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.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

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?"