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 enough silk 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. It gave 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't find any defects that would inhibit their ability to cultivate. She ordered them to spread out and be at least two feet apart. After they 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 a few 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 weapons using their essence.
Maxine was about to dismiss them for the 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 a shit 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. Maxine said those things to make them understand the 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 taut for 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 outside Emily'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 past and 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 be a material that could hide someone from spiritual sense. She would just have to keep her guard up until whoever it was made a move.