "I want to look outside," Lanitherin stated, "Just to get the lay of the land."


    "You can if you want, but don''t wander more than a mile away from the mine''s entrance," Maxine stated and double checked to make sure this place had been abandoned via spiritual sense, "There isn''t anyone around to see you right now, but that could change at any time. There could be soldiers or refugees that come to the mine''s entrance looking for shelter."


    "Understood," Lanitherin said as he jogged out of the small cavern.


    "As for you two, let''s see your humanization technique," Maxine said to Reena and Lucas, "I want to see how the mana in the air here effects it." It was difficult to find a technique that was compatible with hydrakin physiology. It cost me nearly a tenth of my wealth to buy it. But at least, those two were able to learn it. It''s too bad that it has no effect on their hair color. At least, I can explain away Lucas'' green hair as a side-effect of a potion some crazy wizard made him drink. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    Maxine watched as their tails retracted into their bodies and Reena''s quills retract into her head. The problem was that both of them were still green and covered in scales. She examined them both with here spiritual sense and sighed. The mana in the air was actively attacking the essence that tried to change their skin. "Focus more on your skin," Maxine admonished them and nodded in satisfaction when their scales retracted before taking on a more typical color of a human. Oddly enough, Lucas had a nice copper tan while Reena had rather light complexion. Huh, I didn''t see that coming. I thought they would have similar skin tones after using the humanizing technique. Maybe, it has something to do with their individual perception of beauty. Or it could be something completely random like a tiny variation in the technique''s use.


    "Good enough," Maxine said, "How long can you two maintain it?"


    "A day," Reena answered.


    "A little more than a day," Lucas answered.


    Maxine frowned and scanned them with her spiritual sense. This technique really did use up that much energy, but only because the mana in the atmosphere in this world was very aggressive towards any other energy type. If they were to use this technique on Earth, they could maintain it indefinitely. Well, shit. That''s a problem that I didn''t see coming. I never thought the mana would be this aggressive towards essence. But that would most certainly explain why most worlds only have one energy type though.


    "Work on making it last longer," Maxine told them, but she didn''t have high hopes for it. They were still young and didn''t posses the most refined control. So, as a precautionary measure, she spread out her spiritual sense looking for a city that specifically had both beastkin and humans living in it.


    She found one after searching for nearly twenty minutes and thankfully, it wasn''t part of the current conflict. However, this city had it''s own problems. The crimes directed at beastkin were far higher than they should be, but that didn''t matter to her. The locals committing the crimes were non-cultivators and they posed little threat even to the weakest of their group. Although, after our baby is born, there will be someone that would be threatened by them. We''ll have to garner a vicious reputation to avoid that shit. Although, since Emily is human, it''s highly unlikely that she or our baby will be targeted. Still, that''s only if we need to stay here.


    She spent the next few hours giving Lucas and Reena tips on how to control their energies better while occasionally checking on Guan through her construct. So far, he hadn''t encountered the deity yet, but she still intended to wait at least a week before even asking him if it was okay to return.


    [The deity has finished their descent,] Guan said to Maxine via spiritual sense, [I can feel their gaze on me. I''m quite certain they have hostile intent. It won''t take them long to reach me. A day or two at most.]


    [How long did you know that I was watching you?] Maxine asked.


    [Ever since you planted your little construct on my left leg,] Guan answered, [It''s also quite fragile.]


    [I know and I doubt it would survive more than a nanosecond if you were to start fighting,] Maxine replied, [I just attached it to you to find out the intentions of that deity.]


    [Is that truly the reason, though?] Guan asked calmly.


    [Fine, you got me,] Maxine admitted, [I also did it so mom can talk to you one last time. On that note, here she is.] With a thought, Maxine passed her spiritual sense connection over to Hellen. She gave Maxine an appreciative smile. After that, Maxine was officially kicked out of the conversation. She wasn''t sure how her parents had done that since they were literately talking through her constructs, but guessed it had something to do with the finer applications of spiritual sense.


    "How''s your progress?" Maxine asked Reena and Lucas.


    "Not good," Lucas replied bluntly. Maxine checked him with her spiritual sense to confirm it and sighed in frustration. He had improved, but he still couldn''t maintain it longer than two days. Reena was only doing slightly better.


    "You''re getting better. Keep working on it," Maxine said encouragingly. It looks like I may have to maintain my full-hyrbid form for ten years to pose as Lucas and Reena''s mother, if daddy looses. I mean we could show up with these two in two with me in my normal state, but from what I''ve gathered by watching with my spiritual sense, it would be practically unheard of for humans to have taken in beastkin children as their own on this world. Hell, I''ve only found one that did so and while they are feeding the poor thing, they''re treating him like a servant rather than a son. Still, it''s better than not having anyone at all. At least, it wouldn''t be uncommon to see beastkin traveling with normal humans. Still, it would better if it appears as if a parent was looking after them rather than strangers.


    "Okay," Lucas and Reena said almost at the same time.


    Maxine continued to observe their progress over the next few days. While they got better, it wasn''t good enough to maintain their transformation indefinitely like Silkie could. It was starting to look more and more like Maxine was going to need to act as their mother. Before she could get too upset over this, she sensed something change from the construct hiding in Guan''s shadow.


    She swiftly sent her spiritual sense through it and saw what changed. A blonde woman was floating in the void infront of Guan. [I''m impressed that you didn''t run or hide,] the woman said, [Anyone else would have.] Maxine realized that Guan was allowing her to be privy to their conversation.


    [I am not just anyone,] Guan stated calmly, [And it wouldn''t have mattered much if I had. You would''ve caught up to me regardless.]


    [True,] the woman said, [But you still sent your family into hiding. Are you hoping that I will be satisfied with just your death?]


    [I wouldn''t know,] Guan answered, [Still, it''s always wise to be prepared for the worst.]


    [Fair enough,] the woman said, [Do you have anything else to say before I kill you?]


    [Nothing of importance,] Guan said calmly as his war scythe appeared in his hands, [I''m ready whenever you are.] That was a surprisingly civil encounter considering what Guan''s done.


    However, before Maxine could ponder any more on their encounter, the connection between her and her construct blurred for an instant before it was completely severed. She checked three times before she confirmed that her construct was utterly annihilated.


    Almost instantly, her dimensional ring started vibrating and she withdrew her communication disk. ''Alert: Poison Emperor Guan has engaged the deity in single combat approximately 2 lightyears from Sol system. It is recommended that everyone at and below false immortal stage to maintain a minimum distance of 1 lightyear. The battle is estimated to take approximately 4-6 standard hours. The exact coordinates are-,'' Maxine stopped reading at that point and put her communication disk back into her dimensional ring.


    Maxine glanced at Hellen and saw her staring intently at a glowing green pendant within her grasp. She was slightly curious about it until she sensed Guan''s energy within it. A life-link pendant? When did he give her that? Those things are rather rare. At least, she knows that he''s still alive as long as it''s still glowing, but if it goes out, it''ll be heartbreaking for her.


    Maxine got up and sat beside Hellen before wrapping on of her arms around Hellen''s shoulders. Silkie followed suite by sitting on Hellen''s left side. Reena and Lucas picked up that something was wrong and quickly moved over and sat down in Hellen''s lap before snuggling up against her. However, Hellen showed no reaction to their efforts.


    "Mama, don''t be sad," Lucas said as he looked up at her face. This snapped Hellen out of her stupor and she looked at everyone around her before she started crying. Everyone hugged her in an attempt to comfort her before they collectively watched the life-link pendant for any changes. I wish there was something more that I could do besides comforting mom, but there isn''t.


    Over the next few hours, the life-link pendant was slowly loosing it''s light until it was a mere flicker. It stayed that way for hours before it finally winked out. Maxine felt a stab of pain in her chest and looked to Hellen. She had brought the pendant closer to her face as she desperately peered into it with a look of despair. A moment later she tilted her head back and released a painfilled howl as tears streaked down her cheeks.


    Maxine felt tears of her own fall down her cheeks as she hugged Hellen. She felt Emily hug her from the right as everyone else was trying to comfort Hellen. Even in her current state, Maxine felt her dimensional ring vibrate, but she didn''t care. Her father was dead.